Places engelhardus Wants to Go

Site of a famous 19th-century transcendentalist utopian community, now abandoned.

A historic covered bridge, only one of two remaining in North Carolina.

Thousands of Mexican Free-Tailed Bats soar around an abandoned storm drain at sunset each summer.

Hidden amid the old-world charm of Savannah is a museum dedicated to the world of oddities and criminal history.

The origin of this mechanical boy was a mystery until he revealed his maker by writing it in perfect cursive.

A piece of outsider public art accompanied by a strange urban legend.

The largest drain hole in the world.

The artist James Turrell is repurposing an extinct volcano crater as an observatory to experience the cosmos.

This 29-ton granite ball spins around at the slightest touch thanks to a scientific phenomenon.

One day a year it is legal to jump off of this astoundingly tall bridge that spans an Appalachian gorge.

The only Florida state park with publicly accessible caves.

A Memphis park where you can walk the whole Mississippi River in one go.

A wealth of local folk art, antiques, and curios, without ever leaving your car.

These faux-cliff dwellings allow visitors to climb around on a replica archaeological site.

Life-sized sculpture of a blue whale made of hand-recycled plastic trash.

Railroad came. People came. Railroad left. Town died.

One man has installed bathtubs into the Utah desert floor to harness the powers of a natural hot spring.

Given just one more year to live, Conrad Schuck built his dream house in Bartow, Florida.

This naturally heated mountainous creek has created a group of neon blue pools of potentially deadly boiling water.

You'll need cowboy boots to trek to this old-fashioned saloon nestled in a giant natural cave.

An otherworldly musical haven in The Big Easy.

Open since 1938, this diner has kept its fountain, malt machine, and all the gum that greasers left beneath its counter.

The perfectly named cave drop is the deepest in the continental United States, almost matching the height of Seattle’s Space Needle.

Fittingly, America's museum of architecture is itself a magnificently designed old building.