The key to turning shifting dunes into the green oasis of Golden Gate Park.

Alleyway plaque commemorating the death of a fictional character in The Maltese Falcon, not far from the author's home.

A shape-shifting buy-sell-trade bookstore, born to Beatnik Era spirit.

Hollywood's oldest hotel is the site of the first Academy Awards, the birthplace of Marilyn Monroe's career, and the home of Montgomery Clift's ghost.

A famous alternative culture epicenter and where Joplin serenaded young hippies.

The lighthouse central to the 1980s horror classic "The Fog" is, in fact, located in one of the foggiest areas of the Pacific Coast.

A man-made island in scenic San Francisco Bay.

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

A monument to the love people have for their pets.

The giant pair of sexy legs sticking out the window of this costume store have become its main draw.

Golden Gate Park's historic collection of plants.

This private residence was the template for one of the most beloved television homes of all time.

This concrete tangle of square pipes has stood as a proud thorn in the city's side since the '70s.

San Diego's most historic and haunted home.

San Francisco's urban bison herd has persisted in the face of extinction, development, and disease.

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

Visible below the waves are memorials to the city's Gold Rush dead.

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

A collection of 20th-century automata, penny arcade games, and musical contraptions.

Staircase winds down the side of Telegraph Hill through gardens, wild parrots flying overhead.

After starting as a whimsical tourist attraction that eventually found its way to ruin, these renovated canals offer a lush and exotic locale on the Pacific Coast.

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

San Francisco's newly reopened hands-on science museum.

World-famous, Pink's still manages to keep its prized cult fetish status.