What to See in Omaha, United States: Free Audio Guide

Looking for things to do in Omaha? Nebraska’s largest city brings together railroad history, art, religious landmarks, Black and Latino heritage, and naval history along the Missouri River. Its museums and historic buildings make Omaha especially rewarding to explore on foot, from Downtown and the Old Market to Florence and North Omaha.

Neywo has a free audio guide for Omaha with 98 narrated places, helping you discover the city as you walk.

What to see in Omaha

Durham Museum and Omaha’s railroad past

The Durham Museum occupies Omaha’s former Union Station, a 1931 Art Deco building designed by Gilbert S. Underwood. It served as a busy railroad station until passenger service ended in 1971, after which the Union Pacific Railroad donated the building to the city in 1973. Union Station became an Omaha Landmark on October 17, 1978.

Inside, historic spaces, objects, and restored train cars tell the story of Omaha and the surrounding region. The museum was formerly known as the Durham Western Heritage Museum.

Joslyn Art Museum

The Joslyn Art Museum is one of Omaha’s major cultural landmarks and the largest art museum in Nebraska. Opened in 1931 through the initiative of Sarah H. Joslyn as a memorial to her husband, George A. Joslyn, it presents a collection ranging from antiquity to the present day.

Its Art Deco home was designed by John and Alan McDonald and built from Georgia Pink marble. The interior contains 38 kinds of marble from around the world, while exterior panels by sculptor John David Brcin refer to the peoples of the plains, including the region’s original Native American inhabitants and the European explorers and settlers who followed.

The museum’s permanent collection includes more than 12,000 objects representing American and European art from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Western American art, Chinese and Japanese art, and contemporary art. Works associated with artists including Paolo Veronese, El Greco, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir are part of the collection.

St. Cecilia Cathedral

In Omaha’s Gold Coast Historic District, St. Cecilia Cathedral is one of the city’s most prominent landmarks. Construction began in 1905, the cornerstone was laid in 1907, and services began in 1916. The building was fully completed and consecrated in 1959.

Architect Thomas Rogers Kimball chose a Spanish Renaissance Revival design rather than the Gothic style popular at the time. The architecture reflects the region’s early Spanish and Mexican influences. A red Spanish tile roof, twin towers, and domed cupolas give the cathedral its distinctive outline, while Bedford limestone faces its substantial masonry walls.

Trinity Cathedral

Trinity Cathedral began as Nebraska’s first Episcopal parish in 1856 and became the state’s first Episcopal cathedral in 1872. The present building was designed in 1880 and consecrated on November 15, 1883.

Its late Gothic Revival design is built almost entirely from Illinois bluestone. More than 43 stained-glass lancet windows and stone tracery enrich the exterior, while the interior includes a nave, aisles, transept, choir, and clerestory. A carved oak bishop’s throne and dean’s stall are among its notable details.

Rose Blumkin Performing Arts Center

Known simply as The Rose, the Rose Blumkin Performing Arts Center opened as The Riviera in 1926. Its Moorish and Classical design includes a large copper-domed tower, smaller matching towers, diamond-patterned brick façades, oriel windows, elaborate cornices, and glazed terra cotta tile copings.

The building was designed by John Eberson as an atmospheric theater, a style intended to create the illusion of an outdoor Mediterranean courtyard with a night sky, stars, and clouds. After rehabilitation in 1986 and renovation in the early 1990s, it became the Rose Blumkin Performing Arts Center and home to the Emmy Gifford Children’s Theater.

El Museo Latino

In South Omaha, El Museo Latino brings Latino and Hispanic art and history together. Located at 4701 South 25th Street, it was established in 1993 by Magdalena García and is described as the first Latino art and history museum and cultural center in the Midwest.

Great Plains Black History Museum

The Great Plains Black History Museum preserves and presents the Black experience on the Great Plains. It currently occupies the first floor of the historic Jewell Building in North Omaha.

For more than forty years, the museum has been a nationally renowned institution. Before moving to the Jewell Building, it occupied the Webster Telephone Exchange Building at 2213 Lake Street, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The museum also presents exhibits and programs throughout Omaha, Nebraska, and beyond when requested.

St. Frances Cabrini Catholic Church

St. Frances Cabrini Catholic Church was built in 1908 in the Spanish Renaissance style by Omaha architect Thomas Rogers Kimball. It originally served as St. Philomena’s Cathedral, the cathedral of the Diocese of Omaha, until St. Cecilia’s Cathedral was substantially completed in 1916.

The church received its present name in 1958, honoring Frances Xavier Cabrini, recognized as the first citizen of the United States to be canonized.

Mormon Trail Center at Winter Quarters

In the Florence neighborhood, the Mormon Trail Center at Winter Quarters interprets the history of the Mormon Trail and the temporary settlement that occupied this area from 1846 to 1848. Across the street are the historic Mormon Pioneer Cemetery and the Winter Quarters Nebraska Temple.

The center provides context for the settlement and the wider journey along the Mormon Trail, making it an important stop for understanding this chapter of Florence and Omaha’s history.

Omaha Children’s Museum

The Omaha Children’s Museum is a nonprofit Downtown space built around hands-on learning. Its 60,000-square-foot building at 500 South 20th Street contains ten permanent exhibits, changing special exhibitions, and educational programs in art, science, and the humanities.

The Charlie Campbell Science and Technology Center includes the Super Gravitron, where balls travel through tubes and along rails using air, wind, and water. Other features include an inventors’ workshop, pulley and vacuum chairs, and the Science Showplace. The Creative Arts Center adds a theater, an Artist-in-Residence Studio, a community sculpture, and an art island, while the Imagination Playground is designed for younger children. Outside, Sandy’s Splish-Splash Garden offers an interactive fountain area.

USS Hazard and USS Marlin

Freedom Park presents Omaha’s naval connection to the Missouri River. The USS Hazard is an Admirable-class minesweeper built for the United States Navy. Designated AM-240, it served during the Second World War and represents the wartime role of minesweepers, which cleared dangerous naval mines.

Nearby, the USS Marlin is a compact T-1-class training submarine. Commissioned from 1953 to 1973, it was originally known as USS T-2 before receiving the designation USS Marlin, or SST-2. Apart from the Navy’s first twenty-five early development submarines, it was one of the smallest operational submarines ever built for the United States Navy.

Other landmarks across Omaha

Omaha’s religious and civic history extends beyond its best-known museums. The city is part of Douglas County, founded in 1854 and named for Senator Stephen A. Douglas; Omaha is both the county seat and its largest city.

North of the city, Mount Michael Benedictine Abbey and High School belongs to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Omaha. The Hindu Temple of Omaha serves the Hindu population of the metropolitan area and provides a gathering place for a community whose members come from many professional and educational backgrounds.

Explore Omaha with a self-guided audio tour

Neywo offers an Omaha self-guided walking tour experience through seven walking tours, one bus route, and one bike route. Together, they cover 98 narrated places, with stories available in 11 languages.

The walks range from the 0.99-kilometre, 36-minute Winter Quarters route to the 3.79-kilometre, 83-minute walk through Gold Coast and Midtown. Other routes explore the Old Market and riverfront, Downtown theatres and towers, Little Bohemia and South Omaha, North Omaha’s Black heritage, and Freedom Park’s naval history.

You can also follow a 14.8-kilometre, 63-minute bus route from Downtown to South Omaha, with eight narrated stops, or take the 3.6-kilometre, 18-minute Missouri Riverfront Trail by bike, with two stops. The app tells the story of each place as you reach it, at your own pace, with no group and no schedule.

Download Neywo and explore Omaha with a free audio guide that turns the city’s museums, churches, historic buildings, and riverfront into a story-led journey. You can also continue discovering Nebraska, the wider United States, or nearby Lincoln.