If you are a travel or vacation lover and want to see each and every unique and strange places on earth, you might have wished to explore every corner of the world before you die, however, you cannot get access to some of the places that may look extremely attractive and beautiful to you.
Some of them are listed below.
1. Pripyat, Ukraine
Of course visit the abandoned city that was vacated after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster! It should be known for it's efforts against nuclear armament too though. After getting its independence, Ukraine found itself as the country with the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world (one third of those of the just dissolved USSR).
However, three years later, it decided to destroy them and join the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
2. Lake Karachay, Russia
And someone in Russia decided it would be a good place to dump their nuclear waste from a nearby storage facility. The sediment of the lake bed is completely loaded with radioactive material. Far more than was ever released in Chernobyl, and in a smaller area too. Due to a few accidents, they fill the bottom of the lake with concrete to reduce the fallout in the area.
They claim to have significantly reduced it there but they will be studying it for the next decade. But as per the Worldwatch Institute, Lake Karachay is still the most polluted open-air place on Earth in terms of nuclear waste. If you stood on that shore without touching the water, you would get a dose of 600 roentgen in one hour, which likely means it would be your last day at the beach. Don't bother bringing sunscreen.
3. Isle of Stroma, Scotland
This is an island just north of John o' Groats in Scotland and has been abandoned since the 60’s. One by one, the families deserted the island to mainland Scotland in search of new jobs and opportunities. The number of families recorded were well over 80 at one point, had a functioning school, a church and a lighthouse… and that’s about it.
People were still obtaining their water from wells and there was no electricity until the late 50s. They made unique boats that could sail to the mainland; the crossing is regarded as the most treacherous you will find on the British Isles. The houses are completely abandoned but still have the original furniture inside: sofas, beds, fireplaces. It’s a remarkable scene you would expect to see in Chernobyl, not the British Isles.
4. Beelitz-Heilstätten, Germany
The neglected clinic complex with about 60 structures, developed in 1898, is situated in the village of Beelitz-Heilstätten. Somewhere in the year between 1899 and 1931, the structure acted as a center for lung ailments, largely hosting people with deadly conditions like tuberculosis.
During World War I, it became an emergency hospital that dealt with the earliest losses of modern weapons, such as automatic weapons and mustard gas. At this time as well, it nursed Adolf Hitler, a young German soldier who was blinded by the British after being exposed to a gas attack and injured his leg in the fight of the Somme.
Unexpectedly, these meetings and his effective therapy would leave room for the medical clinic to gradually become an emergency clinic, taking care of the injured Nazis during World War II. Inhabited in 1946 by the Russians, it was utilized as a Soviet military emergency clinic for approximately 50 years up to the year 1996, immediately after the collapse of the Berlin wall.
The doctors nursed every individual from communist collectors to the disrespectful leader of the East German government, who was dispatched there after the 1990 expulsion.
5. Hotel Del Salto, Colombia
The Hotel Del Salto in Tequendama Falls is a critical vacation destination for Colombian and international explorers alike. The property is 18 miles southwest of Bogotá and is effectively accessible by vehicle. It welcomes a horde of travelers who want to enjoy the scenery of the Tequendama Falls.
Located inversely to the waterfall and the edge of the abyss, it offered its visitors a surprising scene. As of July 1950, the structure was to be re-developed into an eighteen-story hotel. However, this development never started and Hotel Del Salto was functional until it turned out that the first building was too damaged to even operate due to the increasingly polluted Bogotá River.
Slowly, visitors lost their enthusiasm for the area and the inn closed in the early 1990s, and was deserted thereafter.
6. Sanzhi UFO houses, New Taipei, Taiwan
Sanzhi houses is a resort located in New Taipei, Taiwan. It is a resort that is widely known for its UFO-shaped houses and its scary stories. The Resort is famous for names such as Sanzhi Pod Houses, Sanzhi UFO Houses or Sanzhi Pod City. But later the houses were demolished due to the mysterious deaths that used to occur around the area.
The development of the UFO-shaped homes began in 1978 in the Sanzhi district and it was to act as an escape destination for the US army, which advanced to the Far East and the rich Taiwanese. But after two years, the development of the homes stopped because of the strange and mysterious deaths that happened around the area. After the various confusing deaths and mishaps, the place legitimately became a restricted territory.
From then on, it turned out to be an underground vacation spot that captivated paranormal exercise and entertainment. The deaths comprised several workers who had fatal mishaps or committed suicide. As per the reports, those people committed suicide had no sign of depression. Similarly, a few employees died in car accidents.
7. El Acebuchal, Seville, Spain
In Andalucia in south of Spain there are many white washed ghost villages in that area. Acebuchal, the lost village is a hidden gem in the Andalusian hinterland which was deserted for 50 years! Dive into the history, the Spanish civil war, visit the former ghost town and enjoy the best food in the entire region.
8. Hashima Island, Japan
The eerie abandoned buildings of Hashima Island make for a very unusual visit on your vacation to Japan.
9. Doel, Belgium
Belgium is a small country, so there are no parts of the country where it’s difficult to travel to. It’s a highly populated, there are no big woods or regions where no one lives. Underdeveloped in Belgium means cities or regions where the industry collapsed. People moved away from those cities or became poor, so there were no investments anymore.
A famous example is Doel. It’s a little town near De Schelde, an important river for the economy of Belgium. In 1960, the port of Antwerp made plans to expand, which meant that the town will disappear in the future. Because of this plans, slowly the town became dead. The local people decide to leave, nobody wanted to invest in the local economy. Now Doel is a dead town. Eventually, the port didn’t expand, but it was already to late.
Now, there is a kind of dark tourism. People find it funny to visit the town. It’s a little bit scary. Everything is empty, but the houses and the streets are still there. No one cleaned it up.
10. Cook Railway Siding, Australia
Cook Station is a railway station located in South Australia, along the longest straight railway track in the world. Also nobody uses it. Crazy, right? Can’t imagine why no-one would want to live in such a scenic, lively place. The nightlife here must be wild. Although it is indefinitely useless now, it was once a very important station.
It was used as a place for to refuel the train, and as a rest stop for drivers. Now, it is the landmark of a ghost town with a staggering population of four people!
11. Pyramiden, Norway
Containing the abandoned Russian military base Pyramiden is enough to place this island on the list! This abandoned ghost town built by the Soviet Union at the top of the world is one of the most intriguing places. It features a plethora of abandoned buildings, and even has the world’s northernmost bar and piano.
Nearby Longyearbyen in Spitsbergen, far above the Arctic Circle and only 650 miles from the North Pole, also contains many extremes including the world’s northernmost rock festival, circus, cell tower, theater, art gallery, swimming pool, church, fuel station, cinema, shopping mall, pharmacy, hotel, school, among many other things.
12. Olympiapark, Munich
Munich is the German city with the smallest amount of undeveloped land. To find a ghost station in the middle of the city which is overgrown with small trees is incredible. The station is actually part of the Olympic park and thus protected by German law as a heritage site. It may not be demolished, yet it is left to decompose.
One of the main reasons the station was decommissioned is a tragic accident. The station was mainly used for soccer games and did not have regular trains passing. Kids using it as a playground climbed onto parked cargo train cars, got too close to the electric lines, and were electrocuted.
13. Monowi, Nebraska
Hundreds and hundreds of ghost towns, which are still considered towns despite having no people, have a population of 0. Additionally, the smallest incorporated town in North America is Monowi, Nebraska, a place that famously has a population of 1. Shockingly, even after that infamous mandatory evacuation of Centralia, Pennsylvania, decades ago, the town inexplicably maintains a population of 10 despite no public services.
14. Somerfield, Pennsylvania
Prior to the town's destruction, it had gone through its ups and downs. One of the major events was building that massive stone bridge. Somerfield was on the planned route of the National Road, the first major improved highway in the US. To get across the Youghigheny River, they built the triple arch stone Great Crossings Bridge, so named for the Great Men who had previously crossed the river there – George Washington and Gen. Edward Braddock.
It was, apparently, a pretty big deal at the time. The bridge and the remnants of the town still remain, usually hidden from view below the quiet waters of the Youghigheny River Lake. But from time to time, these ruins reemerge, offering a glimpse of what had once been.
15. Bodie, California
Bodie is a gold mining town in the California desert settled in the 1800s, then abandoned when the gold ran out. Bodie is high in the mountains (about 8,000 feet elevation). It’s brutally hot in the summer and completely buried by snow in the winter. There’s no reason to be here if there’s no gold to mine. Today, Bodie is a little eerie. The dry weather has preserved the place, so it’s just quietly crumbling away.
When the gold ran out, people left, often without packing. Getting stuff up and down the mountain was difficult and expensive. All the gold mining equipment was left behind. It was far too heavy to be worth hauling back down the mountain, and was only worth its weight in scrap, so they left it. It had already made back its money in the gold it extracted, so there was no point in keeping it.
Even personal effects were left behind, because it was too expensive and too much work to haul it all back.
16. Ryugyong Hotel, North Korea
Another strange entry in the annals of an already strange country, construction of the the Ryugyong Hotel started in the late 1980s, but the collapse of the USSR, precipitated an economic crisis and production was halted in 1992. Since then production has started and stopped again, with external partners signing up to run the place before withdrawing. The hotel has never admitted a paying guest, and stands as a grotesque monument.
