Places Metaforest Wants to Go

This Oakland fairytale kingdom, fiercely devoted to childlike whimsy, was an early inspiration for Disneyland.

This charmingly homemade amusement park has been growing for 40 years.

Nondescript elevator doors open to reveal a stunning, surreal world.

The city is full of whimsical portals to another world.

This tiny cluster of abandoned buildings looks like the future of the ghost town - today!

Venue for strange sideshow displays and musical acts.

A museum dedicated to exhibiting remarkable outsider art.

Furniture tries to escape an abandoned building in San Francisco.

The miraculous hydrant that saved the Mission District in 1906.

The abandoned zoo enclosures offer a perfect place to experience the other side of the bars.

A bigger-than-life pun that has become a beacon of altruism.

A hospital closed seemingly in the middle of operations, leaving behind fodder for horror films and ghost hunters.

During prohibition, corrupt city officials ran drinking dens under the streets of Downtown Los Angeles.

This submersible road connecting a French island to the mainland is lined with safety towers for when the tide strands travelers.

Neither Spanish settlers nor anyone since has been able to tell who built these strange California rock walls.

The old Niles Canyon Aqueduct in the San Francisco Bay Area is a bemusing and secret trail through nature for wayward travelers.

A storybook European village in Berkeley.

Beyond being incredibly fun, not much can be said about the Hole with certitude.

Tens of thousands of tiny birds swarm into one school chimney every fall.

Wedged between two buildings at the Great Ormond Street Hospital is this secret music installation.

The remains of a ruined mansion memorialize the 1906 earthquake.

Olfactory delights in San Francisco's Botanical Gardens.

A hidden subterranean installation offers a view of the sky.

Art in the form of a winding, man made crack in stone.