Life's work of sculptor Elisabet Ney remains preserved in her last studio.

Turning night into day in Victorian-era Austin to thwart a serial killer.

A store full of vintage and indie toys designed to bring out the kid in even the crustiest of adults.

One part antique store, one part curiosities hodge-podge.

This unique structure in suburban Austin is made up entirely of other people's castaways, and constantly changing.

One of the last remnants of the city's Chinese nightclub scene is now a dive bar selling killer mai tais.

A monument to the love people have for their pets.

This turn of the century masterpiece has a mysterious goaty interloper.

An overlooked and unassuming engineering marvel.

A historic hotel that made a cameo in Hitchcock's classic film has no intention of letting guests forget its fame.

Golden Gate Park's historic collection of plants.

This concrete tangle of square pipes has stood as a proud thorn in the city's side since the '70s.

The last remaining relic of San Francisco's glittering 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.

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

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

Olfactory delights in San Francisco's Botanical Gardens.

Carnivorous plants, medieval aphrodisiacs, and the largest original wood structure glass conservatory in the western hemisphere.

Relics of the 1894 Midwinter Exposition continue to delight visitors today.

In all of the 29 years it was in operation, no prisoners ever escaped successfully... or so they claim.

A huge musical instrument played by the ocean.

The ruins of New Zealand's largest classical-style church.

This aluminum “stairway to heaven” has impaled at least a couple of birds.

A New Zealand couple's shell-adorned home living room, now on display at the Canterbury Museum.

One of Auckland's oldest cemeteries was partially demolished during the construction of a major highway in the 1960s.