Where the alchemists dream of transmuting base metal into gold was actually achieved.

The taxidermied remains of the "last wild grizzly bear in California" and of the symbol of the state of California.

Neither Spanish settlers nor anyone since has been able to tell who built these strange California rock walls.

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

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

Olfactory delights in San Francisco's Botanical Gardens.

It is locally loved and ridiculed for literally looking like poop.

A classic advertising icon immortalized in regal bronze.

Gold Rush ship-turned-hotel buried underneath San Francisco's financial district.

An old-timey peepshow allows visitors to gawk at some of the world's most freakishly large footwear.

Home to one of the world’s largest collections of model yachts.

An historic and oft-filmed spot for musclebound iron pumpers on the Pacific coast.

The only visible piece of San Francisco's most famous shipwreck.

A statue commemorate Tommie Smith and John Carlos's brave protest at the 1968 Olympics, a watershed moment for civil rights.

For 150 years one family has been producing the iconic hot sauce on a bayou island made of salt.

Chicago's Navy Pier on Lake Michigan was a training hub for aircraft carrier pilots during WWII.

This $3 million model train takes you through Chicago, Seattle, and the thousands of miles in between.

What's left of the ruins of the 1893 Columbian Exhibition, or World's Fair, also known as the White City.

One of the largest Marian shrines on the West Coast stands rather unexpectedly in Silicon Valley.

Rising out of miles of farmland, these buttes are sometimes called the world's smallest mountain range.

A giant can of fruit cocktail is all that remains of what was once the world's largest cannery.

Where the writer penned his famous story about a jumping frog.

Prone to disastrous fires, the city of San Francisco has the Guardian, a fireboat gifted by residents, to watch over them from the bay.

A modest reminder of treacherous waters at the Golden Gate.