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

Bug-devouring flora are the stars of a special wing of the glass conservatory.

The last remaining relic of San Francisco's glittering 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.

Smooth basaltic rocks tell a tale of ancient glacial waterfalls.

Ten 25-foot-tall, beehive-shaped kilns, abandoned in Death Valley.

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

An abandoned Jazz Age dream home and con man's hideout in Death Valley.

A house built from trash known as the poor man's Hearst Castle.

This serene oasis in an affluent Los Angeles neighborhood holds some of Gandhi's ashes and got Elvis into Eastern Philosophy.

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

"Only the devil could play golf here."

The lowest point in North America is home to an undrinkable pool surrounded by fields of geometric salt flats.

A world-class observatory in the California desert.

The liveliest ghost town in the state.

Stripes of flowers bloom each spring in a 50 acre rainbow of color.

The location of the last stand of Charles Manson's doomsday cult.

Acres of natural wonders left behind by a socialite-turned-gardener.

Ancient human, animal, and geometric figures drawn in the earth.

Quite simply the largest tree in the world (by volume).

One of the ghostly stops along Route 66.

Named after a bandit and the star of several Hollywood prehistoric landscapes, these sandstone formations are a historical part of the Los Angeles natural landscape.

The "3rd largest" city in California is an empty mirage of suburbia in the middle of nowhere.

This impressive tunnel was dug entirely by hand over the course of 36 years.

One of the most unusual geological features, recognizable from a dozen hit movies.