This secluded aqua waterfall in the Grand Canyon is the perfect swimming hole, and the Havasupai tribe's fiercely protected natural wonder.

Hike amid the palm trees that thrive among Southern California's Indio Hills.

A dry lake is what remains of a community founded on a real estate scam.

This massive crater in the middle of nowhere was used to train astronauts for moon landings.

Built by one man in the '20s, this site is now a museum representing the Great Basin cultures.

A stoic rock cairn is all that remains to remember one of the more brutal instances of frontier treachery in American history.

This rock formation named for its unique shape is one of many that call the Alabama Hills home.

The precious-metals strikes dating back to the 1860s are now mostly inactive, but this area has become the United States' only domestic source of lithium.

The only thing still moving in this town is the eponymous hot spring.

An arsenic-filled pool in the Grand Canyon takes on the appearance of a giant, overflowing pumpkin.

This immigrant bridge once spanned the Thames but is now a fixture of an Arizona city.

Although it also features red, orange, and variegated cliffs of Navajo Sandstone, this state park is often overshadowed by its more famous neighbor.

This magnificent, quirky home sits atop a literal gold mine in the middle of the Nevada desert.

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

Colorful sedimentary rock layers provide opportunities both for hiking and photography.

Like a kitschy mirage in the Mojave, this eatery serves up classic 50s-style diner meals and a dinosaur sculpture garden.

This unique graffiti art from the 1940s has become a staple of this local landscape in the remote California desert.

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

One of the most unusual geological features, recognizable from a dozen hit movies.

One of the few remaining indigenous petroglyph sites in Nevada.

This old mining town, deep in the California desert, has a year-round population of one.

Odd outsider art installations surround a Gold Rush-era ghost town.

The most magnificent bottle house in a town strangely full of them.

A land of debatable treasure.