Places Ryn Wants to Go

This empty Detroit high school was too expensive to maintain or destroy.

Concrete igloos standing across from what remains of the Michigan Central train depot.

A Beaux-Arts triumph rises from decades of decay to become the heart of a new innovation district.

This feline raises a friendly paw at drivers barreling toward the freeway.

This sprawling bookstore spans four floors and has more than a million books in stock.

This vintage shopping center has more than 225 vendors selling everything from sports memorabilia to century-old furniture.

The forest has reclaimed nearly everything—streets included—from this failed Pennsylvania "City of Heaven" that was once deeded directly to God.

Metal monsters made from repurposed materials lurk alongside this Pennsylvania road.

This eerily well-preserved coal town was saved from destruction by a Sean Connery movie.

Buildings that dynamite couldn't bring down were abandoned because of bathroom issues.

A museum dedicated to the history of electric interurban transit near the home of the first electric trolley system in the United States.

Grand architectural relics gain a new life in this Pennsylvania warehouse.

This national landmark is also home to a massive treehouse.

A planned settlement in Pennsylvania once housed the aristocratic refugees of the French Revolution.

Labor provided by Great Depression-era programs restored these 25,000 acres in Tennessee.

This beloved American snack was conceived by a hungry coal miner.

This funicular railway rumbles along for a mile up the nearly vertical face of Chattanooga’s Lookout Mountain.

The mysterious wonder of an underground waterfall is illuminated by multicolored lights.

Mysterious library of an infamous financier and spiritual seeker.

A natural sandstone bridge hidden in the Sewanee forest.

More than five miles of underground passageways.

For two weeks every June, fireflies in the Smoky Mountains perform an astonishing light show.

Supplies are schlepped up by llamas at this century-old inn, accessible only by hiking trails in the Great Smokies.

Visit the art studio of an early 20th-century painter, hidden amid the Great Smoky Mountains.