A modern day curiosity cabinet.

This lovely picnic spot featuring thunderous jet landings is an aircraft spotter’s dream.

This rare triple-jurisdiction drawbridge passes through Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.

This rare volcano spews the strangest and (literally) coolest lava in the world.

This futuristic airport terminal was abandoned for decades before reopening as a hotel—with a vintage plane of its own parked out back.

The cave where two British judges hid in exile after sentencing the king to death.

Before Nixon, "watergate" meant canals.

The statue of John Harvard isn't actually John Harvard—or even, technically, the founder of the school.

The intricate stonework of Machu Picchu serves as a testament to Incan engineers.

A museum, art project, and institution that demands we look at the world around us in a strange new way.

This iconic L.A. bookshop is housed in an abandoned bank—both symbolic and chic.

This opulent hotel has been visited by Spider-Man, Charlie's Angels, and the Ghostbusters.

Panorama exhibition hall in old silent theater with a beautiful backyard garden.

The pioneer of psychoanalysis spent the final year of his life here, still seeing patients on that famous couch.

Funded by John D. Rockefeller, this is one of the earliest, and most beautiful, shopping arcades in America.

This lab's maddening silence is good for business but bad for sanity.

D.C.'s first central library was born out of a chance encounter with the philanthropist whose name it bears.

Largest Roman Catholic church in North America.

An Archaeological Wonder of Peru, and the largest stone ruin site in the New World.

One of the world's tallest waterfalls wasn't revealed to the world at large until 2006.

This beautifully deceptive waterfall is something far different from what it appears to be.

Legend has it that President Grant’s frequent drinking in the lobby gave rise to the term “lobbyist.”

Books you don’t need in a place you can’t find.

Members of Congress have traveled between the buildings on Capitol Hill for a century hidden from tourists, press, and storm clouds.