Places exploringwithesch Wants to Go

Where religious effigies, magic soaps, and occult candles are brought to customers at wholesale prices.

A "haunted" landmark on the coast of Southern California.

A Swedenborgian glass church surrounded by redwoods sits perched atop a massive landslide area.

The creator of the carousel's bingo-pinball hybrid survives in California's oldest gaming establishment.

A repository of Pasadena history.

Former 1954 Del Mar Train Station now serves signature cocktails and delightful culinary treats, and still operates as a Metro stop.

A nursery specializing in strange and beautiful succulents and cacti.

Gnomes have their very own bonsai-landscaped settlement on a university campus.

One of the best collections of antique printing machinery in the world.

San Franciscans leave gifts and messages for the magical beings that live behind the tiny, mysterious door installed on a tree in Golden Gate Park.

Half of a house.

The stones that traveled from Spain to eventually become a holy place for San Francisco's nature worshippers.

This partially buried wreck is one of the most complete of its kind but is only revealed when the sea allows.

Golden Gate Park's historic collection of plants.

Gold Rush-era tombstones line the park's paths.

The randomness of this wall of lava lamps helps encrypt up to 10 percent of the internet.

A collection of memorabilia from the Beat era in the back of a San Francisco bookstore.

This turn of the century masterpiece has a mysterious goaty interloper.

A monument to the love people have for their pets.

A Barbary Coast watering hole built into a Gold Rush shipwreck.

Not merely a museum – but a whirring powerhouse that offers a subterranean peek into the heart and soul of cable car operations.

An overlooked and unassuming engineering marvel.

The restored and active Victorian-era final resting place of San Francisco.

This private residence was the template for one of the most beloved television homes of all time.