This vast kitty-themed collection illustrates the history of human-cat interaction.

This road in the Great Smoky Mountains was supposed to assuage a displaced community, but ended up a $52 million dead end.

You can climb to the summit of Black Mountain, as long as you sign the waiver.

For two weeks every June, fireflies in the Smoky Mountains perform an astonishing light show.

Over 20,000 sets of spice shakers reveal the surprisingly telling history of our most basic spices.

An ode to "The Queen of Appalachia."

Wild lights and sound effects turn a walk through some caves into an eye-popping 1960s tourist attraction.

All that's left of the quintessential "cabin in the woods."

North Carolina's finest examples of Native American pictographs have survived for 5,000 years.

This rare basilica nestled right in downtown Asheville is an architectural marvel, inside and out.

A nourishing complex of found object art, paintings, and sculptures that celebrate key figures in Black history.

A 17th-century bezoar, dirt from an infamous site, and other curios decorate this unusual bar.

This bridge is haunted by the ghost of a distraught mother.

Gnarled canopies of pink and purple wildflowers arch over the trail to the summit.

The highest point in North Carolina and the United States east of the Mississippi River, Mount Mitchell is named after argumentative explorer Elisha Mitchell.

An eclectic store sells obscure vinyl recordings of Charles Manson and Jim Jones, along with many other oddities.

You can find America's highest suspension footbridge at Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina.

A former Oz-themed attraction that has fallen into disrepair, but still holds some of the original magic.

Railroad came. People came. Railroad left. Town died.

A fiery crater has been burning in the Karakum Desert since 1971.

Explore the largest pure gypsum deposit in the world, and go dune sledding while you're at it.

An exquisite tunnel of cascading flowers.

Bonsai garden in Oakland is curated by the first non-Japanese female bonsai master in the United States.

A 30-year-old Sycamore tree grown from a seed taken to the moon and back.