This iconic Parisian bookstore doubles as the "Tumbleweed Hotel" for traveling writers.

The "first cat," "first dog," and even a presidential pygmy hippo all get their due in this museum.

Enjoy dishes that founding fathers once ate at this Colonial Williamsburg pub.

Dine like an American revolutionary at Colonial Williamsburg.

This museum explores the grim reality of life in the earliest British colonies in America.

Giant busts of 42 U.S. presidents are sitting in a field in Virginia.

These millipedes glow not out of attraction, but as a not-too-subtle warning.

The oldest pictographs on this decorated rock formation in California's Carrizo Plain date back as many as 4,000 years.

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

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.

A tiny theater hidden in an alley plays a constant stream of short silent films for anyone willing to peer through the peephole.

A huge musical instrument played by the ocean.

Furniture tries to escape an abandoned building in San Francisco.

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

A playing field for a popular French past time can be found tucked away in a quiet corner of Golden Gate Park.

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

Handmade treasures from around the world.

The tea room that pushed the boundaries of adorable straight into...we can't find the words.

One of the oldest producers of hand-folded fortune cookies still uses its original secret recipe.

A unique market that brings together various goods and cultures.

A whimsical antique shop with a strong air of mystery, filled with items from ages, and what feels like worlds, past.

One of few lasting examples of the brief octagon craze that developed into folly.

Built in 1906, this unique building was the first Hindu temple in the United States.