A mysterious pillar in an ancient burial chamber is said to predict how long you have to live.

This one-block alleyway is stuffed with street art that is colorful, cultural, and intensely political.

Home to one of the world’s largest collections of model yachts.

San Francisco's urban bison herd has persisted in the face of extinction, development, and disease.

The remains of a ruined mansion memorialize the 1906 earthquake.

A monumental cross hides in the trees in Golden Gate Park.

An vast warehouse of everyday treasures in Berkeley, CA.

Handmade treasures from around the world.

Since 1973, this block has been home to the most concentrated collection of murals in San Francisco.

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

Staircase winds down the side of Telegraph Hill through gardens, wild parrots flying overhead.

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

Concrete strongholds stand guard over the Golden Gate.

Frank Lloyd Wright died a year before construction on his largest public project even began.

A shape-shifting buy-sell-trade bookstore, born to Beatnik Era spirit.

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

This iconic L.A. bookshop is housed in an abandoned bank—both symbolic and chic.

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

A meditative space out of a fantasy story.

One man has installed bathtubs into the Utah desert floor to harness the powers of a natural hot spring.

Stand at the center of this lakefront sundial, and you'll become part of the timepiece.

Golden and naked, the figure that was once the highest point in New York is all that remains of the second Madison Square Garden.

Yo, Adrian!

There are eight natural springs around town, each with a slightly different taste.