The artist James Turrell is repurposing an extinct volcano crater as an observatory to experience the cosmos.

Thousands of Mexican Free-Tailed Bats soar around an abandoned storm drain at sunset each summer.

This striking public art installation is suspended above a public park, designed to gently move in the breeze.

The fading, forgotten remains of a once bright and booming factory.

Open since 1938, this diner has kept its fountain, malt machine, and all the gum that greasers left beneath its counter.

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

Sister store to the Echo Park Time Travel Store.

An essential stop before plundering, BYO Cutlass.

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

A self-built castle made by a mysterious man.

A priest with no formal artistic training used basic house paint to create gorgeous religious scenes inside this historic church.

A model of a galactic embassy is hidden in plain sight along the highway, proposed by a UFO religion to find the aliens that created life on Earth.

Get up close and personal with these majestic fish.

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

This legendary urban waterfall creates a dazzling display of rainbows.

Race through the maze, get your name on the sign.

A tunnel of hardened lava along Maui’s famous Road to Hana.

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

One man's vast collection of artifacts and ephemera from matchbooks and postcards to vintage neon signs and cars.

The rocks in this arid basin leave trails of movement behind them.

Behind this beachfront shop lies a spectacular, colorful sea cave with an equally colorful past.

A walk-in working camera obscura produces 360-degree live images of the San Francisco coast.

A hospital closed seemingly in the middle of operations, leaving behind fodder for horror films and ghost hunters.

World-famous, Pink's still manages to keep its prized cult fetish status.