I don’t know about you, but I love the idea of being an “urban explorer.” Like, I understand that it’s dangerous and all of the reasons it’s not advised, but there’s something alluring about the idea of exploring abandoned (and possibly haunted) places, right?
If you don’t think so, this might not be the thread for you – or maybe you love living vicariously through others, in which case, these 15 places can go on your virtual exploration list!
15. Pretty eerie.
Ludlow, Colorado is the most legit ghost town I’ve ever been to. Totally abandoned but many buildings still standing intact.
It’s the site of a massacre that occurred in the early 1900s during which the government attacked striking coal miners with machine guns, killing several. A bunch of women and children also suffocated to death in a cellar during a fire set by the National Guard.
The cellar is still there, and you can go into it. Or at least it was when I visited like 10-15 years ago. It’s in a gorgeous area right at the foot of some mountains but is pretty eerie.
14. A treasure trove.
First job when I was 15 had an offsite warehouse to store product. Boss takes me there to grab some stuff and tells me it used to be a missile silo. He then uses a knife to open a door to part of the building that we weren’t supposed to have access to.
Walk in and it’s like an office setup with no furniture. Then we walk into the back and there’s a long stairwell down. Go into a huge underground room with a giant round hole in the floor. Got to explore all kinds of heavy blast doors, lots of concrete, weird control rooms with some instrumentation still in place.
We were able to explore two floors down but the lower levels were all flooded. Super creepy and super cool.
After doing some research later in life, it was an old 50s Nike missile base.
13. Very strict.
Honestly would like to see a north Korean village in the countryside.
My dad has been to the country multiple times and IIRC it is really REALLY hard to get approved for the rural experience. The food is very limited, so I hope you like seaweed and water. He loved it though!
12. Definitely spooky.
I’m from Salt Lake City. It’s been torn down now I think, but in high school kids would go to Ted Bundy’s house.
I wasn’t allowed to go, and the older I get, the more grateful I am for that. 🙃
There’s a lot of mystique in places like that, especially if they’re abandoned. There’s also a lot of bad juju in places like that so it’s kind of a 50/50 for me
11. They’ve got a list.
Chernobyl is on my list, as well as Pripyat since most of its abandoned and clear of any lethal/terminal doses of radiation.
They even are letting people in the control room of Reactor 4 for no longer then 5 minutes 😂😂 but most definitely there
10. So many shipwrecks.
I would love to dive the wreck of the Britannic someday. It’s an immensely difficult and dangerous dive at 400 feet deep in the Mediterranean. Not to mention it requires special permits from the Greek government.
However, the Britannic is the sister ship of the Titanic and the two ships are essentially identical. Luckily, the Britannic is fairly well preserved and within technical diving depths.
You can penetrate the wreck where the skylight shattered and float amongst the grand staircase—identical to the iconic Titanic grand staircase that lies 12,500 feet under the sea.
I’m a huge f**king nerd. Ever since I was a little kid, I always thought this dive seemed like the best one on the planet.
9. A tourist attraction.
I’d be fascinated to go inside the US military base built into the mountains in Colorado.
If you’re ever in Ottawa and have some tourist time to kill, you can tour the Diefenbunker, which was the underground bunker meant to house the Canadian federal government and gold reserves in case of nuclear war.
8. No tombs for me, thanks.
The tomb of Qin Shi Huang, guarded by the famous Terracotta Army. It’s thought to contain rivers of mercury and booby traps.
From what I remember from a Chinese Art History class I took in college, the Terracotta Army soldiers that have been uncovered are only a small portion of the total number of soldiers.
I would love to see the grand scale of them all. There are probably so many ancient mausoleums and tombs that have been lost to the ages, never to be uncovered again.
7. Nothing like the movies.
Cheyenne Mountain. Been there. It is pretty dead these days and acts as an alternate Command Center. Nothing like the movies. Something like 80% of the facility is no longer used or is dormant.
Currently owned by Air Force Space Command, but may be transferred to Space Force.
6. Those poor sheep.
Gruinard Island in the North of Scotland, where the British Government tested anthrax on sheep.
Apparently they’ve cleaned up the traces of anthrax, but the place seems haunting.
5. The King’s lair.
Does the bedroom of Elvis inside Graceland count? It’s been kept the exact same as the day he died and I think it’d be interesting as hell to explore the Kings lair.
4. These urban legends are everywhere.
We used to jump the fence and go in here when we were teenagers. Had no idea it was a smallpox hospital. I guess it was a looney bin after that. Place was creepy as fk! Still medical equipment everywhere.
We used to get really stoned an run around in there till we got the shit scared out of us! Lol
3. The seed vault.
There’s gotta be some secret doomsday bunkers around the world that only really rich people know about. Would be cool to check out.
Or the svalbard global seed vault
2. I would be so spooked.
Some ghost town, like the Turkish identical castle town, one of many Chinese ghost towns, or former Russian secret/restricted access city.
I knew a woman from a Russian “secret city” she said it was secret because they produced all of the weapons for the soviet army there but by the time she was a teenager it had been outed and made an official city. Really interesting lady
1. Just part of it.
Everest base camp.
I don’t want to climb the thing (I enjoy being alive) but I’d love to just go hang out at base camp for a week or so.
I’ve never heard of some of these spots before but I sure am glad I have now. Time for some more research!
If you’ve got a spot like this you’d love to dig into, drop it in the comments!
