Boston

Boston is well known for its colonial history and prestigious universities. But in the steampunk world, the region is most prominent for the Watch City Steampunk Festival, an event in nearby Waltham that draws about 10,000 people. Waltham is also home to the Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation, which focuses on the Industrial Revolution and the Waltham Watch Company.

Visitors to Boston (and locals) will find other notable attractions closer to town. The Harvard Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments houses artifacts collected by the university since 1672. The Metropolitan Waterworks Museum preserves three gigantic steam engines that once pumped water to the city. At the Museum of Science, you can see Tesla coils and the world's largest air-insulated Van de Graaff generator. And at MIT, you'll find the MIT Science Fiction Society's library of books and magazines numbering more than 60,000 volumes.

These are just some of the highlights from the listings below, which cover the counties of Essex, Middlesex, Norfolk, Plymouth and Suffolk in Massachusetts and Rockingham and Strafford counties in New Hampshire. Check out the "Steamiest Places" section for attractions likely to be of greatest interest to steampunks.