An essential stop before plundering, BYO Cutlass.

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

A collection of 20th-century automata, penny arcade games, and musical contraptions.

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

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

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

A favorite haunt of dinosaur loving children and hallucinogen loving hippies alike.

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

Olfactory delights in San Francisco's Botanical Gardens.

Get lost in this haunting fairytale art walk through a man-made eucalyptus grove.

Carnivorous plants, medieval aphrodisiacs, and the largest original wood structure glass conservatory in the western hemisphere.

A winding path built in secret on the edge of the continent.

This shop specializes in oddities and Victorian-inspired wonders.

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

Bring your own cardboard to the slippery slopes of concrete hidden in a neighborhood park.

An artsy hidden staircase leads to breathtaking views of San Francisco.

A huge musical instrument played by the ocean.

World's largest bell sits on the grounds of the Kremlin in Moscow.

The gorgeous entrances into the city's underbelly look more like grand halls than subway stops.

This building holds the embalmed remains of the leader of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Ancient traditions and surreal birdwatching come into sharp relief along one of the world's most polluted rivers.

Many Hindus make the long pilgrimage to this holy city to have their remains burned on the banks of the Ganges River.

These Egyptian statues have survived for 3,400 years and were an acoustic wonder of the ancient world.

Paranormal experiences in this hotel's room 217 led Stephen King to write "The Shining."