Places jesadair Wants to Go

This stretch of beach along California's central coast is a busy highway for the largest seal in the northern hemisphere.

A treasure hunter's tiny bar, harboring celebrities since 1959.

The Route 66 institution that inspired Taco Bell also served as an important headquarters for Mexican-American social movements.

Hike amid the palm trees that thrive among Southern California's Indio Hills.

This little valley along Highway 1 is engulfed by thousands of lilies during the spring season.

An old-timey medicine shop that once served Chinese laborers during the Gold Rush is still open for business to this day.

This Japanese treats shop may have been the first business to mass-produce fortune cookies in the United States.

A Roman-inspired temple once controlled half of San Francisco's waters.

Two mammoth statues inspired by equally tall tales lure tourists to this roadside attraction.

One of the best absinthe distilleries in the United States.

Massive prehistoric mammals used these stones as oversized scratching posts.

A wild west scene starring life-sized wooden statues hides in the trees behind Pierce College.

It should come as no surprise that the world's largest artichoke lies in the town that calls itself the "Artichoke Center of the World."

A life-sized mammoth sculpture marks the spot where the remains of a Columbian mammoth were discovered in 2005.

Junkbots and mud babies are the masterpieces in this fantastically sci-fi art museum.

Whiskey lovers, this is your happy place.

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

Pizza joint known for labor-inducing salad dressing.

A masterpiece in Golden Gate Park by virtue of the artist’s debt.

The taxidermied remains of the "last wild grizzly bear in California" and of the symbol of the state of California.

A restored 1920s cascade stairway provides one of the best views of Oakland's Lake Merritt.

This store is dedicated to unique found footage and the strangeness of pre-internet pop-culture.

The hundreds of movies and television shows shot in this high desert town are commemorated in a unique museum.

The first AIDS memorial chapel in San Francisco and one of only a few in the U.S.