Places empace Wants to Go

Nondescript elevator doors open to reveal a stunning, surreal world.

Tucked in a nondescript downtown Brooklyn mall is a bar containing a remarkable turn of the century anatomical wax collection last seen in 1920s Berlin.

Just your average Marie Antoinette–themed speakeasy in an abandoned 19th-century subway tunnel.

A semi-scholarly approach to sex.

New York's oldest magic store.

This lower Manhattan bar is set up in an old bank vault that rests beneath a skyscraper that hides even more historic splendor.

A treasure trove of artifacts, books, and artwork from the "golden age" of exploration.

A tiny museum housed in a New York freight elevator specializes in the "overlooked, dismissed, or ignored."

Giant, natural amphitheaters made of delicate geological formations called "hoodoos."

A house carved into a rock in the 1940s.

Sandstone rock formations that look like they belong on the cover of a progressive rock album.

One of the world's oldest and most massive living organisms is a grove of quaking aspens.

The hike through a narrow river flanked by the 2,000-foot-tall walls of Zion Canyon is one of the best in the world.

Here, at the “world’s longest art gallery,” you’ll find forty miles of ancient petroglyphs and pictographs.

A kitschy stop on the way to Zion National Park.

An unprepossessing storage reservoir in southern Utah has a checkered past.

These tall, red sandstone pinnacles outside Moab are often forgotten amid their more famous neighbors.

Colorful sand dunes create a unique attraction in this part of Utah's red-rock country.

In 1952, this restaurant began selling the Colonel's “secret” recipe.

The extensive collection of an amateur naturalist.

At this gas station in the middle of the desert, a convenience store has been carved directly into the rock.

The damming of the Colorado River buried an iconic geologic formation before record-breaking drought brought it back.

Erosion and various mineral deposits give this striking canyon its distinct color and soft appearance.

Built for a motel, this cartoon dino is now a symbol of the area's paleontological heritage.