Places From the Backwoods Wants to Go

The world's tallest box hedge is found in a delightful garden.

A mysterious plaque to the even more mysterious "Fr. Pat Noise," killed in "suspicious circumstances."

An oddly conical beacon perched atop beautiful Irish cliffs.

Not actually a shop, but one fan's passionate show of support for a rival county's Gaelic football team.

These moss-covered medieval ruins tower atop the smallest of Ireland's Aran Islands.

A moody and picturesque riverside ruin overgrown with vegetation.

This Bronze Age tomb is the centerpiece of a clearing within a beautiful Irish forest.

An ancient chamber filled with wonderful rock art and a Neolithic carving of a human face.

A spectacular hidden beach in Ireland has the dark, disturbing nickname of "Murder Hole Beach."

Radioactivity still cause for concern at this urban explorer's paradise.

The grand, column-fronted, sculpture-adorned home of the ambitious digital library.

Barely visible foundations remain where Stow Lake’s “observatory” once welcomed visitors.

A brooding mansion of clinker brick stands out among the Victorian houses of Pacific Heights.

One of few lasting examples of the brief octagon craze that developed into folly.

Gold Rush ship-turned-hotel buried underneath San Francisco's financial district.

Russian history in San Francisco.

A man-made island in scenic San Francisco Bay.

Adolph Sutro's little-known, geographically inaccurate, deprecated monument.

Longtime headquarters of controversial boys' club for the world's wealthiest and most powerful.

The miraculous hydrant that saved the Mission District in 1906.

Nuclear waste dump site now an environmental sanctuary.

Half of a house.

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

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.