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

The one-time watch house for incoming ships at the Golden Gate now stands abandoned and hidden in trees.

A spiritual retreat in the heart of Los Angeles offers stunning gardens and a labyrinth to lose yourself in.

An essential stop before plundering, BYO Cutlass.

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

One of the most scenic stretches of road in America winds between some of the country's oldest trees.

A shop full of natural curiosities, carnivorous plants, and costumed taxidermied mice.

Panorama exhibition hall in old silent theater with a beautiful backyard garden.

A meditative space out of a fantasy story.

Each year these high desert hills are absolutely covered with poppy flowers in a surreal show of nature.

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

This Los Angeles animation studio is keeping the wonder of stop motion puppetry alive.

After starting as a whimsical tourist attraction that eventually found its way to ruin, these renovated canals offer a lush and exotic locale on the Pacific Coast.

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

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

This strange seaside tower got its name from a wealthy eccentric who would hide coins among its stones.

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

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

A "gravitational anomaly" located in the redwood forests just outside of Santa Cruz, California.

Behind this beachfront shop lies a spectacular, colorful sea cave with an equally colorful past.

A castle that was built stone by stone by an eccentric journalist.

Scores of vintage street lamps shine along L.A.’s Miracle Mile.

A walk-in working camera obscura produces 360-degree live images of the San Francisco coast.

Towering basalt columns, a creation of fire and ice.