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

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

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

Olfactory delights in San Francisco's Botanical Gardens.

A winding path built in secret on the edge of the continent.

This shop specializes in oddities and Victorian-inspired wonders.

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

San Francisco's urban bison herd has persisted in the face of extinction, development, and disease.

This private residence was the template for one of the most beloved television homes of all time.

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

Over 315,000 preserved amphibians and reptiles in jars.

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

The stones that traveled from Spain to eventually become a holy place for San Francisco's nature worshippers.

The giant pair of sexy legs sticking out the window of this costume store have become its main draw.

Since 1973, this block has been home to the most concentrated collection of murals in San Francisco.

The miraculous hydrant that saved the Mission District in 1906.

An essential stop before plundering, BYO Cutlass.

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

Sitting atop San Francisco's tallest hill, a cross honors the victims of the Armenian genocide.

A roaring, awe-inspiring double cascade of icy water flows through woodland Oregon like something out of a Tolkien novel.

An enormous image of Utah's salt flats made entirely from tape.

Visitors to this library are in for a real-world education in modernist architecture.

Pyramid home to an obscure religious group that practices modern mummification.

Incredible sculptures inspired by obscure passages from the Bible.