A giant donut stands as a popular symbol of Los Angeles iconography.

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

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

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

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

The fossilized remains of ancient California redwoods.

"Only the devil could play golf here."

The haunting ruins of Jack London's dream house.

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

The liveliest ghost town in the state.

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

The oldest burial ground in the city, final resting place of city founders, Ohlone natives and murderers alike.

An extensive collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts and mummies.

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.

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

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

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

The site of murders and Satanic cult gatherings.

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

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

One of the most scenic stretches of road in America winds between some of the country's oldest trees.

A Swedenborgian glass church surrounded by redwoods sits perched atop a massive landslide area.

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

Aqueducts have dramatically changed this old lake, now home to tufa towers and its very own species of tiny brine shrimp.