Weird day trips from Los Angeles

The strangest Los Angeles finds are often a short drive out. These 18 day trips — Whaley House Museum, Tio's Tacos, Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village and more — are each hand-vetted and sourced: ghost towns, hot-spring soaks, roadside oddities, and odd small-town museums worth the gas. A weird day trip is its own kind of date.

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Whaley House Museum Built in 1857 on the site of Old Town's public gallows, this two-story brick house has been dubbed America's… Old Town San Diego
Tio's Tacos Behind a working Mexican restaurant, Martin Sanchez has spent decades turning one acre into a dense folk-art… Riverside
Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village Starting in 1956, Tressa "Grandma" Prisbrey hand-built sixteen structures from bottles, mortar, and discards… Simi Valley
Cabazon Dinosaurs Sculptor Claude Bell built these two colossal concrete dinosaurs beside Interstate 10 starting in 1964 to lur… Cabazon, California
Elmer's Bottle Tree Ranch On a stretch of old Route 66 in the high desert, Elmer Long welded hundreds of metal 'trees' and hung them wi… Oro Grande, California
Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park Tilted slabs of sandstone jut from the desert floor at a dramatic 45-degree angle, up to 150 feet high, expos… Agua Dulce
Adam's Forge Adam's Forge is a volunteer-run 501(c)(3) blacksmithing and metal-arts school where forges and anvils fill a… Simi Valley
LAAS Steve Kufeld Dark-Sky Site (Lockwood) The Los Angeles Astronomical Society's private dark-sky site sits in Lockwood Valley about 90 miles northwest… Lockwood Valley (near Frazier Park)
Upper Newport Bay Moonlight & Bioluminescence Kayak Paddle Guided night paddles launch from the Newport Aquatic Center after a short safety and instruction briefing, gl… Newport Beach (Upper Newport Bay)
The Integratron Ufologist George Van Tassel began this all-wood parabolic dome in 1954, claiming the design came from Venusia… Landers
Desert Christ Park Sculptor Antone Martin spent 1951 to 1961 installing snow-white concrete figures of Christ and biblical scene… Yucca Valley
Galleta Meadows Sky Art Sculptures Across roughly 3,000 acres of open desert, landowner Dennis Avery commissioned artist Ricardo Breceda to plan… Borrego Springs
Salvation Mountain For nearly three decades Leonard Knight built this 50-foot painted hill out of adobe, hay bales, and an estim… Niland
Big Horn Mine Discovered in 1891 by prospector Charles Tom Vincent, the Big Horn Mine was once the largest gold mining oper… Azusa
Bear Canyon Mine The Bear Canyon Mine is an abandoned gold mine located in the Soledad Canyon area near Santa Clarita. Dating… Canyon Country
Emma Mine The Emma Mine is an abandoned late-19th-century copper and gold mine located on the south slope of Parker Mou… Acton
Coquina Mine Located in the Marr Ranch Open Space of Simi Valley, this abandoned 1930s open-pit limestone mine was once op… Coquina Mine
Concrete ruins of the St. Francis Dam Designed by William Mulholland and completed in 1926, the St. Francis Dam collapsed catastrophically in 1928,… Santa Clarita