Places a Wild Erik Wants to Go

An unexpected and peaceful oasis on a hillside.

“It's the quality” (but probably also the drive-through donut tunnel) that has attracted diners since 1968.

A Biblically-based Natural History Museum.

North America's largest accredited model railroad museum.

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

This San Diego museum is dedicated to preserving women’s historic achievements.

A couple turned their front yard into an artistic masterpiece.

San Diego's most historic and haunted home.

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

This little blue house pokes out over the campus of UC San Diego, seven stories high.

Elevated freight railway turned wildly successful urban park.

A theme park that suffered massive flooding during Katrina was abandoned, and now proves irresistible to trespassing explorers.

It should come as no surprise that the best view of the Hollywood sign is from Batman's lair.

An enormous, inside-out glass globe built in 1935.

This abandoned subway station beneath the Waldorf-Astoria hotel is allegedly used to secretly transport presidents.

The legendary building that needed ghostly approval before being built.

A collision of human error and natural geothermal pressure created this rainbow-colored geologic wonder.

This beautiful building in the heart of Manhattan's Financial District was empty for decades.

An emerald-green grotto just a short trip from Austin.

A crumbling hospital from the 1850s on Roosevelt Island.

The world’s first penitentiary, meant to be humane, drove men insane.

America's most famous museum of medical oddities is home to the remains of Albert Einstein's brain.

In the remote high desert of New Mexico, a strange array of poles beckon fury from above.

Small Nevada town embraced its designation as the "Armpit of America" with an Old Spice-sponsored festival.