Places m0118 Wants to Go

The grand, column-fronted, sculpture-adorned home of the ambitious digital library.

Location of the most powerful laser in the world, and the potential birthplace of tiny stars.

Where NASA's satellites and rovers phone home.

The world's first permanently occupied mountain-top observatory continues to report on the stars.

The tragedy of the Japanese internment camps is remembered here by a stark "Soul Consoling Tower."

One of the largest free-standing structures ever built, this dirigible hangar is now simply a giant skeleton.

Decommissioned experimental solar facilities that pioneered solar energy technology.

The memorial to the victims of the Jonestown Massacre carries the names of 918 lost, including one name people wish wasn't there.

The sun acts as a key that only fits this giant keyhole twice a year.

A pair of large white marble lions guard this stretch of the Mojave Desert, and it is utterly mysterious how they got there.

This hilltop park offers magnificent views and a Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece.

The largest dune field in the Mojave offers a chance of hearing the 'singing sands.'

The most isolated mailbox in America lets desert travelers record their passing.

Bits and pieces from the ill-fated Donner Party's winter cabins.

The unbelievably opulent home built for an infamous newspaperman.

Golden Gate Park's historic collection of plants.

This partially buried wreck is one of the most complete of its kind but is only revealed when the sea allows.

An extraordinary final resting place full of oversized art, amazing statues, and dead celebrities.

The L.A. Zoo has a secret garden of rare bootleg cycads, a palm specimen dating back 280 million years.

A glittering South Asian anomaly in a wealthy Los Angeles suburb.

A hard-to-reach oasis in a desolate corner of Death Valley National Park.

A sign at the end of the Santa Monica Pier marks the traditional end of the legendary American highway.

A vast city of the dead, where the deceased outnumber the living by more than a million.

These delicate buggers are some of the rarest fossils that have bubbled up from the Tar Pits.