A remote desert lookout offers unparalleled views of the California badlands for those who brave the trek.

The decaying adobe remains of an old homestead are just off the beaten path in Joshua Tree National Park.

Erroneously called the world's tallest flagpole, this landmark is devoted to "good neighborliness."

The sea once considered an ecological wasteland is now called "crown jewel of avian biodiversity" by scientists.

At this deceptively beautiful beach, nothing is what it seems.

Huge otherworldly domed rocks on the shore of a deadly lake.

Burping, gurgling geothermal mud pots by the Salton Sea.

One of the ghostly stops along Route 66.

The set location for a 1987 cult classic draws international film buffs to the middle of the Mojave Desert.

Like a kitschy mirage in the Mojave, this eatery serves up classic 50s-style diner meals and a dinosaur sculpture garden.

The "Fun Spot of the Desert" is now a haunting ruin, and a reminder that putting a water park in a desert is a bad idea.

A collection of anti-communist sculptures stands watch in the Mojave Desert.

This dormant volcanic crater has been converted from a roiling pit of magma to a pleasant hiking spot.

This crumbling Death Valley mining complex was known for its use of giant, 20-mule team wagons.

"Only the devil could play golf here."

The lowest point in North America is home to an undrinkable pool surrounded by fields of geometric salt flats.

A brothel nestled amongst ghost towns, with an abandoned plane wreck to greet you.

Twelve plaster figures inspired by da Vinci's famed painting haunt the desert landscape above a real-life ghost town.

A land of debatable treasure.

The most magnificent bottle house in a town strangely full of them.

Odd outsider art installations surround a Gold Rush-era ghost town.

The largest dune field in the Mojave offers a chance of hearing the 'singing sands.'

A unique collection of old miners' cave homes carved in to the hillside cliffs near Death Valley.

Marta Becket's hand-painted theater in the desert.