I had the chance to visit Baikonur a few months ago. The place (which is in Kazakhstan) feels utterly remote and the surrounding landscape is amazingly big and empty to a European like me.
It was very impressive to get within a few 10m of a Proton rocket before launch. They had some fascinating museums too. The rest of the place had a very sad feeling. There are lots of abandoned launch sites and buildings dotted around, with many miles of bumpy tracks and railways connecting them. You could see the collapsed building where a Buran shuttle and Energia rocket were destroyed when the roof fell in. There's a huge complex you can visit for launching the Energia rocket, the programme of which was dropped at the fall of the Soviet Union.
We were actually there to see our X-ray telescope, eROSITA, being launched on the Spektr-RG space observatory. Unfortunately the launch was delayed by a month and we didn't get to see the launch that time, but we got to see the rocket on the launch pad before fuelling. We went to some museums instead and had a tour around. It was successfully launched a month later and we're currently looking at the first data. I was there for two nights.
I can't comment on the travel agencies, as ours was an official delegation. We went via Moscow from a special terminal on a Tuplov plane. We got to walk around Baikonur city, around the launch pad (not too close to the rocket), and inside the museums. We were taken around on a bus by the Roskosmos guides who would interpret things.
As for the museums, we got to walk around the Energia complex inside for an hour or two. They have lots of old terminals and control computers for the fuelling, blast doors and that kind of thing. They have a another main spaceflight museum they went to, which anything you could think of to do with Soviet/Russian spaceflight in it. They had lots of rocket motors, medals, space suits, displays on Gagarin, Laika, Sputnik, a Soyuz capsule, space food... They have a Buran shuttle outside you can go inside, though I'm not sure the interior was that complete. We had a few hours there. They also have Gagarin's house, where every cosmonaut is supposed to stay in before launch. We also went to the place where they decide to give permission for Soyuz launches. I saw the Buran building from afar as we were being driven around.
> They have a Buran shuttle outside you can go inside, though I'm not sure the interior was that complete
The one exposed in Baikonur museum is a full-scale model used for pre-launch procedures' tests, not the actual ship. The second Buran ship which was ready for launch rots in a fuel-and-maintenance complex alongside another full-scale model.
It was very impressive to get within a few 10m of a Proton rocket before launch. They had some fascinating museums too. The rest of the place had a very sad feeling. There are lots of abandoned launch sites and buildings dotted around, with many miles of bumpy tracks and railways connecting them. You could see the collapsed building where a Buran shuttle and Energia rocket were destroyed when the roof fell in. There's a huge complex you can visit for launching the Energia rocket, the programme of which was dropped at the fall of the Soviet Union.