The mysterious, fantastical woodland inspiration for "The Lord of the Rings."

World's first "penitentiary," meant to be humane, drove men insane.

A beautiful and abandoned New York subway station from 1904, complete with chandelier.

This astonishingly geometric cave has inspired everyone from Jules Verne to Pink Floyd.

A church of bones, decorated with 40,000 human skeletons.

America's most famous museum of medical oddities is home to the remains of Albert Einstein's brain.

On Japan's Tashirojima Island, cats are king.

The vast, legendary catacombs hold secrets much stranger than stacked bones.

This strange seaside tower got its name from a wealthy eccentric who would hide coins among its stones.

The oldest operating apothecary in the US has treated everyone from Thomas Edison to Mark Twain.

A centuries old castle atop a dormant volcano houses museums devoted to both women and witches.

An extraordinary mixture of natural beauty and man-made phenomena.

This historic covered bridge contains a series of macabre paintings that communicate one thing: everyone dies.

Wondrous sandstone hoodoos where Native Americans collected clay for pottery, 9,000 years ago.

A waterfall 600 ft. inside a mountain, once the bane of gold miners, is now a spectacle of nature.

The largest dune field in the Mojave offers a chance of hearing the 'singing sands.'

This golden temple is surrounded by hundreds of stone tablets that comprise the "world's largest book."

A former insane asylum despised by Nelly Bly and Charles Dickens is now fashionable apartments.

A book collector's dream, this Toronto bookstore has the world's first "Biblio-Mat," a random book vending machine.

Beating out all other concrete competitors, this massive garden feature's pointy hat has earned it a world record.

This quirky Korean eatery is built to resemble an equally quirky vintage camera.

A 200-year-old bar in the historic French Quarter refuses to give up its place in history, nor its role in securing ours.

Standing proud atop a Turkish bluff, this Ottoman palace has retained its grandeur despite being abandoned for centuries.

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