Settled by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1859, this abandoned frontier town has appeared in several films.

The key to turning shifting dunes into the green oasis of Golden Gate Park.

A man-made island in scenic San Francisco Bay.

San Francisco's urban bison herd has persisted in the face of extinction, development, and disease.

The last remaining relic of San Francisco's glittering 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.

A nondescript building that's been functioning as a speakeasy for nearly a century and a half.

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

San Francisco's newly reopened hands-on science museum.

The seawater playground of gilded-era San Francisco burned to the ground in 1966.

Tiki luxury on Nob Hill.

Carnivorous plants, medieval aphrodisiacs, and the largest original wood structure glass conservatory in the western hemisphere.

In all of the 29 years it was in operation, no prisoners ever escaped successfully... or so they claim.

This 5-by-6-foot wooden hut is the smallest historic post office in the U.S.

A marvel of Byzantine engineering under the streets of Istanbul.

While not Turkey's deepest underground city, this subterranean redoubt is the largest.

A 1920s speakeasy that had rum runners racing up and down the shores of California.

A large instrument played by the wind.

This controversial depiction of the "Founder of California" looks as though it was sculpted from mashed potatoes.