Welcome to the Infographics Show Tourism Bureau. The world is opening up, and we’re
excited to send you on a trip around the world. You say you’re ready for a more daring vacation?
We’ll see about that. Get ready to explore the thirteen places you’re too scared to visit.
#13. North Yungas Road
If you want to see the Amazon from a unique vantage point, head to Bolivia - but be ready
to take your life in your hands. The North Yungas Road is the best way to travel from La
Paz to Coroico, and it’ll give you a stunning view - fifteen thousand feet above sea level.
But you won’t be traveling in style. This is a single-lane road, only twelve feet across,
and there are no guardrails anywhere in sight. That high,
rain and fog can hit at any time - and you’re only one wrong move away from a long way down.
It’s no surprise this road gained the name “The Death Road”.
At its worst, the road used to see over two hundred deaths annually.
Making it more confusing, it was the only road in the country with left-hand traffic,
although this was done to increase visibility. A long renovation process ending in 2006 made
the road safer, and now it’s become a popular destination for adventurous
mountain bikers. One thing hasn’t changed, though - the stunning and terrifying view,
which attracts daring travelers to the South American country every year.
It’s enough to put you in a hospital for stress.
But preferably not the one which is our next place you’re too scared to visit.
#12. Beelitz-Heilstatten Hospital
Beelitz is a sleepy town in Brandenburg, Germany, mostly known for growing some of
the world’s best White Asparagus. Hardly scary - unless you’re a picky eater. But
in the Beelitz-Heilstatten district lies a monument to the town’s dark history.
A massive hospital that operated before World War I, it served as both a military
hospital and a tuberculosis sanatorium. It was occupied by the Red Army after World War two,
but is most notorious for hosting a recuperating soldier during World War I.
A soldier by the name of Adolf Hitler.
Following the Soviet occupation, the complex was revamped, but is mostly abandoned today.
Its notorious surgical and psychiatric wards have fallen into disrepair,
with nature and vandalism turning them into ghost towns. You can wander the abandoned rooms,
filled with rusty beds and broken-down medical equipment,
and wonder which ghosts of the bloodiest wars in human history are watching…
This next site offers a stunning view - into oblivion.
#11. The Great Blue Hole
Welcome to Belize, a beautiful Central American country with stunning blue waters
and pristine beaches. And off the coast, you’ll find Lighthouse Reef, a small atoll
known as one of the best scuba diving sites in the world. That’s because in the center,
you’ll find a hole, where the blue water seems to go down, and down, and down...possibly forever?
No one who swims over it can see the bottom, and it doesn’t descend naturally. Instead,
it seems to suddenly drop off - as if it was a path leading straight to the center of the world.
But how deep can it possibly be?
Famous researcher Jacques Cousteau was fascinated with the site, and famously made an expedition
deep inside it. He took his ship, the Calypso, deep below the surface and found that it wasn’t
a purely steep drop. Rather, there were four stages before it reached the apparent bottom
of at around a hundred and twenty-five feet. In 2018, submarines created a fuller picture
of the bottom of the hole - and found that it was much deeper, at least 300 feet,
and nothing could survive down there. It’s a popular tourist destination
for those who enjoy swimming near the closest thing to the edge of the world.
From water, to fire. Come along to our next stop - but prepare for some heat.
#10. The Door to Hell
No one is sure why a natural gas field in Darvaza, Turkmenistan turned into a massive
fire pit. Records from the Soviet era are spotty, but some reports indicate that
after a massive collapse threatened to release deadly methane gas, the Soviets deliberately
set it on fire to neutralize it. Whatever the facts, one thing is certain - it’s big. With a
diameter of over two hundred feet and a depth of almost a hundred feet, it covers a whole acre.
And it has been burning for decades.
Despite its terrifying appearance, the area seems stable. It’s a superficial gas pocket which has
created a depression. The pit contains a mix of fire and boiling mud, and the area surrounding it
is relatively safe because the powerful desert winds spread the gases around too quickly for
them to be concentrated. Underneath, the gas reserve is one of the biggest in the world,
but the Gates of Hell have their own appeal. The government of Turkmenistan has been
trying to promote the site for camping and tourism - for those who dare to get close.
Is that a little too intense? How about a trip to a nice theme park instead?
#9. Haw Par Villa
A small roadside theme park located in Singapore, Haw Par Villa is different
from the usual fare. You won’t find any roller coasters here.
Instead, it’s best known for its huge collection of statues and dioramas, themed to local folklore
and the principles of Confucianism. But the little park has a dark edge. From the start,
its figures can be alarming to those not familiar with the lore. You won’t be greeted by Mickey
when you enter - instead you can expect to see a large statue of a giant crab with a human head.
And that’s before you get to the dark stuff.
The most famous attraction is the Ten Courts of Hell, a chilling selection of
dioramas - originally set within the body of a massive dragon. There, lucky tourists get to see
depictions of the tortures the evil will endure within the hell of Chinese and Buddhist lore.
Unfortunate sinners are cut in half, dismembered, or impaled onto a pile
of knives - with each torture accompanied by a description of what the person in the
statue did to deserve it. The perfect place to take a kid who’s been acting up on vacation.
This next site is one of the most uniquely beautiful
locations in the world - and one of the deadliest.
#8. Kawah Ijen Volcano
In Java, Indonesia, daring tourists can bear witness to one of nature’s greatest wonders.
A large volcano that belches gas and lava - but not the kind you
know. The molten liquid that pours from the volcano is a stunning shade of blue,
and this creates stunning lights that can be seen at night. And for those there in the day,
there’s another strange wonder awaiting them. The lake surrounding the volcano
has turned a bright shade of green. It’s almost like visiting an alien landscape.
But this beauty has a dark secret.
The Ijen volcano gets its unique properties from a massive amount of sulfuric gas. It becomes
superheated and reaches temperatures of over a thousand degrees fahrenheit, exploding as it
reaches open air. The liquid, lava-like sulfur that pours down the volcano, then seeps into
the water - meaning the green lake is one of the most acidic locations in the world. This makes the
entire area a beautiful and deadly place - and one of the world’s top locations for sulfur mining.
It’s not the only location where you’ll see some
unnatural colors - but you’ll have to go much further for this next one.
#7. Blood Falls
There’s not much to see in Antarctica. Ice, penguins - and maybe an eldritch nightmare.
If you head to Taylor Glacier in East Antarctica, you’ll witness something
deeply unsettling. The glacier seems to be bleeding - and the blood flow never stops,
even as the rest of the glacier stays frozen solid. What is this eerie,
dark-red liquid seeping from the white glacier, and what does it hint at what’s lurking inside?
The answer goes back millions of years.
Five million years ago, the formation of the glacier trapped a lake within,
and the microbes within the lake were completely cut off from the rest of the world.
The water became increasingly concentrated and loaded with salt and iron ore. This raised
the water’s freezing point, and when a fissure opened in the glacier, the blood came oozing out.
It’s a natural wonder with no real threat to anyone, and it may even give us some clues
to what earth was like millions of years ago - but that doesn’t make it any less unsettling.
For this next visit, you’d better be ready to come up close and personal with nature.
#6. Gomantong Caves
In a wildlife preserve in Malaysia lies a massive cave system. The caves are best known for being
a site to harvest the unique bird nests made from saliva that are used in traditional soup,
and only one of the two cave systems is open to the general public. The larger cave,
Simud Putih, requires specialized caving equipment to access - but is
the site of the more valuable nests, which causes many people to brave it.
But they’re about to meet some less-friendly residents.
The caves are dominated by one of the largest bat populations in the world,
a massive colony of over two hundred thousand individuals. This has led to a massive,
thick layer of guano covering the caves. And if that isn’t enough, the cave is also the home to
several million Malaysian hissing cockroaches - one of the largest cockroaches in the world.
Scared yet? You don’t know what else you’ll encounter, including scorpions,
snakes, and even poisonous centipedes that grow to three inches long. Is any soup worth this?
We’re heading back to Europe for our next stop - so we can pay tribute to the dead.
#5. Capuchin Catacombs
In the city of Palermo, the European tradition of catacombs where the dead are laid to rest
lives on. But few catacombs provide the disturbing visuals this one does. Originally
started by a monastery that had outgrown its cemetery, they dehydrated and preserved
bodies. Their friars were often dressed in their traditional wear as they were put on display,
and it became a place for relatives to visit and pay tribute to those laid to rest there.
And it soon grew far beyond its original purpose.
Between 1871 and 1920, countless prominent citizens of the city were laid to rest inside.
While most are skeletons, still dressed in their traditional clothing,
other bodies were eerily preserved with a chemical formula and sealed away. A toddler girl buried in
the catacombs a hundred years ago still looks as if she was merely sleeping today. Today,
anyone can walk among the over 9,000 dead and witness a piece of Palermo history - eerily still.
Wait, did something move out of the corner of your eye? Probably not.
This next spot doesn’t look like much - but it means instant death.
#4. The Bolton Strid
The River Wharfe is a nice, relaxing place for a walk in Yorkshire, England.
You pass by a nearly thousand-year-old church along the way. But nearby,
watch your step - you’re near one of the deadliest bodies of water in the world.
It’s known as the Bolton Strid, and it has a morbid distinction - every single person
who has fallen in this water has drowned, with many of their bodies never being found.
What makes this little creek so deadly?
The strid is near a wide river, about thirty feet across. The water is slow and quiet. But
as it hits the Bolton Strid, the water gets shoved into a thin, six-foot creek.
The water becomes compressed, causing it to flow faster and become violent. Anyone who falls inside
gets tossed around inside a deadly stream and bashed against craggy rock walls. If the drowning
doesn’t kill you, the blunt force trauma will. No one knows exactly how many lives the Bolton Strid
has claimed, but the first documented death was in the 1100s - and the most recent only in 2010.
This next location is desolate - but has plenty of residents.
#3. Nagoro
A tiny Japanese village on the island of Shikoku, Nagoro used to be a thriving small town with
around three hundred inhabitants. But Japan’s aging population meant many small villages shrunk,
and at last count, Nagoro only had about twenty-seven residents. But that doesn’t mean
the village is empty. Because you’ll walk around and see plenty of residents, all around the town.
But very few of them are human.
In the early 2000s, a woman moved back to the village to care for her aging father,
and made a doll in his likeness. This turned into a hobby, and she designed over four hundred dolls
and placed them around the village. The village no longer has a school,
because it doesn’t have enough children, but the empty schoolhouse is still full - of
dolls. Wherever you go, the dolls are waiting. Why don’t you pay them a visit?
This town’s population is dwindling too - but for a very different reason.
#2. Centralia
In 1962, Centralia, Pennsylvania was a mining town in decline. But it was in 1962 that the town’s
fate was sealed, when an attempt to burn waste in a dump leaked into the coal tunnels below.
This created a massive underground fire - one that burns to this day.
Sinkholes started erupting around town, and the gas that came out of the pumps was abnormally
hot. The condition of the town deteriorated to the point that most of the residents moved out,
and eventually the state invoked eminent domain to shutter the town for good.
But is Centralia truly a ghost town? Not exactly.
Visiting the town today is an eerie sight. The road is cracked and filled with graffiti.
Buildings are abandoned. Smoke can still be seen from the subterranean fires, and it’s estimated
they may burn for another two hundred and fifty years. But Centralia isn’t totally abandoned.
Seven residents still remain, aging in place under an agreement that will turn the property
over to the state when they die. But this is one ghost town that isn’t looking for visitors.
But if you want to find the creepiest place in the word,
you’ll have to go to the site of one of history’s greatest disasters.
#1. Pripyat
How does an entire city disappear? In Ukraine, Pripyat was a thriving city
of almost fifty thousand in 1986 - but it was in the shadow of the Chernobyl nuclear plant.
When the famous meltdown happened, the city had to be completely evacuated in only two
days - and it remains abandoned to this day. The schools still have books in them.
Photographs of decades ago can still be seen in their frames.
But if you want to visit Pripyat’s most famous sights,
they’re still waiting for you - just a little more rusted.
Pripyat was home to an amusement park, complete with a towering ferris wheel. It still stands
today, its yellow cars looking like they could start moving again at any moment. As the years
passed, the forest around the abandoned city grew, and Pripyat became a destination for adventurous
travelers. But it may be getting more soon. Because a TV series about the Chernobyl disaster
made Pripyat even more famous - and it’s now an official tourist attraction.
For where NOT to go now that the world is opening again, check out “Avoid These
Tourist Spots When Traveling After the Pandemic” or watch this video instead.