diffusing's User Profile - Atlas Obscura
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Gloucester, Massachusetts

Dogtown & Babson Boulder Trail

A New England ghost town features a trail of boulders etched with intriguing life lessons.
Freeport, Texas

Bryan Mound Strategic Petroleum Reserve

This hollowed salt dome is the largest oil storage facility in the world, hoarding 250 million barrels of crude oil.
San Francisco, California

San Francisco Botanical Garden

Golden Gate Park's historic collection of plants.
San Francisco, California

Vaillancourt Fountain

This concrete tangle of square pipes has stood as a proud thorn in the city's side since the '70s.
San Francisco, California

San Francisco's Cable Car Museum

Not merely a museum – but a whirring powerhouse that offers a subterranean peek into the heart and soul of cable car operations.
San Francisco, California

Palace of Fine Arts

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

The Parrots of Telegraph Hill

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

Musée Mécanique

A collection of 20th-century automata, penny arcade games, and musical contraptions.
San Francisco, California

Japanese Tea Garden

Relics of the 1894 Midwinter Exposition continue to delight visitors today.
San Francisco, California

Exploratorium

San Francisco's newly reopened hands-on science museum.
San Francisco, California

Alcatraz Island

In all of the 29 years it was in operation, no prisoners ever escaped successfully... or so they claim.
Berkeley, California

Sather Tower

The century-old bell and clock tower at UC Berkeley is the third-tallest in the world, and has fossils.
Berkeley, California

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Where the alchemists dream of transmuting base metal into gold was actually achieved.
Shanghai, China

M50 Art District

This former textile district now is now a thriving center for contemporary Chinese art.
Shanghai, China

Shanghai French Concession

An out-of-place slice of France, smack in the middle of Shanghai.
Shanghai, China

Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Centre

An collection of Chinese propaganda posters from 1949 to 1979.
Shanghai, China

Shanghai's 1933 Slaughterhouse

Rivers of cattle blood gone, a strange Escheresque building remains, the last of its kind.
Shanghai, China

Bund Sightseeing Tunnel

This psychedelic tourist trap is a leisurely descent into madness.
Shanghai, China

Scale Model of Shanghai

A giant scale model giving a sneak peek at what urban planners see for Shanghai by 2020.