Unusual Places (you can visit)

WTF? Huge car-vending machine in China – customer inserts coins and out pops a car

// January 24th, 2014 // No Comments » // Unusual Places (you can visit)

Cars in the vending machine are housed on robotic-controlled platforms

Can’t say we blame them. With some of the worst pollution and only 10% of the population owning cars, a vending machine that dispenses cheap electric rental cars seems like a no-brainer to us. Wait a minute – a *vending machine* that dispense cars?!?! In Hangzhou, China, citizens walk up to the multi-story Kandi Car garage, insert their credit card, push a few buttons, and viola, a fully-charged electric vehicle is retrieved via robotic arms, tracks, and elevators and deposited at their feet.

Devil’s Kettle waterfall mystery – river water plunges into abyss and nobody knows where it goes

// January 22nd, 2014 // No Comments » // Unusual Places (you can visit)

Devil

Off a scenic Minnesota highway is a freak of nature that doesn’t take a pair of binoculars or hours of silent stalking to spot. The Devil’s Kettle Falls is located on the Brule River where the river forks at a rock outcropping to form two waterfalls. The eastern flow is pretty normal – it plunges fifty feet and continues downstream towards Lake Superior. The western flow however, tumbles thirty feet into a massive hole and disappears underground. To date, scientists and researchers have been unable to unravel the mystery of where the immense volume of water goes making the most preposterous theory, that the water drops straight into hell, not such a fleeting notion after all.

NYC residents report hearing a spooky chilling chorus of voices coming from new One World Trade Center

// December 3rd, 2013 // No Comments » // Unusual Places (you can visit)

Plane crashing into World Trade Center

The first reports came via social networks in late October 2012 during Hurricane Sandy. Puzzled New York City residents reported hearing a strange sound, described as a steady, consistent moaning noise, coming from One World Trade Center (formerly known as Freedom Towers). Users discussed the odd noise and decided it was the wind whistling through the top, unfinished floors of the new One World Trade Center tower. Then a few months later, another resident, New Yorker Kenny Cummings, reported hearing the strange sound – after the tower was substantially completed and the façade enclosed with glass. His “unmistakable and very chilling” recording captures the sound that has baffled New Yorkers since last year.

“Island of the Dolls” – site of little girls death is adorned with hundreds of creepy, dead-eyed dolls hanging from the trees

// October 30th, 2013 // No Comments » // Unusual Places (you can visit)

Tiny souless doll hanging on Island of the Dolls

It’s a common theme in horror movies – creepy, dead-eyed dolls dangling from a cord hung from a tree. If the scenario gets your chest a thumping, you may want to visit Mexico’s Isla de las Munecas, or Island of the Dolls, where the entire island looks like it came straight from a horror movie film set. And the story of how the strange and scary island came to be is even creepier than the hundreds of eerie mutilated dolls dangling from the island’s trees.

The mysterious Room 322 in Houston’s luxurious Hotel ZaZa – unlisted private room looks like a snuff film set

// October 28th, 2013 // No Comments » // Unusual Places (you can visit)

Room 322 in Houston

The mysterious Room 322 inside Hotel ZaZa in Houston, Texas is not listed for rent but was exposed in February 2013 when a travelling business customer was accidentally placed in the room by mistake and quickly took pictures of the room which, with cold dirty concrete floors, chains on the walls, skull and bones paintings, two-way mirrors, and plastic wrapped furniture, looks like the foreboding film set for a dark snuff movie. A forum user, who posted pictures of the bizarre room in a public forum, posed the question, “Does anyone know what’s up with this room?” and commenced describing his bizarre experience inside the dark and foreboding room.

Forgotten migrant workers live cheaply in bizarre Chinese “shipping container city”

// August 21st, 2013 // No Comments » // Unusual Places (you can visit)

Shanghai, China Shipping Container village

Soaring property values in China have some Chinese living like hamsters in tall stacks of shipping containers. For less than $80 a month, rural migrants can rent out a stark steel metal container on the outskirts of Shanghai. In 2001, officials tore down a similar container village in Pudong, consisting of over 100 “homes”, because it was “too dangerous”. The teetering stack of containers in Shanghai has been housing Chinese migrant workers for over a decade.

NICK BEEF mystery solved – the man behind (not under) the gravestone located next to Lee Harvey Oswald’s

// August 11th, 2013 // No Comments » // Unusual Places (you can visit)

Headstones of Lee Harvey Oswald and Nick Beef

For years, curiosity seekers visiting the grave of Lee Harvey Oswald have wondered about the near identical headstone next door, marked “NICK BEEF”. The rectangular markers are the same size, each bearing only a name, with no inscription for date of birth or death. But there is one big difference between the two graves – Nick Beef’s is empty. Who is Nick Beef?

This is why Hong Kong’s most dangerous airport was shut down 15 years ago

// July 8th, 2013 // No Comments » // Unusual Places (you can visit)

Crashed plant at Kai Tak Airport

Opened in 1925 and renowned for its notorious “Hong Kong Turn” and a spate of deadly accidents, the dangerous Kai Tak Airport (also known as the Hong Kong International Airport) was shut down on July 6, 1989. Kai Tak’s runway jutted out into the sea and its descent required a sharp turn between Hong Kong skyscrapers and nearby craggy mountains. Providing the ultimate test for pilot’s skills, accidents were frequent and included planes crashing into the sea and clipping the sides of skyscrapers as they made their approach. Below are a set of pictures that provide ample reasons for its shuttering 15 years ago.

Neptune Memorial Reef – Florida’s bizarre underwater cemetery reminiscent of Atlantis

// June 4th, 2013 // No Comments » // Unusual Places (you can visit)

Florida

The Neptune Memorial, also known as the Atlantis Memorial Reef, is an underwater cemetery located three miles off the coast of Key Biscayne, Florida. At over 16 acres in size, it is also the world’s largest man-made reef built to hold the remains of over 125,000 people. Persons buried in the Atlantis Memorial Reef are cremated and their ashes mixed with concrete to form 10-pound sculptures of starfish, shells, coral, and other Atlantis-themed shapes. A copper and bronze memorial plaque, etched with the person’s name, date of birth and death, is then attached to the object which is fixed to the reef to create the “features” that make the underwater cemetery so unique.

More Eerie pictures of cool abandoned places (some you can still visit)

// April 9th, 2013 // No Comments » // Unusual Places (you can visit)

Kolmanskop ghost town in Germany

There’s something about abandoned places that sparks a bit of imagination, and heartache, in all of us. Below are more eerie, but beautiful, abandoned places, some of which you can still visit.

Dashrath “Mountain Man” Manjhi – a man single-handedly moves a mountain in a labor of love for his lost wife

// January 28th, 2013 // No Comments » // Unusual Places (you can visit)

Dashrah Manjhi working to move the mountain

Dashrath Manjhi, a poor laborer from the Gahlour village near Gaya in Bihar, India, known also as “Mountain Man”, lost his wife, Phaguni Devi, who was unable to be taken to the nearest health care center on time for immediate treatment as the nearest road to the city was 70km long (43 miles) long. Vowing to solve the problem himself, Dashrath set out on a labor of love, and swore to move mountains in order to ensure nobody else would experience trouble obtaining medical treatment from the nearest town. So Dashrath sold his goats and purchased a chisel, rope, and a hammer and set out on the near impossible task of cutting through a 300-foot high mountain in order to create a 1 kilometer passage for travelers.

Exploring LA’s dark, abandoned subway system located deep underneath the city of Los Angeles

// January 5th, 2013 // No Comments » // Unusual Places (you can visit)

Old LA subway system tunnel

For those who didn’t know, LA does indeed have a subway system although the geographical dispersion of LA residents doesn’t make it a very popular choice for moving about the city. Still, in the 1940’s, over 65,000 riders used the LA subway system, a system that has since been abandoned after the new lines were built. Entrances to the underground system have been sealed but readers have noted there are a few ways you can still get in. Unsealed entrances are typically located behind locked gates or inside the old subway system’s boarded-up terminals. Here’s a collection of photos from the old LA subway system.

Route 66

// December 27th, 2012 // No Comments » // Unusual Places (you can visit)

Historic Route 66 – the highway that spawned a dozen movies, a TV show, and a hit song, can still be traveled today. With a little advanced planning, you can travel the historic route and still drive along some of the original sections of the infamous highway.

Post, Texas

// December 27th, 2012 // No Comments » // Unusual Places (you can visit)

Welcome to Post Texas sign

Few people are aware of CW Post’s unusual project to create a perfect, utopian town – Post, Texas. His project, meant to be a means of relaxation for him, would end up further diminishing his health and eventually would be the root cause of his death.

The Winchester Mystery House

// December 26th, 2012 // No Comments » // Unusual Places (you can visit)

The Winchester Rifle, “the rifle that won the West”, was a revolution in gun design. Designed and developed by Oliver Winchester and utilized by the United States’ military branches, the gun’s unique lever action design produced unrenowned riches for Oliver and his heirs. After a series of tragedies drove one of the heirs to madness, the spoils of war were used to build one of the most unusual homes in the United States.

« Older Entries