The largest drain hole in the world.

Japanese national treasure originally built in 593 CE.

This naturally heated mountainous creek has created a group of neon blue pools of potentially deadly boiling water.

San Franciscans leave gifts and messages for the magical beings that live behind the tiny, mysterious door installed on a tree in Golden Gate Park.

The old Route 66 town straddling Texas and New Mexico died along with the Main Street of America.

The world's largest mountain carving could fit all of Mount Rushmore inside it many times over.

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

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

This crumbling Death Valley mining complex was known for its use of giant, 20-mule team wagons.

The oldest burial ground in the city, final resting place of city founders, Ohlone natives and murderers alike.

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

The cluster of boulders near Fort Irwin is covered in military insignia.

The remains of a ruined mansion memorialize the 1906 earthquake.

Thousands of artifacts relating to human sexuality, including the world's largest sex bike.

This ultra-modern home clings to the slope of the Hollywood Hills on a precarious stilt.

A well-preserved Ancestral Puebloan ruin tucked beneath a desert cliff.

A tribute to Ponce de Leon's supposed quest for eternal youth.

This massive redwood tree has a hole in the base big enough to drive through.

This historic national park is covered in the stunning ruins of red rock pueblos.

This concert pavilion on the shore of the Great Salt Lake has been destroyed by fire, water, and disinterest but keeps coming back.

In this century-old literary safehouse, print is alive and well.

These Pre-Columbian petroglyphs contain representations of birds, deer, hunters, and even some early Native flute players.

San Francisco's urban bison herd has persisted in the face of extinction, development, and disease.

This abandoned Navy base was transformed into an off-grid alternative living community for thousands of people.