2 Best Sights in Napa and Sonoma, California

The rare manuscripts, first editions, photographs, childhood toys, and other artifacts at this small museum document the life and literary career of Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). One exhibit examines the months Stevenson, at the time impoverished, spent in an abandoned miners' bunkhouse north of Calistoga in what's now Robert Louis Stevenson State Park. The interlude inspired the author's book The Silverado Squatters. Check before visiting to make sure the museum will be open, as staffing is sometimes an issue.

Walt Disney animator Ben Sharpsteen, who retired to Calistoga, founded this old-school but compelling museum whose centerpiece is an intricate diorama depicting the Calistoga Hot Springs Resort during its 19th-century heyday. A restored cottage from the resort, moved to this site, sits next door to the museum but is entered through it. Other exhibits survey life in Calistoga through the decades and author Robert Louis Stevenson's time here in 1880.