Vines grow up the metal bars in this public park created from an old machine factory.

A memorial marks the library lobby where Langston Hughes' ashes are buried.

A treasure trove of rare and exquisitely detailed antiques

These mansions date back to Chicago's days as a brewer's paradise.

One of the last functioning antique elevators in Chicago.

A speakeasy takes on Chicago's drinking culture.

A science teacher's dream.

An enormous park-like oasis, full of famous Chicagoans' graves.

In one Chicago park, a trio of werewolves are waiting to devour their fallen brethren.

Nonprofit art center that promotes outsider, intuitive, and self-taught art.

The world's only known button museum.

Manhattan’s Battery Park has a whimsical carousel full of spinning, glowing fish.

The land is full of geologic eye candy, such as otherworldly spires, mushroom-shaped hoodoos, and prehistoric fossils.

An enormous playhouse designed to look like 21 stacked Lego bricks, with another 25 million colorful Legos inside.

An collection of Chinese propaganda posters from 1949 to 1979.

This ratty natural history collection is a charming relic among a city rushing into modernity.

An out-of-place slice of France, smack in the middle of Shanghai.

A unique geological area spiked with wind-carved rocks that resemble teepees.

Seller of surplus nuclear research materials.

This museum started as a collection of Manhattan Projects and continues to add exhibits as they are declassified.

A sprawling collection of over 106,000 toys from around the world.

One man has carved a number of natural New Mexico caves into psychedelic sandstone temples.

This highest peak in New Mexico is named after an explorer who had a habit of lending his monicker to peaks.

A multi-storied adobe complex has been inhabited for more than a thousand years.