Weird travel destinations

Have you been watching the HBO series Chernobyl? It makes you wonder then about the number of people who want to visit there. Are they mad? The tours are described as safe and unforgettable. Mmm yes! And of course this weird and terrifying destination has attracted all the weird and terrifying people of the world who want to be first to post this on their instagram accounts. And some of the posts … well really! Shows how much you care about the tragedy of Chernobyl. The director of the series has spoken out and has asked people to be respectful.

So even if you don’t want to visit Chernobyl there are still a lot of really weird places out there that you can visit.

Like The Door to Hell in Turkmenistan –

Almost 50 years ago, the collapse of a natural gas field formed a 30-metre-deep crater that began leaking flammable methane. Geologists set it on fire as a way of controlling it, and it has been burning ever since.

It’s not that easy to get to either – two connections and 20 hours of flying to get to the nearest airport and that will cost you $1500 upwards for the ticket. Then it’s three and a half hours by road … on a road that looks like this –

I think I will pass on that one myself.

Then there is the ghost town of Rhyolite, in Nevada. Much closer to home.

Founded in 1904 and dead by 1916, Rhyolite was one of several short lived boom-towns from the late Gold Rush era. People were drawn to the desert on the edge of Death Valley by the promise of gold found amongst quartz in local mines, and by 1906 the town had all the promising indicators of permanence with largest population in the area.

According to the US National Park Service: “The town immediately boomed with buildings springing up everywhere. One building was 3 stories tall and cost $90,000 to build. A stock exchange and Board of Trade were formed. The red light district drew women from as far away as San Francisco. There were hotels, stores, a school for 250 children, an ice plant, two electric plants, foundries and machine shops and even a miner’s union hospital.”

It is strange that the town was abandoned and continues to exist as a ghost town but it has found another life in the film industry and also houses a very weird art collection.

And then there is the Skeleton Coast – this is the coastline of Namibia, so named because of the many shipwrecks along this barren desert area. The coastline is 700 kms long and all along the beach and in the sea you can see the evidence of ship wrecks and each one tells a story.

Although it is barren it is quite beautiful and definitely worth the trip. A visit to Namibia’s Skeleton coast can easily be combined with an incredible game viewing experience so all in all this weird place is pretty cool.

And then there is the Hill of Crosses in Lithuania.

Wiki tells us – “The Hill of Crosses (Lithuanian: Kryžių kalnas) is a Lithuanian site of pilgrimage. It is about 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) north of Šiauliai, in northern Lithuania.

No one knows when or why people started leaving crosses on the hill. It is believed that the first crosses were put up after the 1831 Uprising. It was estimated that there were 55,000 crosses in 1990 and 100,000 in 2006.

On September 7, 1993, Pope John Paul II visited the site and declared it a place for hope, peace, love and sacrifice.”

And then there is this town in Canada where everybody dresses up like cowboys (or girls) for 10 days every year …..