Places Nerdabella Wants to Go

A restored 1920s cascade stairway provides one of the best views of Oakland's Lake Merritt.

Hidden behind a YMCA stands the remains of a ceremonial site that dates back hundreds of years, whose ground is still considered sacred to many Hawaiians.

A burial ground for workers at one of Hawai'i's largest sugarcane producers that laid buried for decades.

A Hawaiian stairway to heaven—that you can't climb.

A unique collection of Western and Japanese-style graves.

Taste rums made with heirloom sugarcane on the distillery's own estate.

What remains of the summer palace of King Kamehameha III.

This saltwater swimming pool, which is the last of its kind in the United States, is slowly crumbling within sight of multiple high-end beachside hotels.

Hawaii’s largest cemetery rests inside an extinct volcano crater.

Hawai'i's oldest wooden house was shipped around Cape Horn from Boston in 1820.

Hiding in plane sight.

During the solar phenomenon "Lahaina Noon" this bendy, curvy sculpture forms a perfectly circular shadow on the ground.

An ode to one of the first concerts broadcast via satellite.

The only royal palace on U.S. soil has been a territorial capitol, a military headquarters, and a prison for a queen.

This mom-and-pop Japanese sweets shop has been serving cloud-light mochi for almost a century.

Doris Duke's lasting collection of Islamic Art, hidden in a Hawaiian paradise.

This museum of Hawaiian and Polynesian culture is the legacy of the last descendant of the Kamehameha Dynasty.

A Barbary Coast watering hole built into a Gold Rush shipwreck.

San Francisco's oldest operating hotel, with a Victorian atmosphere and a "haunted" fourth floor.

This antique shop specializes in the history of print and design.

Where a demonstration led to equal rights for one of California's most marginalized communities.

Early prototype for Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim.

A psychedelic labyrinth on the San Francisco bay.

This teeny-tiny park built by a San Francisco man in 1962 is mostly stairs.