33 Ghostly Locations Beautiful—and Deeply Unsettling

33 Haunting Photos of Abandoned Places Around the World – Travel Caribou
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Destinations
Hotels
Offbeat
Destinations
Hotels
Offbeat
33 Haunting Photos of Abandoned Places Around the World
By
Paul G
/ Offbeat
1. The Ghost Town Of Craco, Italy
Perched high in the craggy hills of Matera, in spectacular southern Italy, Craco is a ghostly place. This was once a thriving town, its location boasting strategic defensive benefits during times of strife, but whilst hostile raiders struggled to penetrate its walls, Mother Nature had no such issues.
Straddling various fault-lines, Craco was flawed from the beginning. The town having long been abandoned, coming here is a creepy experience. Craco was evacuated in 1963 following a devastating landslide and, although some residents did return once the danger had passed, their days here were numbered. Following an earthquake in 1980, the town was abandoned entirely.
These days, it is a place of ancient tombs and crumbling stonework, a ghost town of decaying buildings and empty streets, where tourists are drawn, but few come alone. Thinking about paying a visit to Craco? Be prepared to be unnerved.
2. Uyuni Train Cemetery, Bolivia
Cementerio de Trenes – aka the Great Train Graveyard – is a haunting place. Located on Bolivia’s desolate salt flats, countless locomotives litter the landscape here, rusted and decaying, and never to take to the tracks again.
This is a place for train buffs – although the sight that awaits can be distressing. Once-great engines have been allowed to rot beyond all recognition. It feels like such a waste. Uyuni – just three kilometres from here – was meant to be a major transportation hub linking South America’s great cities and connecting the continent.
Yet it never quite happened and the imported locomotives, many of them transported from Great Britain, were neglected and allowed to fall into disrepair. Long since stripped of all their valuable parts, vandalised and corroded by the salt winds, there’s something eerie about the hollow shells that remain.
3. The Dispaearing Rubjerg Knude Lighthouse
Thinking about paying a visit to Rubjerg Knude? You should hurry, for it isn’t expected to be around for much longer. Located in Jutland, on Denmark’s wild northern coast, this striking landmark has stood here since 1900.
Yet with the shifting sands and rapid erosion that continue to reshape the coastline here, the abandoned lighthouse is soon set to topple into the North Sea and disappear beneath the pounding waves forever. The other buildings that once stood here have long since been destroyed, Rubjerg Knude the last structure standing on a site that has eroded, on average, five feet a year since it was built at the turn of the last century.
The light hasn’t shone since 1968 and, the building having been abandoned in 2002, it’s only a matter of time now. Partially-buried beneath the sands, the lighthouse is getting ever closer to the edge. Before long, it too will be gone.
4. Eastern State Penitentiary Of Philadelphia
Located not far from downtown Philadelphia, ESP is a world away from the bustling city streets that lie just beyond its castle-like walls. Once renowned as the most expensive prison on Earth, the former ‘residents’ here include the infamous mob boss Al Capone.
Closed since 1971, it is a major tourist attraction and National Historic Landmark these days. Yet despite all those who head here to explore, the abandoned jailhouse remains a haunting place to visit.
Prisoners here were kept in complete isolation – eating and exercising alone and forced to exist in silence – leading countless criminals to be certified insane before their sentences had been completed. With its crumbling cell blocks and empty guard towers, ESP remains an eerie place. Take a tour – but be careful not to get locked in and left behind when the doors are closed and visiting time is over.
5. Nicosia International Airport, Cyprus
Once Cyprus’ main tourist hub, Nicosia International Airport has lain abandoned since 1974. Passengers once bustled through its state-of-the-art terminal building, but these days, it is desolate and decaying – a place of barbed wire and broken glass, where the silence is eerie, and where time has long stood still.
It was the Turkish invasion that put paid to the airport’s operation and, although the site was targeted for sustained bombing raids as conflict raged, much still remains here.
There’s a huge hangar, a long-abandoned lounge and even a rusting jet plane that still sits forgotten on the weed-strewn runway, never to depart an island that, to this day, remains divided. Stuck between the Turkish Cypriot North and the Greek Cypriot South, Nicosia International Airport is little more than a haunting no-man’s-land these days. It’s a curious location, but not a place to linger long.
6. The Decaying New Bedford’s Orpheum
Entering New Bedford’s imposing Orpheum is like taking a step back in time. This stylish theatre and movie house was opened in 1912 – on the same April day that Titanic sank, en route to the United States – but having closed its doors to customers in the 1950s, it has long been abandoned and decaying.
Located on Water Street in the small Massachusetts city, it is a significant local landmark. Yet few here get the chance to take a look behind the scenes.
Stepping inside is a haunting experience, the theatre seats empty, but much remaining from the building’s glorious hey-day. The paint is peeling and the plasterwork crumbling, yet the era’s fading grandeur still endures. The Orpheum also houses a gymnasium, shooting range and beautiful ballroom, and with much here still intact, goosebumps are guaranteed for those fortunate enough to catch a glimpse.
7. The Abandoned Spy Station In Berlin
The Cold War era lives on at eerie Teufelsberg – towering high over Berlin. The views here are to savour, but a mysterious mood persists, not surprising, perhaps, given the site’s dark past. Located in the scenic Grunewald, this is Berlin’s highest point, but despite appearances, it is not a natural hill.
Made from some 12 million cubic metres of rubble from the Second World War, the remains of 400,000 bombed German homes form the slopes here. Buried right at the bottom – gone, but not forgotten – is a former Nazi training school.
For a long time after the war, this was a US listening station and four imposing radomes still dot Teufelsberg’s unsettling summit. They’re decaying and, like the crumbling buildings that still stand, are covered in graffiti, with weeds sprouting from everywhere. Translated into English, Teufelsberg means Devil’s Mountain. Climb to the top and you’ll soon find out why.
8. The Hotel Of Doom In Pyongyang
Known to some here as the ‘Hotel of Doom’, Ryugyong towers over Pyongyang. It is the tallest building in North Korea. It is also – according to Guinness World Records adjudicators – the tallest unoccupied building on the planet.
Construction began in 1987, but ceased five years later due to an economic crisis in the secretive state. Sporadic work has been done since, but more than three decades on, the hotel remains empty. Ryugyong was supposed to signal North Korea’s status as a significant player on the world stage, but the failure to get it finished has become an embarrassment to a sensitive regime. The exterior was completed in 2011, but inside it is a different matter.
Rising 1,080 feet above the skyline, the hotel is twice the height of the Great Pyramids and can be seen from all points of Pyongyang. Bleak and unwelcoming, even by North Korean standards, don’t plan to ever stay here.
Also Read – Hotel of Doom: the place that never hosted a single guest
9. Sinister Power Station In Belgium
Image: Lennart Tange, Wikipedia Commons, Source: Flickr
Located in Monceau-sur-Sambre, the immense IM Plant once powered Charleroi and its surrounding towns and villages. Looming over all, the great tower here could cool 480,000 gallons of water per minute. It w…

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