Places marykate Wants to Go

The "first cat," "first dog," and even a presidential pygmy hippo all get their due in this museum.

Bubbling up from deep underground is the warm crystal clear water that fills the Warm Springs Pools, America's oldest spa.

Burke’s oldest cemetery also houses the victim of the county's grisliest murder.

The naval commander’s proudest moment in battle is memorialized in this unique tomb at Arlington Cemetery.

The final resting place of an unidentified revolutionary soldier sits behind a Virginia church.

Born a slave on the Arlington estate, Parks dug the first graves at Arlington National Cemetery, and was buried there, too.

Affectionately known as "Lord Bot," this historic statue has a cult social media following and rightly claims to be “the most metal inhabitant of the Wren Yard.”

An out-of-place Air Force radar dome is all that denotes this park as a former missile launch site.

The controversial urban planner who designed Washington, D.C., was buried in Maryland, and can presently be found in Virginia.

A museum in the heart of Virginia peanut country devoted to the humble goober.

The U.S. Army's giant warehouse of war art includes Hitler’s watercolors and Norman Rockwell oil paintings.

This beautiful vintage movie palace has seen little change in form or function since the 1920s.

The taxidermy remains of the most popular pony in children's literature.

One tiny triangular park commemorates the victims of a yellow fever epidemic—many of whom are buried right below the grass.

The nearly 120-year-old piece of pork wears a brass collar and was once a man's "pet ham."

The only place for a truly presidential dram.

A bunker "with enough U.S. currency to replenish the cash supply east of the Mississippi" in the event of nuclear war now protects nitrate film.

This grave marks the passing of a historic Jane Doe whose identity remains a mystery to this day.

A convincing little bit of ancient Egypt smack dab in Richmond, Virginia.

The semi-reclaimed ruins of this canal were once part of an ambitious plan to reroute the mighty potomac.

The narrowest house in America is seven feet of pure spite.

One of the last active volcanoes on the Eastern seaboard.

Lines from a walking song are etched into a rock in Natural Bridge State Park.

A home built with marble tombstones from the graves of 2,200 Union soldiers buried in a Virginia cemetery.