Founded by members of the Tohono O’odham Nation, this one-room joint's James Beard–winning fry bread is light as a cloud.

The lighthouse central to the 1980s horror classic "The Fog" is, in fact, located in one of the foggiest areas of the Pacific Coast.

Millions of years of oxidation make a drive down this winding Death Valley road surprisingly colorful.

Where there's quartz, there must be gold. Thus is the story of the mines of Julian, and the titillating times of the Gold Rush.

One man's ambition created this psychedelic log home.

A popular tourist cave with a dark past.

A library and museum dedicated to typography.

This stunning sea creature-shaped home blends into the landscape like a fantasy villa.

Ten 25-foot-tall, beehive-shaped kilns, abandoned in Death Valley.

A desert ghost town—occupied for only 12 years—was once home to more than 500 silver mines.

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

A common entry point to the Griffith Observatory trail holds its own wonders.

This serene oasis in an affluent Los Angeles neighborhood holds some of Gandhi's ashes and got Elvis into Eastern Philosophy.

This hidden fire lookout offers spectacular views of Sequoia National Park.

Quite simply the largest tree in the world (by volume).

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

The private clubhouse for the members of the Academy of Magical Arts.

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

Left untouched since a double murder-suicide in the 1960s, Los Feliz murder mansion remains a neighborhood mystery.

An underground mansion with fruit-bearing trees and grapes growing beneath the surface of central California.

This weird abode has inspired everything from the "House On Haunted Hil" to a robot hunter's pad.

The abandoned zoo enclosures offer a perfect place to experience the other side of the bars.

During prohibition, corrupt city officials ran drinking dens under the streets of Downtown Los Angeles.