About Nerdy Day Trips

This is a crowd-sourced map of fascinating places to visit around the world - science museums, observatories, maker spaces, research facilities, and other spots that’ll scratch your curiosity itch.

What we’re doing

The idea is simple: there are brilliant places to explore everywhere, but they’re often hidden away or not well known. We’re building a comprehensive map to help curious people find their next interesting day out, whether you’re a student, teacher, lifelong learner, or just someone who enjoys discovering cool stuff.

The backstory

The original Nerdy Day Trips was created by Dr Ben Goldacre back in 2011. It was one of the early crowd-sourced platforms where people could discover and share nerdy destinations - everything from particle accelerators you could actually visit to quirky local science museums.

For five years, the community grew and hundreds of locations were contributed. Then in 2016, the site went offline and much of that collective knowledge vanished.

We couldn’t let that happen again.

Building something that lasts

This reboot preserves the original concept while using modern, sustainable technology. Everything is open-source - the location data, the website code, the lot. We’ve learned from what happened before to build something more resilient and genuinely community-owned.

The platform uses Hugo (a static site generator) which means it’s fast, reliable, and won’t suddenly disappear because we can’t afford hosting costs.

How it works

Every location on the map represents someone’s discovery - someone who thought “this place is brilliant, others should know about it.” That’s the heart of what makes this work.

We’re still growing and improving. There are features in development, design improvements being made, and most importantly, new places being added regularly.

Get involved

This only works with community contributions. Whether you’re adding locations, fixing outdated information, improving the code, or just exploring and sharing what you find, you’re helping build something useful.

Acknowledgments

Massive thanks to Dr Ben Goldacre for the original vision, the team at Applecado and Aaron Rudd who built the first version, and Jo Brodie whose writing inspired the whole thing. Most importantly, thanks to all the original contributors who shared their favourite places - this exists to continue what they started.

Ready to have a look? Check out the map or add a place you think others should know about.