Places Ron Buening Wants to Go

In the early 1800s, surgery was also a show.

The first American department store, and home to the largest operating musical instrument in the world.

Philadelphia boasts one of the best — and most often overlooked — traditional Japanese gardens in North America.

The world’s first penitentiary, meant to be humane, drove men insane.

America's most famous museum of medical oddities is home to the remains of Albert Einstein's brain.

A beautiful oddities shop crammed with strange and morbid curiosities.

A restored Pittsburgh house of God has been converted to a marvelous house of suds.

View Kentucky's beauty and history from the perspective of painter John James Audubon, author and illustrator.

Northern Kentucky’s very own Notre Dame showcases intricate stained glass and the bones of saints.

A ceramic-tiled room at the Seelbach Hotel said to have secret tunnels used by Al Capone and a crowd that helped inspire F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby.'

You can climb to the summit of Black Mountain, as long as you sign the waiver.

The only building in Louisville (hopefully) that contains two ancient holy skeletons.

Moonbows over Kentucky.

An enormous natural sandstone bridge in Kentucky.

A theme park featuring a replica of Noah's Ark built to the measurements specified in the Bible.

Beautiful waterfalls grace a canyon visibly torn by a violent tornado.

Former wax museum from the 1960s, home to many wax U.S. Presidents and the famous White House miniature.

An icon among Florida's pre-Disney tourist attractions, just west of Orlando.

This collection features more than 240 antiquarian maps from around the world, in addition to historical views and plates focusing on North Florida.

This hauntingly beautiful stretch of Florida coastline is covered in sun-bleached trees.

A unique collection of diving equipment spanning antiquity to the present day.

These remote Florida islands have a history of sea turtles and sunken treasures, and one of the world’s largest coastal brick fortresses.

Two men built this castle on the Florida coast as an artistic “landscape sculpture.”

The ruins of a once massive plantation are now a private residence hidden in the Florida wilderness.