Places thelordwinter Wants to Go

This mom-and-pop Japanese sweets shop has been serving cloud-light mochi for almost a century.

The only royal palace on U.S. soil has been a territorial capitol, a military headquarters, and a prison for a queen.

Doris Duke's lasting collection of Islamic Art, hidden in a Hawaiian paradise.

This museum of Hawaiian and Polynesian culture is the legacy of the last descendant of the Kamehameha Dynasty.

Breathtakingly blue walls shimmer inside the "Glacier Behind the Town."

This Alaskan town appoints the general store's resident feline as honorary mayor.

In 1912, this idyllic Alaska landscape was blown apart in the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century.

The only house built with a turret, crenellations, and a moat in Palmer, Alaska.

Siberian husky that delivered a life-saving antitoxin.

Buy your friend a drink or staple some cash to the wall for the next guy at the Salty Dawg Saloon.

A high school astronomy enthusiast designed this model of our solar system to be traversed on foot.

A classic gold rush hotel can be expected to pick up some ghosts along the way, and the Golden North is no exception.

A giant poultry statue immortalizes one of Alaska's more humorous town names.

Don't be a grizzly man. Get personal with Alaska's wild bears from the safety of this conservationist camp.

This historic collection of Native Alaskan artifacts was resurrected through a partnership between the WPA and tribal artisans.

An Alaska livestock farm devotes itself to harvesting wool from creatures that once ran with mammoths and sabertooth tigers.

The "Gateway to the Arctic" connects Barrow's indigenous population with the sea and its traditional industry: whaling.

A rare kind of blue bear can be found chiefly in the national park that shares their name.

One woman's dream became a train hotel in her backyard.

This small city where almost everyone lives in the same building can only be reached via North America's longest tunnel.

While not recognized by Guinness, this chocolate waterfall is likely to be the world's largest.

The ghostly remains of what was once the world's richest copper mine.

This whimsical stacked cabin looks like something out of a children's book.

Protecting the dead from opportunistic body snatchers.