Places mirikat Wants to Go

An extensive collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts and mummies.

Fans of the spicy bright-red sauce can tour where it's made.

Like a kitschy mirage in the Mojave, this eatery serves up classic 50s-style diner meals and a dinosaur sculpture garden.

This mysterious and creepy location instills a strong sense of foreboding in all visitors.

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

The first safe in this California town had to hold all the gold.

A tree grown from astronaut seeds which were exposed to cosmic rays.

A glimpse into the lives of the the Miwok and Paiute people in Yosemite National Park.

The oldest continuously operating church in California.

A cake-themed art installation tucked away in historic Chinatown.

A pair of mutilated bronze octopuses slump at the base of the monument honoring California's admission to the U.S.

Space program, pneumatics and more, bits and pieces, for movie sets or the common man.

Get up close to emus and ostriches, or buy their tasty meat.

While exploring the desert, you can stop by the home of a fictional heretic from a parallel universe.

Because there's no place like home.

This Hollywood dive houses a mural painted by the artists who animated its namesake film.

Offering commanding views of the California coastline, this restaurant was a hub for the artists and bohemians of Big Sur.

Hopeless romantics will swoon over the sweet story behind this bright and colorful home.

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

A tiny theater hidden in an alley plays a constant stream of short silent films for anyone willing to peer through the peephole.

Resting place of Hollywood's immortals is also site of summer film screenings.

This weird abode has inspired everything from the "House on Haunted Hill" to a robot hunter's pad.

A "gravitational anomaly" located in the redwood forests just outside of Santa Cruz, California.

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