The one-time watch house for incoming ships at the Golden Gate now stands abandoned and hidden in trees.

The last remaining relic of San Francisco's glittering 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.

Sister store to the Echo Park Time Travel Store.

A faux European lane smack dab in downtown L.A.

An inconspicuous footbridge beloved by San Diego locals.

The randomness of this wall of lava lamps helps encrypt up to 10 percent of the internet.

This serene oasis in an affluent Los Angeles neighborhood holds some of Gandhi's ashes and got Elvis into Eastern Philosophy.

An essential stop before plundering, BYO Cutlass.

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

Panorama exhibition hall in old silent theater with a beautiful backyard garden.

A common entry point to the Griffith Observatory trail holds its own wonders.

The ghostly remains of an accidental sea.

One of the most scenic stretches of road in America winds between some of the country's oldest trees.

Quite simply the largest tree in the world (by volume).

An underground mansion with fruit-bearing trees and grapes growing beneath the surface of central California.

A hotel and restaurant serving as the mecca of kitsch.

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

This strange seaside tower got its name from a wealthy eccentric who would hide coins among its stones.

A "gravitational anomaly" located in the redwood forests just outside of Santa Cruz, California.

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

The private clubhouse for the members of the Academy of Magical Arts.

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

A hand-built folk art installation covered with messages of God's love.

A look into the Church of Scientology's deeply unfavorable view of psychiatry.