A tiny survivor of the Donner Party disaster.

The highest dunes in California are the most likely place in the area to hear the Singing Sands.

A Roman-inspired temple once controlled half of San Francisco's waters.

California's own medieval Italian castle, authentic down to the 300-year-old iron maiden in the dungeon.

Towering basalt columns, a creation of fire and ice.

Aqueducts have dramatically changed this old lake, now home to tufa towers and its very own species of tiny brine shrimp.

Standing in a state of "arrested decay," this ghost town allows for a detailed peek into Gold Rush life in an unusually harsh climate.

One woman's Viking Castle on Lake Tahoe.

A popular tourist cave with a dark past.

An expansive and intricately restored mansion remains from over a century ago--and so do its ghosts.

One of the oldest reform schools in the United States, home to wayward boys such as Merle Haggard, now abandoned.

If there is one thing you don't want to be in Sweden during Christmas, it's a Yule Goat.

It houses the remains of a 17th-century version of the Titanic.

I Street Bridge is the heaviest swinging center bridge in the United States.

The capitol city's oldest existing cemetery.

"Only the devil could play golf here."

The lowest point in North America is home to an undrinkable pool surrounded by fields of geometric salt flats.

An abandoned Jazz Age dream home and con man's hideout in Death Valley.

This crumbling Death Valley mining complex was known for its use of giant, 20-mule team wagons.