Places Nekoswan Wants to Go

The California capital city once stood 10 feet lower than it does today.

Before it was abandoned and left to rust alongside the road, this riverboat starred in a John Wayne movie.

In the country around Buttonwillow, California, a marker commemorates a revealing moment in the story of a water colony from the fictional Kcymaerxthaere that sought independence.

Get your footwear fixed inside a 30-foot-long shoe built by an obsessive cobbler in 1947.

A menagerie of concrete animals brought together from across New York City's parks.

A former seaside jewel built for the everyman is now simply a neglected art deco fortress.

A remnant from the golden age of aviation still in use today, Pan Am's Clipper service took off from this Art Deco gem.

The best B-movies filmed on a shoestring budget were born here.

An exhibition space dedicated to American outsider art created between the 18th and 21st centuries.

A hyper-luxurious, 12,000- square foot home might be buried beneath Queens, still waiting to protect you from nuclear missiles.

This futuristic airport terminal was abandoned for decades before reopening as a hotel—with a vintage plane of its own parked out back.

A simple statue outside a California Amtrak station honors the overlooked contributions of the "silent spikes."

The world's first motel is now an administrative building for an apple farm.

A chain of bells connect the California Missions and honor the legend of the "King’s Highway."

An alley covered with 20 years of bubble gum.

A Mysterious Masonic tomb in San Luis Obispo.

A hotel and restaurant serving as the mecca of kitsch.

This Industrial Age architectural and engineering gem helps visitors and residents alike traverse Lisbon, “The City of Seven Hills.”

A Portuguese museum display features a bizarre assortment of objects.

One of the oldest universities in the world exhibits thousands of specimens from its 700-year-old collection.

Crafted from ocean litter, this sculpture highlights the ills of overconsumption.

These 400-year-old ruins are all that's left of the monastery where Ines de Castro was assassinated by the King of Portugal.

Rabanadas, the Portuguese answer to French toast, are reborn here with a glassy sugar crust and a center as light as whipped cream.

A deer-headed statue that brings together a 12th-century legend and big wave surfing.