Places Madbenlia Wants to Go

This charming cobbled backstreet is the most Instagramable street in Paris, much to the residents' annoyance.

Tour the dark and beloved poet's former cobwebbed basement, which may have inspired "The Black Cat."

An emporium for the weird, creepy, rare, and just plain gross.

The first declared National Monument in the United States.

A museum dedicated to the history and exploration of both popular music and science fiction.

This iconic Parisian bookstore doubles as the "Tumbleweed Hotel" for traveling writers.

An easily overlooked stretch of ornate window fronts and gaslight lamps that could be right from the pages of Dickens.

This lower Manhattan bar is set up in an old bank vault that rests beneath a skyscraper that hides even more historic splendor.

The feral felines of Roosevelt Island have a small army of allies and an abandoned hospital all to themselves.

This morbid, delightful curiosity shop offers everything from animal bones to human teeth.

Where America’s first doomsday cult awaited the end of the world.

Giant busts of 42 U.S. presidents sit, crumbling in a field in Virginia.

This 1,300 year old monastery built atop a single rock was once only accessible depending on the whims of the tide.

The oldest stone house in Paris was built by its most famous alchemist.

The Corinthian columns that towered over Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration stand proud.

A 100-year-old purveyor of curiosities, curios, and kitsch featuring mummies, shrunken heads, and a Fiji Mermaid.

This shop specializes in oddities and Victorian-inspired wonders.

Paranormal experiences in this hotel's room 217 led Stephen King to write "The Shining."

Notorious artist squat renovated into legal studios.

The world’s oldest and biggest bookstore stocking only mystery, crime fiction, espionage, and thrillers.

The oldest family-run luncheonette in New York, last renovated in 1948, still serves food and drinks the old-fashioned way.

A layered tribute to the work of mosaicist Isaiah Zagar.

This abandoned subway station beneath the Waldorf-Astoria hotel is allegedly used to secretly transport presidents.

This churchyard arbor is surrounded by hundreds of gravestones placed there by author Thomas Hardy.