A man-made island in scenic San Francisco Bay.

A library built during San Francisco's pioneer times is a student's retreat, bibliophile's sanctuary, and chess player's delight.

The miraculous hydrant that saved the Mission District in 1906.

Golden Gate Park's historic collection of plants.

The key to turning shifting dunes into the green oasis of Golden Gate Park.

An overlooked and unassuming engineering marvel.

San Francisco's oldest surviving monument and meeting place for 1906 survivors.

The last remaining relic of San Francisco's glittering 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.

Tiki luxury on Nob Hill.

An essential stop before plundering, BYO Cutlass.

The tea room that pushed the boundaries of adorable straight into... we can't find the words.

A shop full of natural curiosities, carnivorous plants, and costumed taxidermied mice.

A collection of 20th-century automata, penny arcade games, and musical contraptions.

Art in the form of a winding, man made crack in stone.

A hidden subterranean installation offers a view of the sky.

Relics of the 1894 Midwinter Exposition continue to delight visitors today.

Get lost in this haunting fairytale art walk through a man-made eucalyptus grove.

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

This concrete tangle of square pipes has stood as a proud thorn in the city's side since the '70s.

San Francisco's newly reopened hands-on science museum.

The seawater playground of gilded-era San Francisco burned to the ground in 1966.

Carnivorous plants, medieval aphrodisiacs, and the largest original wood structure glass conservatory in the western hemisphere.

A walk-in working camera obscura produces 360-degree live images of the San Francisco coast.

A winding path built in secret on the edge of the continent.