Places ashcashvaglica Wants to Go

This Seattle store is packed with all sorts of curious creatures and creations.

Old submarine parts have been converted into faux whale fins.

Spanning an elevation of 160 feet and containing 388 steps, this is Seattle's longest staircase.

A "sinister, whimsical, tacky, and really orange" public art installation hidden under a Seattle bridge.

The tech giant built three enormous glass orbs in Seattle so employees could work inside a rainforest greenhouse.

This edible park is open to any and all foragers.

Peruse rare tomes like poetry bound in pearls or books with branches and berries growing out of their spines.

Essence of hound's tongue and tincture of bloodroot are just the tip of the herbalist iceberg at this beautiful, impressively-stocked apothecary.

A beautiful final resting place for some of the noteworthy deceased.

A house filled to the brim with oddities and curiosities.

This semi-secret garden in south Seattle emulates a traditional Japanese garden using the plants of the Pacific Northwest.

A 100-year-old purveyor of curiosities, curios, and kitsch featuring mummies, shrunken heads, and a Fiji Mermaid.

A giant Troll lurks under one of Seattle's oldest bridges.

A garden oasis filled with flowers mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare.

The first AIDS memorial chapel in San Francisco and one of only a few in the U.S.

An art supply shop holds the secrets of this quiet neighborhood's raucous Barbary Coast past.

A famous alternative culture epicenter and where Joplin serenaded young hippies.

A speck of nature and art in one of San Francisco’s most notorious neighborhoods.

This 19th-century church is now a popular roller rink.

The stones that traveled from Spain to eventually become a holy place for San Francisco's nature worshippers.

An overlooked and unassuming engineering marvel.

The oldest burial ground in the city, final resting place of city founders, Ohlone natives and murderers alike.

In this century-old literary safehouse, print is alive and well.

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