Places brpettry Wants to Go

This lava tube cave was once a Cold War fallout shelter.

Descend 100 meters underground to explore Finland’s mining history.

Ancient volcanic activity made this into an exciting rockhounding site.

The world's largest mineral hot springs is home to a herd of bison, a free public bath house, beautiful mineral formations, and a terrifying swinging bridge.

The highest peak in Utah is the hardest to reach, but only if explorers choose the hard way.

You can dig for your own 52-million-year-old fish fossils.

Idaho’s largest, deepest limestone cave is known for its quirky rock formations and bat population.

Star garnets are so rare that you can only find them in two places on Earth—here, you can dig for them.

This Idaho state park boasts the tallest single-structured sand dune in North America.

This underground cave located in the most barren reaches of Idaho is filled with ice year-round.

Home to the deepest rift anywhere on Earth.

A monument to the center of the North American continent may be off by a few miles.

This large midwestern cavern features impressive rock formations and an underground waterfall.

Chilly air billows out from the entrance of an abandoned mine on a steep hillside, providing a refuge for Ice Age fauna and flora.

Semi-recognized center of the world, with many oddities.

This vast and otherworldly landscape is one of the largest dune complexes in North America.

Burping, gurgling geothermal mud pots by the Salton Sea.

Hidden deep in the Joshua Tree Wilderness, this 1940s miner's cabin built into a gap between two mega-sized boulders.

The ghostly remains of an accidental sea.

These lush groves of fan palms rise up like oases out of southern California's Colorado Desert.

At this deceptively beautiful beach, nothing is what it seems.

A futuristic-looking beach house built for the owner of a snack food brand.

Behind this beachfront shop lies a spectacular, colorful sea cave with an equally colorful past.

An extraordinarily ornate museum in San Diego holds wondrous anthropological treasures.