Places alisonhballard Wants to Go

Hand-crafted tributes to a stray cat named "Room 8" now cover this LA elementary school.

Hopeless romantics will swoon over the sweet story behind this bright and colorful home.

This desert oddity hides in plain sight thanks to a cartographic error and a desert explorer with a punny sense of humor.

Whiskey lovers, this is your happy place.

Where the polar bear watches over everything, and every drink is a double.

This little museum has an exhibit devoted to the elusive forest denizens.

The California capital city once stood 10 feet lower than it does today.

A monthly street "service" of handmade puppets and live original puppets, whose devotees profess has the power to change lives.

No one’s quite sure why there's a metal megaphone bolted on two rocks in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

A working miniature city designed to teach kids about safety and presumably city planning.

Former 1954 Del Mar Train Station now serves signature cocktails and delightful culinary treats, and still operates as a Metro stop.

The only thing stranger than stumbling onto these philosophical musings is the story of the homesteader who created them.

Junkbots and mud babies are the masterpieces in this fantastically sci-fi art museum.

NASA's leading space science lab started by a co-founder with deep ties to the occult.

Where religious effigies, magic soaps, and occult candles are brought to customers at wholesale prices.

A macabre tour of Hollywood’s deadly history.

A tree grown from astronaut seeds which were exposed to cosmic rays.

This temple, built by an eccentric religious leader before his death, sits guarded and in ruins.

The largest Star Wars collection in the world is its own galaxy of collectibles.

This sculpture garden in Death Valley makes you feel like you've slipped into some alternate reality.

The cobbled together compound of a deceased artist which now serves as a filming location.

Made famous by cable TV, this oddball collection of antiques and collectibles is a cut above the rest.

Room 32 of the Alta Cienega Motel has grown into a shrine to the Lizard King.

Church and home-museum of a 1920s female revivalist preacher with a very sordid past.