Places lovexdumpling Wants to Go

This Big Sur waterfall drops 80 feet directly into the Pacific Ocean, and inspired the hillside house up top.

A ghost town at the airport is now a refuge for blue butterflies.

Trails through lava-carved tube-caves display sparkling bacteria and a rich history.

The last remaining relic of San Francisco's glittering 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.

A nondescript building that's been functioning as a speakeasy for nearly a century and a half.

A common entry point to the Griffith Observatory trail holds its own wonders.

Canyon walls shrouded in ferns.

The remains of the first punk club in L.A.

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

An essential stop before plundering, BYO Cutlass.

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

This serene oasis in an affluent Los Angeles neighborhood holds some of Gandhi's ashes and got Elvis into Eastern Philosophy.

One of the most scenic stretches of road in America winds between some of the country's oldest trees.

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

A meditative space out of a fantasy story.

This Los Angeles animation studio is keeping the wonder of stop motion puppetry alive.

Each year these high desert hills are absolutely covered with poppy flowers in a surreal show of nature.

Quite simply the largest tree in the world (by volume).

After starting as a whimsical tourist attraction that eventually found its way to ruin, these renovated canals offer a lush and exotic locale on the Pacific Coast.

A hotel and restaurant serving as the mecca of kitsch.

San Francisco's newly reopened hands-on science museum.

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

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

The private clubhouse for the members of the Academy of Magical Arts.