The highest dunes in California are the most likely place in the area to hear the Singing Sands.

The quiet canyon has a tumultuous history involving a doomsday cult.

One of the oldest reform schools in the United States, home to wayward boys such as Merle Haggard, now abandoned.

From pre-war whiskey cocktails to prohibition-era speakeasy secrecy, this bar has seen it all.

A desert ghost town—occupied for only 12 years—was once home to more than 500 silver mines.

A volcanic tunnel illuminated by natural skylights offers a shaded respite from the desert sun.

This traditional garden in the San Fernando Valley doubled for Star Fleet Academy, and is irrigated entirely by wastewater.

Julia Morgan's Moorish-Gothic labyrinth of fountains, trees, natural light and Oakland's notable dead.

The L.A. Zoo has a secret garden of rare bootleg cycads, a palm specimen dating back 280 million years.

The unbelievably opulent home built for an infamous newspaperman.

A storybook European village in Berkeley.

The neighborhood shop is a sort of tiny cactus museum full of exotic specimens you can take home.

California's own medieval Italian castle, authentic down to the 300-year-old iron maiden in the dungeon.

The "Fun Spot of the Desert" is now a haunting ruin, and a reminder that putting a water park in a desert is a bad idea.

The site of murders and Satanic cult gatherings.

The remains of a ruined mansion memorialize the 1906 earthquake.

Standing in a state of "arrested decay," this ghost town allows for a detailed peek into Gold Rush life in an unusually harsh climate.

This naturally heated mountainous creek has created a group of neon blue pools of potentially deadly boiling water.

Once thought to be the oldest living tree in the world, Methuselah was germinated before the Egyptian pyramids were built.

This massive redwood tree has a hole in the base big enough to drive through.

This rare example of a "tidefall" is a spectacular drop from the cliffs down onto the beach.

A "Titanic" superfan changed his name to Jack and set up this strange shrine to the blockbuster, complete with Korean food and Tarot readings.

The largest permanent Monopoly board makes one of the longest games even bigger.

An unfortunate geological resemblance to Satan has labeled this Pasadena gorge as a passage to the underworld.