Sound and Salvation

A 50-foot folk-art mountain of adobe, hay, and donated paint that one Korean War veteran built alone in the California desert over nearly three decades, turning a message of religious devotion into an unlikely Congressional-recognized "national treasure."

Start at Salvation Mountain, the adobe-and-paint hillside Leonard Knight built alone over nearly three decades outside Niland. There are no services nearby -- fuel up and bring water before you arrive.

A wooden, fastener-free dome built by a UFO "contactee" who claimed Venusians gave him blueprints for a machine that could rejuvenate cells and defy gravity. It's now a popular sound-bath venue sitting, by reputation, on a desert geomagnetic vortex.

Drive north to Landers for The Integratron, a geodesic dome built by George Van Tassel to specifications he said he received through extraterrestrial contact, now run as a sound-bath venue. Sessions are reservation-only.