The celebrated eyesore created by starry-eyed sweethearts.

Giftshop catering to cryptozoologists and anyone with a sense of humor.

A monument in Washington D.C. marks the spot from which all other roads were supposed to stem.

In this century-old literary safehouse, print is alive and well.

A mysterious chasm in the heart of the ancient Roman Forum, the Lacus Curtius was once believed to be a gateway to hell.

The middle finger of modernity.

This bronze boar's snout has been rubbed to a golden sheen by visitors seeking good fortune.

This former “ante-chamber to the guillotine” has been refurbished to illustrate the brutal history of French justice.

Avoid gangster interaction while window-shopping.

A store that sells all manner of bones, insects, and animal curiosities.

This subtle Berkeley paving stone actually marks off a lawless tube of air that extends into space.

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

A collection of 20th-century automata, penny arcade games, and musical contraptions.

Staircase winds down the side of Telegraph Hill through gardens, wild parrots flying overhead.

San Francisco's newly reopened hands-on science museum.

A Barbary Coast watering hole built into a Gold Rush shipwreck.

San Francisco's oldest surviving monument and meeting place for 1906 survivors.

A library built during San Francisco's pioneer times is a student's retreat, bibliophile's sanctuary, and chess player's delight.

Not merely a museum – but a whirring powerhouse that offers a subterranean peek into the heart and soul of cable car operations.

A mysterious painting of the self-declared Emperor of the United States watches over a local hof-brau.

Furniture tries to escape an abandoned building in San Francisco.

A shop full of natural curiosities, carnivorous plants, and costumed taxidermied mice.

Come for the speed, leave in love with the desert.

Surrounded by a hundred mile radius of billboards, Little America is a roadside attraction whose primary appeal is hospitality.