Places nicoleeellan Wants to Go

A decommissioned Naval base now rents itself out for people who want to blow stuff up.

With statues of Nelson Mandela and Harvey Milk this monument has been called the Mount Rushmore of California.

The newsstand that never closes its doors—well, almost never.

Julia Morgan's Moorish-Gothic labyrinth of fountains, trees, natural light and Oakland's notable dead.

An eccentric millionaire's personal curio collection includes at least one shrunken head.

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

Bonsai garden in Oakland is curated by the first non-Japanese female bonsai master in the United States.

A 1914 beaux arts auditorium that sat shuttered for 20 years, restored and reopened in 2026

This mysterious series of teeny guerrilla installations sheds a whimsical light on street art in Oakland.

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

A hardware store Buddha statue installed to deter vandalism wound up attracting Vietnamese immigrants who came to pray.

This controversial depiction of the "Founder of California" looks as though it was sculpted from mashed potatoes.

The only surviving prototype of Buckminster Fuller's revolutionary car.

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

I Street Bridge is the heaviest swinging center bridge in the United States.

A dentist's hated concrete colossi are now beloved icons of the community.

Curiously, this large sporting goods store features 14 wax representations of American presidents.

A burnt orange monolithic dome structure perched on a hillside near Interstate 280.

Odd stone and concrete monuments in the "Poet of the Sierras" eclectic folly garden.

Thousands of crosses and markers for soldiers who lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan blanket a California hillside.

Puzzling...this tree looks like an assemblage of dismembered monkey limbs.

A classically inspired temple in Redwood City.

Neoclassical Revival mansion and set of horror cult classic Phantasm.

A New England-style lighthouse along California's beautiful Highway 1 gets a re-do.