The largest drain hole in the world.

The "world's biggest dinosaur" once housed a creationist museum in its abdomen.

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

This abandoned Navy base was transformed into an off-grid alternative living community for thousands of people.

The now-abandoned tunnels were built for the transcontinental railroad on the route where the first wagon train entered California.

An essential stop before plundering, BYO Cutlass.

Historic funicular railway, believed to be the shortest railroad in the world.

Explore 10 acres of environmental sculptures.

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.

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

A shop full of natural curiosities, carnivorous plants, and costumed taxidermied mice.

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

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

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

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

Scores of vintage street lamps shine along L.A.’s Miracle Mile.

The seawater playground of gilded-era San Francisco burned to the ground in 1966.

Each year these high desert hills are absolutely covered with poppy flowers in a surreal show of nature.

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

A hotel and restaurant serving as the mecca of kitsch.

A walk-in working camera obscura produces 360-degree live images of the San Francisco coast.

Its buzzing collection honors vibrator history.

Relics of the 1894 Midwinter Exposition continue to delight visitors today.