They say that nothing lasts forever, and nowhere is it more true than in the towns and cities all over the world. We go out and expand our domain and try to get dominion over the land, but sometimes, nature has something to say about that, and we’re forced to leave. What we leave behind are ghostly remnants of our past and a glimpse at what a post-apocalyptic world might look like.
I don’t know about you, but I want to explore all of these creepy ghost towns and just take in the stories they’re telling.
Sesena, Spain
Located just 22 Miles south of the Spanish capital of Madrid, Sesena was supposed to be the Manhattan of Spain, with tall blocks of buildings and towers, but it never got to live up to its destiny. The entire residential component was built on speculation and when the housing market collapsed, this satellite town built for 30,000 remained empty.
The entire complex is now crumbling and looks like the setting for a horror film, where everyone just disappears suddenly.
Trevevic, Bosnia and Herzegovina
There’s been tons of photo essays on the lingering effects of all the infrastructure builds for an Olympic town, that fall into disuse after the games, and these powerful images show off the sad legacy of the games. It’s always the relics from the 1984 Olympics in Sarajevo, however, that serve as the prime case study, due to the sad state of Mt. Trebevic, where all the ski jumps, bobsled runs and other winter events lie crumbling. These images are incredibly haunting.
The reason, however, has nothing to do with the games. The demise of Trebevic, a once thriving area around the mountain, has more to do with the Yugoslav wars that broke out in 1991. During the Siege of Sarajevo, local residents abandoned their homes due to shelling and insurgency, and never returned. The tracks now are riddled with bullet holes and holes from shells, as well as graffiti. As well, the podiums, where the medals were awarded, became the site of executions and hangings in one of the darkest chapters of the former Yugoslavia’s history.
Now nature is reclaiming the bobsled runs as they snake through the forest, as a haunting reminder of the past.
Garnet, Montana
Garnet is probably the spitting image of what you’d think a ghost town looks like, because it’s been preserved to look that way. Named after a precious ruby-coloured stone that was mined in the 1800’s, thousands of prospectors game to the town to search for gold and silver. The town thrived until the 1940’s, when the price of gold dropped and people moved away.
Shortly after, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management preserved Garnet as one of the most historical ghost towns in America, with the only inhabitants the ghosts of the old residents.
Spinalonga, Crete
There’s a lot of ghost towns that litter the country of Greece, but none as creepy as this one. Spinalonga started off as a part of Crete, but was carved and cut off from the main island in the 16th century by the Venetian rulers for military purposes. In its heyday, it was used as a military installation with a large fort until 1903, when it was established as a leper colony. Abandoned in 1957, it was one of the last leper colonies in Europe, with the last inhabitant, a priest, leaving the island in 1962.
Now the island sits desolate, alone and abandoned, but you can book tours to check it out for an hour or two. I’d buy it as a secret villain fortress, but that’s just me.
North Brother Island, New York
You’d never expect New York City to have a ghost town nearby, let alone inside the city limits, but there is one – North Brother Island. Situated between the Bronx and Rikers Island in the East River is an abandoned island that was known as an asylum island for drug addicts and a quarantine zone for lepers.
In 1885, Riverside Hospital was built on the Island as a smallpox hospital, before having their specialty expanded to other diseases. The hospital was famous for housing “Typhoid Mary,” the first person in the US to carry and transmit the disease. Spending three decades on the island, she passed away in 1938, and the hospital closed down. After that, it housed recovering soldiers after WW2 and as a place for Heroin addicts to detox.
Now the island is off-limits to the public and is a bird sanctuary, where the the avians can inhabit the old building, slowly being reclaimed by the forest.
Araras, Brazil
This one isn’t a ghost town in the traditional sense, but it’s deeply unsettling. Unlike the rest of the places on this list, Araras isn’t completely abandoned. In fact, over 800 people live in this small fishing town, 70 miles from Sao Paulo. The thing is, the village is incredibly creepy during the day, as no one ventures outdoors.
Araras is a town of people who have a deadly and incurable genetic disorder called Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP), which leaves their skin extremely sensitive to UV rays. This means, they can’t step out in sunlight, or they burn immediately and develop skin cancers, and I’m not talking sunburn, I’m talking third degree burns that leave them disfigured. For a farming and fishing town, this is devastating. So the residents only come out at night, as to not suffer more from the disorder.
Hence, why the town is empty during the day, while the residents live their lives under the cover of darkness.
Agdam, Azerbaijan
As little as 25 years ago, Agdam was a thriving town with over 150,000 residents living there, which not sits empty. But, much like other towns on this list, it wasn’t abandoned due to industrial or chemical problems, but a human problem: War. In 1993, war broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan over a disputed territory. Residents fled for their life and never returned.
Now the city stands empty and in ruins, save for the Aghdam Mosque, which still stands, but is used as a cowshed. The rest of it looks like a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Kolmanskop, Namibia
During its heyday, the little down of Kolmanskop was a thriving diamond town. Eve though it was in the middle of a desolate landscape, many German miners came to live in the town to seek their fortunes. It got to the point that the entire territory was declared a forbidden area by the German government in the 1900’s. They then built a town reminiscent of German architecture, with a casino, elegant houses, sports centres, butchers power stations and even a hospital with the first X-ray machine in the southern hemisphere. When the diamond prices crashed in the mid -40s due to WW2, the inhabitants abandoned the town for greener areas. It only took 40 years for the town of Kolmanskop to rise from the desert and be left behind, to be claimed by the same sands. Now, 100 years after it’s inception, it’s a town buried in sand and haunted by eerie ghosts.
Inchkeith Island, Scotland
Despite having a long history of use and habitation, Inchkeith Island has been left to its own devices for the past hundred years. In its past, this island was incredibly important to Scotland from a military and strategy perspective, and as a result suffered many attacks during the Scottish Wars of Independence all the way up to WW2.
Outside of military use, the island was also used for quarantining the sick. Going back to the 1400’s, the island held those suffering from syphilis, as well as the plague. The problem was that those sent to the island assumed they’d be returned home when they were cured. Instead, the island was a one way ticket to death. No one came back.
The island was also used for an experiment during the Renaissance by King James IV, who sent a mute woman and her infants to the island to see what language the infants would learn to speak, assuming that they’d inherently speak the ‘original language of God.’ No one knows what they ended up speaking, if at all.
Since the end of the war, the island’s changed hands, but never seen any new inhabitants, and just stands as a desolate sentinel.
Dallol, Ethiopia
Arguably the hottest place in the inhabited world with an average daily temperature of 94 degrees F, Dallol was once considered hell on earth. Established as a busy mining town in the early 20th century, miners were digging up potash, salt and sylvite in the area. Despite the heat, the town was thriving until a volcano erupted in 1926. The town was then abandoned.
It’s not hard to see why. There are no roads that led to Dallol and the only way to get there from the nearest town was a 12 hour camel ride. Since then, some residents still travel the distance to mine salt, but no other company has tried to resume large-scale mining in the area, despite the ample resources. Between the hot springs, toxic gas geysers and sandstorms, it’s a lonely hell on earth.
Sanzhi Pod City, Taiwan
On the north coast of Taiwan is an experiment in architectural design. Developers began building this futuristic vacation resort in 1978, to attract wealthy people and American military officers that were off from their postings in East Asia.
While the idea seemed foolproof, superstition ultimately doomed the project. There were multiple car accidents, suicides and unexplained deaths during the construction, that were all attributed to the developers destroying a centuries-old dragon statue that was in the way of the entrance road. There’s also the fact that there’s a rumoured 20,000 Dutch soldiers from the 17th century had been buried at the site. Or it could just be misappropriation of finances that lead to the cancellation of the rest of the project. In any case, close to 40 years later, the Sanzhi Pod City remains a monument to a futuristic dream.
Hashima Island, Japan
I think everyone knows this Island, but for the sake of being thorough, let’s include it in this list. Known as “Battleship Island” for its shape, it was once a thriving coal mining city with 5,000 people.
Just off the coast of Nagasaki, it was purchased by the Mitsubishi Corporation in 1890 after coal was found there. For over a century, miners and their families lived there, in poor living and working conditions. When the coal ran out in 1974, they abandoned the island to rats, feral cats and ghosts. And the occasional Bond villain.
Varosha, Cyprus
As one of the most popular beach resorts on the Mediterranean, Varosha was host to famous celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Then 42 years ago, the 40,000 residents were kicked out in the summer of 1974 by Turkish troops and the town was fenced off.
Even prior to that, the town of Varosha had been in a constant state of struggle between Greece, Turkey and Cyprus for control, and since the military coup, Turkey’s been holding the abandoned town hostage.
Since then, the buildings have begun to crumble and fall and the once bustling resort town remains desolate and disused, for no real reason at all.
Helltown, Ohio
Ok, so it’s not its original name, but this nickname speaks more to the history of the town and the spooky shit that happened. Originally known as Boston Mills, Belltown is the oldest village in Summit County, OH and was once a thriving village.
Established in 1806 as a paper mill town, it prospered until the 1960s, when a nationwide movement concerned about deforestation led to a controversial bill by President Gerald Ford that ordered the National Park Service to purchase several tracts of land and forests to turn them into National Parks. Boston Mills fell victim to this bill and hundreds of acres of the towns industry resources were deemed protected, so the town died.
Residents were forced to leave, but not before legends began about what else happened to cause the residents to leave. According to some stories, there was a chemical spill that needed hiding, a busload of children was supposedly murdered by a serial killer, there was a satanic church hiding in the woods, a creepy man in a hearse was chasing the residents, and a whole bunch of other creepy ghost stories are the reason why it’s now called Helltown.
Oradour-Sur-Glane, France
Probably the most popular ghost town in Europe, this small village brutalized by German shelling during WW2. Former French general once declared that the ghostly town must be jealously protected to bear witness to the brutality of the war and the worst Nazi massacre of civilians ever carried out in France.
On a normal Saturday in June 1944, this small village saw 642 people, including 247 children rounded up and executed by the Germans, while others were locked in a church and set ablaze.
Now, the town is haunted by it’s memories and an eerie reminder to just how evil humanity can be.
Villa Epecuen, Argentina
Once a popular spa resort down in Argentina, located 350 Miles southwest of Buenos Aires, this town disappeared one day without a trace.
During the 60s and 70s, tourists flocked to the town to bathe in the lake, which had numerous minerals with restorative properties, with tons of hotels and spas. In November of 1985, however, the fate of the town changed, when many months of torrential rain led to the protective dyke failing and flooding the town. All the inhabitants were forced to leave the town.
The town languished under 30 feet of water for over 25 years until the waters started to recede in 2009. Now, the town has only one inhabitant, while the rest of the buildings lie in various states of disrepair.
Bodie, California
Bodie’s one of those towns that’s always brought up when talking about the best ghost towns in the US. It’s an embodiment of an Old Western town that once thrived during the gold rush, then was savagely abandoned during the crash.
Established in 1849, Bodie had several golden years of boom, but by 1914 the town was in decline. Some mills still operated until the 40’s but the town was essentially dead by the time WW2 ended.
The town was declared a Historic National Park in 1962, and tours are offered, but the one permanent residents are the ghosts of the miners and their families, floating amongst the tumbleweeds.
Pompeii, Italy
Pompeii might not be a ghost town, in the traditional sense, but it’s still an eerie place to visit. A once-hedonistic party town, it was covered in ash and lava in 79 AD when the nearby Mount Vesuvius erupted. The town was buried for centuries and was only recently discovered and excavated in the past decades.
What’s startling and creepy are the bodies. Residents, fleeing from the eruption were frozen in time and those bodies are still on display, with their agony and fear evident.
It’s a surreal place to visit and a testament to what nature is capable of.
Butugychag, Russia
Located in northeast Russia, this area was known as the “Valley of Death”, by local nomadic tribesman who happened to find an unmarked cemetery full of human skeletons. That was only the start of the legends coming from the area. Many decades later, the area was turned into a corrective labour camp between 1945 and 1955, with workers digging for Uranium.
According to the rumours, over 400,000 prisoners died due to the camps horrific conditions, as well as exposure to radiation which slowly killed them. As well, though not confirmed, the site was allegedly a place where top-classified medical experiments were conducted on the prisoners.
After the Second World War was over, the area was evacuated and the locals moved away and the area placed under secure quarantine, where it remains to this day. Wonder what they’re really hiding under there?
Port Arthur, Tasmania
Port Arthur started off as a small timber station in 1830, when Tasmania was designated a Penal colony for Britain. For the following two decades, Port Arthur became the home of some of the hardest criminals from England, as well as convicts from other prisons in Australia. One of the features the prison was known for was the silent system, where inmates were required to remain silent for days if not months; the slightest sound would send them to a separate prison with no light or sound, driving the inmates insane. This mean that a separate mental hospital had to be established on the grounds. Surrounded by water and sharks, this was the ideal place to keep the worlds worst. The prison remained in use until 1877, then was abandoned.
Since then, locals have claimed the derelict prison as one of the most haunted places in Australia, and the identity of the site only gets more horrendous, when it was the site of Australia’s worst shooting massacre in 1996. Now, it’s a tourist attraction, but one that is permanently cursed with the negative spirits of its past.
Dudleytown, Connecticut
Like most of New England, English settlers came to Connecticut in the early 18th century, and among the first families was the Dudley family, who helped establish Dudley Town in 1747. Soon, it was a thriving community with farming and iron as core industries.
Except there might have been a slight curse on the family that they brought over all the way from England. The rumours tell tales of untimely deaths of the Dudley family and everyone who moved into the town, including lighting strikes, going insane, mysterious disappearances and suicide.
Known as The Village of the Damned, the town died off in the late 1800’s and has been in a private trust since the 1920’s, with nothing remaining but train tracks and cellar holes. All that’s left is the eerie sense of being watched and a dark sense of dread when anyone trespasses on the private land the town used to inhabit.
