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Lindsey Puls of Have Clothes, Will Travel
12 of the Creepiest Places In The World, According to Travelers
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Maybe your local haunted house has people dressed up as murderers to jump out and scare you, but these real places across the globe will creep you out more than any manufactured event ever could. This list counts down the scariest places you can visit according to people who actually visited them and lived to tell the tale on an online forum.
A lack of grave space in the 18th century led Paris city officials to transfer remains to an underground site of tunnels below Paris streets. One visitor recalls, "So many skulls stacked in mounds staring at you. Thousands of them. They were all people once. It was creepy."
The Nazi Party carried out a disturbing mass genocide of over 6 million innocent Jewish people during the Holocaust in the 1940s. Auschwitz was one of the larger extermination camps where over a million people were ruthlessly murdered. One visitor says, "You know the numbers. But when you’re there it’s so much more real. You become overwhelmed and then a bit numb. And then you cry. Maybe only a little bit but there’s always something that will affect you. The kids shoes. The tons of hair. The ruthless efficiency of sorting out the artificial limbs."
"It was a creepy convict settlement at the end of the earth in the 1800s. Freaky enough on its own but it's also the site of a lone gunman massacre in 1996 where 35 people are gunned down and killed. The vibe of the place will creep anyone out," says one user.
Saqqara is home to one of the oldest pyramids and burial sites in Egypt. One traveler remarks, "I got carried away and went all the way to the back while my tour group was taking their time. It hits you when you realize you’re alone, staring at the depiction of a door to the afterlife. Gaps in the walls, too dark to see the stonework behind them."
The Killing Fields, Cambodia
When the brutal Khmer Rouge regime came to power in Cambodia following the civil war in the 1970s, the state carried out a genocide wherein more than a million innocent people were mass murdered. One user says, "I was there in 2018, and there were still bones and clothing coming up out of the ground after the latest rain. I don't need ghosts to scare me. History does a just-fine job."
Puerto Alvira, Colombia
"Empty streets, broken down buildings, dusty old pool halls. Major ghost town vibes. Most of the people we did see were staring aimlessly in to the distance or at the ground. Turns out many of the town’s inhabitants were killed or injured in a massacre committed by a paramilitary group during the height of the country’s drug violence," says one commenter.
A visitor to this Southern U.S. town says, "It used to be one of the wealthiest cities in the country based on slave labor and was the site of one of the busiest slave markets. There was a heaviness in the air that creeped me out and I couldn’t wait to leave."
Home to the site of the Battle of Gettysburg, one of the bloodiest fights of the American Civil War, where over 50,000 soldiers lost their lives. One visitor recalls, "There was no one near me while I was standing next to the battlefield, but I had a definite sense I was not alone."
In 1986 a nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl Power Plant in Ukraine exploded, leaving devastating effects for years to come. The radiation spread as far as Russia and Belarus. There's no way to effectively remove the risk of radiation from the immediate area, so the town has been completely abandoned since.
Forteleza el Coyotepe, Nicaragua
This closed-down underground prison is one of the creepiest places you can go in Central America. One visitor explains, "Catacombs with zero light, thousands of bats swarming every time you'd enter a room. Then there were the horrible things carved into stone walls of windowless cells like 'There is no God here' and 'Please Jesus let me die' (in Spanish)."
"For those who haven't been, the monastery is as macabre as anything I have ever seen: 6,000 mummified bodies, some standing up, some lying in caskets, all clothed and in varying stages of decay; skulls caved in, desiccated skin peeling off, some with hair still on. It was certainly compelling, but too gruesome," remarks one user.
One commenter visited Gary by accident and it left a major impression. "Drove through once because we missed an exit and had to circle through Gary to get back… it was so unsettling. Every window in every building is either shot through, broken, or boarded up. Houses falling apart like they were purposely built for the set of a horror movie… but it’s all of them. My kids were in the backseat and my son asked if this place was real and then begged us to get out of there as fast as we could."
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Photo credit: Wangkun Jia / Shutterstock.com
Are you seeking a break from the fast-paced and crowded lifestyle of metropolitan areas? Let's explore some of the best small towns in the USA based on recommendations from people who have visited them.
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