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

Aqueducts have dramatically changed this old lake, now home to tufa towers and its very own species of tiny brine shrimp.

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

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

One man's vast collection of artifacts and ephemera from matchbooks and postcards to vintage neon signs and cars.

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

A meditative space out of a fantasy story.

Carved by a waterfall in a hard-to-reach rock formation, this heart-shaped rock has inspired romantics for decades.

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

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

Tiki luxury on Nob Hill.

A look into the Church of Scientology's deeply unfavorable view of psychiatry.

World-famous, Pink's still manages to keep its prized cult fetish status.

These delicate buggers are some of the rarest fossils that have bubbled up from the Tar Pits.

Left untouched since a double murder-suicide in the 1960s, Los Feliz murder mansion remains a neighborhood mystery.

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.

Established in the '60s, a family-owned tropical drink bar founded by Ray Buhen, bartender to the stars.

A hotel and restaurant serving as the mecca of kitsch.

A strange house built only at night, with rumored mystic inspiration.

A pair of slides and a tree-lined stair corridor have been an urban oasis for nearly 40 years.

A library of rare occult books in Los Angeles.

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

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