A nondescript building that's been functioning as a speakeasy for nearly a century and a half.

Early prototype for Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim.

A library built during San Francisco's pioneer times is a student's retreat, bibliophile's sanctuary, and chess player's delight.

This museum explores the history of the book, from scrolls to mass-produced objects through tools, stories, and massive cast-iron binding machinery (some of it operational).

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

Dive bar built out of the remains of a whaling ship.

After serving in World War II and picking up Apollo astronauts, this aircraft carrier has been turned into a museum overlooking the San Francisco Bay.

One of the best absinthe distilleries in the United States.

This bakery sits on the site of the Black Panther Party's first headquarters.

A unique market that brings together various goods and cultures.

This restaurant offers the original California cuisine.

A shape-shifting buy-sell-trade bookstore, born to Beatnik Era spirit.

Where the polar bear watches over everything, and every drink is a double.

The rusting remains of the largest assembled WWII fleet on the West Coast.

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

Social saloon from a scrapped trans-Pacific 19th century steamer.

The world's first permanently occupied mountain-top observatory continues to report on the stars.

This quaint archive of the silent era preserves and pays homage to a seminal moment in film history.

Neither Spanish settlers nor anyone since has been able to tell who built these strange California rock walls.

This mountaintop beacon is only lit three times a year but shines like some kind of all-seeing eye.

The last manually operated turntable ferry in the world.

Decades' worth of lost and forgotten objects make up the collection of this tantalizingly odd little museum.

The most beautiful Taco Bell in the world even has surfboard parking.

A 1920s speakeasy that had rum runners racing up and down the shores of California.