A still functioning vaudeville carousel that has operated for over a century boasts a colorful menagerie and past.

Golden Gate Park's historic collection of plants.

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

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

A favorite haunt of dinosaur loving children and hallucinogen loving hippies alike.

Olfactory delights in San Francisco's Botanical Gardens.

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.

A huge musical instrument played by the ocean.

The Laureates here get something even more coveted than a Nobel Prize: free parking for life.

A 90-acre park on former landfill that hosts an annual kite festival.

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

This subtle Berkeley paving stone actually marks off a lawless tube of air that extends into space.

A shape-shifting buy-sell-trade bookstore, born to Beatnik Era spirit.

This iconic L.A. bookshop is housed in an abandoned bank—both symbolic and chic.

This dormant volcanic crater has been converted from a roiling pit of magma to a pleasant hiking spot.

This foreboding building was the headquarters of the terrifying Spanish Inquisition in Mexico.

This museum houses two of Mexico's most impressive Aztec monoliths.

These subterranean models show Mexico City's central square during three different eras.

A massive volcanic plug is now a protected area that hosts a number of bird species.

This stretch of beach along California's central coast is a busy highway for the largest seal in the northern hemisphere.

NASA's leading space science lab started by a co-founder with deep ties to the occult.

The blinking light atop the iconic landmark has been sending secret messages for decades.

The abandoned zoo enclosures offer a perfect place to experience the other side of the bars.