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

Strange red rock formations that have been attributed to a higher power for hundreds of years.

The largest hot spring in the United States is, as the name suggests, a stunning show of natural color.

Just your average Marie Antoinette–themed speakeasy in an abandoned 19th-century subway tunnel.

One part antique store, one part curiosities hodge-podge.

A stunning, two-tiered waterfall made famous by poets, artists and the legend of a ghost dog.

A modernist landscape of water and sci-fi concrete.

At this Denver landmark, the meals are compulsory, the sopapillas are complimentary, and the insanity is everywhere.

Scores of vintage street lamps shine along L.A.’s Miracle Mile.

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

This geothermal hot spring hides beneath a slowly growing mineral dome.

A huge musical sculpture and other art installations on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration grounds.

The "Seinfeld" diner.

Home to items never before seen by the public.

Its buzzing collection honors vibrator history.

Olfactory delights in San Francisco's Botanical Gardens.

Seemingly grown on some other world, these New Mexico rock formations look like a disused science fiction set.

A beautiful geyser under environmental threat.

A museum befitting the city responsible for supplying the majority of the world's LSD.

Where manatees are the snowbird vacationers in these balmy Florida springs.

Carnivorous plants, medieval aphrodisiacs, and the largest original wood structure glass conservatory in the western hemisphere.

Relics of the 1894 Midwinter Exposition continue to delight visitors today.

Eighteen miniature death-scene dioramas.

This modern antique shop is a museum for 1980's Saturday morning cartoon culture.