A popular swimming hole that hides one of America's most deadly diving spots.

This beautiful grotto is one of those places where you can't believe you're just outside Austin.

This unassuming North Austin neighborhood was built to test the novel idea of home air conditioning.

The upstairs reading room is packed with millions of rare books, literary manuscripts, and historical treasures.

This eclectic Austin curiosity shop is home to all things strange and unusual.

One part antique store, one part curiosities hodge-podge.

This unique structure in suburban Austin is made up entirely of other people's castaways, and constantly changing.

DIY collection of eclectic holdings.

A former electrical substation is now home to an eccentric junk art masterpiece.

A view-altering observatory at the University of Texas.

The only museum of sake in the United States is nestled in an unlikely California college town.

A private home built to resemble the shape of a microscopic creature.

A 90-acre park on former landfill that hosts an annual kite festival.

This bakery sits on the site of the Black Panther Party's first headquarters.

An vast warehouse of everyday treasures in Berkeley, CA.

A massive ultra-modern church presents a science-fiction view of Catholicism's inclusive future.

A working model of the entire San Francisco Bay and much of the Sacramento River Delta, complete with regular tides that change every 14 minutes.

Concrete strongholds stand guard over the Golden Gate.

After serving in World War II and picking up Apollo astronauts, this aircraft carrier has been turned into a museum overlooking the San Francisco Bay.

One of the best absinthe distilleries in the United States.

Internationally-recognized arts center housed in a century-old former military barracks.

A 140-year-old castle with underground caves hidden in San Francisco.

A walk-in working camera obscura produces 360-degree live images of the San Francisco coast.

The seawater playground of gilded-era San Francisco burned to the ground in 1966.