Places michaelcsiemsen Wants to Go

Where the writer penned his famous story about a jumping frog.

A cozy bookstore is tucked within an old gold mine shaft beneath the cafe and ice cream shop.

Hidden beneath a lake for decades, this brutalist mine has now emerged from beneath the receding waters.

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

Early prototype for Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim.

An art supply shop holds the secrets of this quiet neighborhood's raucous Barbary Coast past.

A large instrument played by the wind.

The randomness of this wall of lava lamps helps encrypt up to 10 percent of the internet.

Masterful ceramic fountain and map of the Pacific Basin.

A 140-year-old castle with underground caves hidden in San Francisco.

Condemned US Navy seaplane control tower turned officers’ club sits atop Yerba Buena Island.

A creepy steel gremlin has protected the Bay Bridge since 1989.

A playground built by the kids that is a child's wonderland, and a helicopter parent's nightmare.

An vast warehouse of everyday treasures in Berkeley, CA.

A storybook European village in Berkeley.

A temple devoted to inner esoteric mysteries located in a California commercial strip.

A massive ultra-modern church presents a science-fiction view of Catholicism's inclusive future.

Travelers exchange letters with woodland creatures at this mini post office.

This (occupied) house is 10 feet wide and full of spite.

A classically inspired temple in Redwood City.

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

San Francisco Bay's ghost town.

An ominous concrete cube cuts a dystopian silhouette atop this California mountain.

An Aladdin's cave of old Silicon Valley tech.