Places exvine Wants to Go

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

Finale of "William Tell Overture" can be heard as drivers pass over grooves in the road.

Tiki luxury on Nob Hill.

A collection of 20th-century automata, penny arcade games, and musical contraptions.

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

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

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

Established in the '60s, a family-owned tropical drink bar founded by Ray Buhen, bartender to the stars.

A tiny theater hidden in an alley plays a constant stream of short silent films for anyone willing to peer through the peephole.

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

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

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

Relics of the 1894 Midwinter Exposition continue to delight visitors today.

Its buzzing collection honors vibrator history.

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

Hollywood's most famous landmark, the "temporary" sign that has stood for decades longer than intended.

Get lost in this haunting fairytale art walk through a man-made eucalyptus grove.

An underground mansion with fruit-bearing trees and grapes growing beneath the surface of central California.

Towering basalt columns, a creation of fire and ice.

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

The old Niles Canyon Aqueduct in the San Francisco Bay Area is a bemusing and secret trail through nature for wayward travelers.

The only theatre in the world constructed specifically for sound movement.

Medical and zoological curiosities for sale.

A trash dump made beautiful by nature's power.