Places embeekrais Wants to Go

This strange seaside tower got its name from a wealthy eccentric who would hide coins among its stones.

A "gravitational anomaly" located in the redwood forests just outside of Santa Cruz, California.

A common entry point to the Griffith Observatory trail holds its own wonders.

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

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

Left untouched since a double murder-suicide in the 1960s, Los Feliz murder mansion remains a neighborhood mystery.

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

After starting as a whimsical tourist attraction that eventually found its way to ruin, these renovated canals offer a lush and exotic locale on the Pacific Coast.

The rocks in this arid basin leave trails of movement behind them.

A hand-built folk art installation covered with messages of God's love.

One man's vast collection of artifacts and ephemera from matchbooks and postcards to vintage neon signs and cars.

One of the most scenic stretches of road in America winds between some of the country's oldest trees.

Towering basalt columns, a creation of fire and ice.

A look into the Church of Scientology's deeply unfavorable view of psychiatry.

A strange house built only at night, with rumored mystic inspiration.

A walk-in working camera obscura produces 360-degree live images of the San Francisco coast.

A hospital closed seemingly in the middle of operations, leaving behind fodder for horror films and ghost hunters.

Olfactory delights in San Francisco's Botanical Gardens.

A favorite haunt of dinosaur loving children and hallucinogen loving hippies alike.

A one-of-a-kind collection of a unique medium.

Behind this beachfront shop lies a spectacular, colorful sea cave with an equally colorful past.

A pair of slides and a tree-lined stair corridor have been an urban oasis for nearly 40 years.

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

A trash dump made beautiful by nature's power.