Places westcoastspirit Wants to Go

One man has spent decades faithfully constructing this unique brick and cinderblock castle.

A historic dam made famous for its turbines and feature in a Hollywood classic.

This museum pays tribute to the Cherokee leader who created a written language for his people.

Some North Carolina Cherokee have been keeping their history alive for decades with a single play.

Over 20,000 sets of spice shakers reveal the surprisingly telling history of our most basic spices.

This high point in the Great Smoky Mountains is said to be home to the chief of all bears.

Mile-long cave system near Great Smoky Mountains.

The scant remains of this flooded historic village can be explored in one of the most remote areas of the Great Smokies.

This road in the Great Smoky Mountains was supposed to assuage a displaced community, but ended up a $52 million dead end.

A lovely aquatic park built by a one-armed Civil War veteran who made a fortune from lotuses.

Volcanic rocks ground down into sand make this Spanish beach as black as night.

A chain of 16 wondrous lakes formed as a result of the gradual dissolution of soluble layers of bedrock.

This peculiar lake of pitch is so thick and viscous that one can walk on its surface.

Sunset-colored dunes of volcanic ash make taking a poor photo impossible.

Once part of an ancient international harbor, it's now an all-you-can-eat shrimp buffet for flamingos and other water birds.

Rainbow-hued in the summer and crystalline in the winter, this salty lake has inspired battles, temples, and plenty of awe.

A sacred mountaintop temple offers a fine cup of tea to visitors who can survive the journey.

This holy goods emporium is where priests go for a little retail therapy to outfit their churches.

Deliberately hidden for centuries, the magnificent Saadian Tombs were eventually uncovered in 1917.

This vast masterpiece of Moroccan architecture spreads across 20 acres.

This opulent 16th-century Maharaja’s palace is a unique mix of Hindu and Muslim designs.

One of the two original gateways into the Kasbah, this gateway is a nesting site for storks.

This unique zoo is the only place in the world where you can see all 15 species of crane.

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