Places slandin Wants to Go

Hike amid the palm trees that thrive among Southern California's Indio Hills.

Traversing these canyons, visitors can take in stunning views and glimpses of the region's history.

Explore the wide world of desert plants at this unique Palm Springs botanical garden.

A castle that was built stone by stone by an eccentric journalist.

The neighborhood shop is a sort of tiny cactus museum full of exotic specimens you can take home.

The ghostly remains of an accidental sea.

A meditative space out of a fantasy story.

Experience a quartz crystal sound bath inside a storied, all-wood sound-chamber.

A regular looking rock with an unbelievable history.

The "world's biggest dinosaur" once housed a creationist museum in its abdomen.

A ring of creosote bushes that are estimated to be 11,700 years old.

A mysterious and endangered parasitic herb from the California desert.

This secluded date farm can be reached only by following a bumpy, single-lane desert road.

This sculpture garden in Death Valley makes you feel like you've slipped into some alternate reality.

Water of undetermined depth has attracted rare fish and cult leaders alike.

Marta Becket's hand-painted theater in the desert.

This old selenite mine is dotted with tiny crystals that make it shimmer like it's covered in glitter.

A museum has some wedding cake dating to the Teddy Roosevelt administration, and some bacon from FDR's.

The unusual patterns in this rock formation result from two distinct modes of weathering.

Giant pinnacles in the sun-scorched lands of Southern Utah have been nicknamed "white ghosts."

A small canyon with petroglyphs and a seasonal waterfall, only a short hike from the remnants of old Route 66.

Rippling sand dunes frozen in the Arizona rock.

Most-visited and most-photographed slot canyon in the American Southwest.

A sharp bend in a dramatic river canyon cut through red rocks.