The enormous 250-room Vanderbilt mansion conceals hidden doors and secret passageways.

One street divides a single town that stands in two U.S. states.

The world-record holder for the longest bridge stretching continuously over water.

A small park on Bourbon Street features life-size bronze statues of New Orleans musicians.

A little piece of Paris in the sultry south of the U.S.

By day this New Orleans square is for pedestrians, but by night it is a kingdom of kittens.

The second oldest continuously operating bar in Louisiana.

This historic "City of the Dead" lies prominently in the center of New Orleans' famous Garden District.

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

Home to the largest urban bat colony in North America, estimated at 1.5 million bats.

The world's longest known cave system.

The watery grave of an impractical idea.

Home to the Amorphophallus titanum "Corpse Flower," which is among the largest flowers in the world and also smells powerfully of rotting flesh when in bloom.

One of two giant blue cockerel statues erected with an intentional double meaning.

The only arched bridge made of stone on the entire Mississippi River.

A toweringly silly piece of modern art has been delighting locals since the 1980s.

The statues honor the state transportation employees who've died while performing their work-related duties.

The birthplace of professional hockey on the shores of Portage Lake.

This missionary's legacy looms large over the Upper Peninsula of Michigan—literally.

This museum in the woods evokes the work and lives of Michigan's 19-century lumberjacks.

Home to over 300 antique cars and motorcycles, including Thomas Edison's Model A.

Perched atop a brick smokestack, this enormous lug nut symbolizes the local minor league baseball team.

One of the few working locomotive roundhouses in the United States.

The restored ferry is now a dockside museum and a unique bed and breakfast.