Discover spooky places around the world including one in our own backyard.
Because as if 2020 wasn’t a horror show already, it’s that time of year again to be spooked out. Halloween is just around the corner with carving pumpkins and putting the final touches on your scary costume a fun weekend chore for the festivities that lay ahead.
In celebration of this ghostly time, we have unmasked some of the world’s spookiest places. From checking out your favourite horror movie locations, pilgrimage sites and abandoned towns, these six places are sure to give you spine-tingling chills.
1. Ju-On “The Grudge House”, Japan
Are you a horror movie fan? Relive the terror of The Grudge films by visiting this infamous Japanese Ju-On house made famous by director Takashi Shimizu. The eerie house was the setting for all the movies in the series including Ju-On: The Grudge, its sequels and American remakes and remains abandoned to add to the creepy factor.
While you’re not allowed to enter the property, it’s still worth a visit to get close to the house, if you dare!
2. Hill of the Crosses, Lithuania
Lithuania’s Hill of the Crosses is one of the most intriguing sights in the country.
It is widely believed the crucifix-decorated site dates back to the 19th century. Since then, thousands of figures have been placed by Catholic pilgrims, ranging from crosses, statues of the Virgin Mary and holy images.
Remarkably, the site was destroyed twice under Soviet rule, but devout Catholics still dared to risk their lives to plant crosses on the scared hill.
Over 200,000 crosses stand at the hill today, a testament to the Catholic faith and resilience of the Lithuanian people.
3. Carlheim Manor, USA
This 1870s built Carlheim Manor is located in Leesburg, Virginia and has been named the ‘Fifth scariest haunted house in the country’ by Travel & Leisure in the USA.
Visitors are invited into the haunted house with Shoctober festivities. This year, the event will host virtual tours, taking avid horror fans through the haunted halls of Carlheim Manor to the basement into the Well Of Souls.
4. Bodie State Historical Park, USA
Prepare to be spooked with a visit to the Californian gold-mining ghost town Bodie. Located in Bodie State Historic Park near Mammoth Lakes, the once-thriving town had a population of 10,000. Now, only a fraction remains in the almost deserted former gold rush mecca.
The abandoned town Bodie is in a state of “arrested decay”. Buildings remain as if stuck in time, preserved only enough to keep them as close how they originally were.
Visitors to Bodie can walk down the deserted streets on a self-guided tour and peek inside the windows of abandon homes, a church, the saloon, jail and other buildings reminiscent of the Wild West from the movies.
5. Gwalia, Australia
WA’s outback can be a spooky place. The former boom town Gwalia, 235km north of Kalgoorlie is an eerie open-air museum into the past, stuck in time since its abrupt mine closure in 1963.
Dark tourism enthusiasts can wander around the mining ghost town and enter that remains of its deserted buildings, miner cottages and towering windmill. Eerie enough is that some household items and furniture remain in some of the interiors despite countless looting over the last 50 years.
6. Pripyat Amusement Park, Ukraine
This list could not be complete without mentioning Ukraine’s Pripyat Amusement Park. The park was to be opened on May 1, 1986, but when the world’s worst nuclear disaster struck at Chernobyl, it was used for a few hours as a distraction from the horrors that lay ahead with evacuating the city.
Over 50,000 residents fled the town with the town still experiencing high radiation levels and not suitable for human settlement for the next 20,000 years.
The radiation levels do not stop the curious folk visiting the deserted theme park, with the towering Ferris wheel an unsettling symbol of what was meant to be a place that radiated happiness.
Feature image: Julia D’Orazio
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