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8 Ghost Town Near me in US & Overseas
Catalogue
- What is a Ghost Town?
- Why Are Ghost Town Abandoned?
- Why Visit?
- Town Bodie in California
- Goldfield Ghost Town in Arizona
- Calico Ghost Town in California
- Hashima Island in Japan
- Kennecott in Alaska
- Virginia City in Montana
- Ghost Town Ordos Kangbashi in China
- Pripyat in Ukraine
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Truly this article is not for the soft-hearted people who are scared of the ghost. Continue reading this article only if you’re a courageous person and have a strong heart to read about the places that might give you goosebumps and sleepless nights.
Think you’re on a camel ride on a lonely place, and you are hungry and thirsty, looking to relax. On the corner of the land, you find something, what we do? Push your camel harder to reach that place, and while moving faster and faster, the buildings start looking bigger and bigger. There is just a mile to go, and you see something is wrong in the town, you see large vacant buildings, so who will be staying??? The only occupants are the ghost of the past.
Do we believe in ghosts, oh yes and that’s why we celebrate Halloween, however how about visiting these places during Halloween, quite thrilling right? Places given here are meant to be visited at least once in our lifetime to have an experience that will last forever. Let’s get ready to know about the ghostliest towns which were once running on high economy and now have become a dreadful place. I am going to take you for a ride to 8 deadly places of the world’s ghostliest towns.
For a reason, the Ghost town is abandoned may be the fear that the ghost is the scariest part of the emotion that can harm them. The ghost town is always abandoned because of the assumption that Ghost town might be a place where the ghost lives. But in a literal sense, a place is called a ghost town when there is no economic activity, or there is a depletion in natural resources in that place, which has made the people of that place evacuate to their nearby towns and making that place a vacant dead land. This disaster might be natural or human-made disasters like floods, War, Nuclear disasters. Sometimes environmental damage caused by human-made disasters like mining the nuclear infusion can also cause people to migrate from the area to other parts, and the place becomes abandoned.
A person’s desire to experience different types of locations is on boom now, while there are plenty of locations that are hard to explore have become the tourist attraction, and guided tours are becoming more popular in those places. According to the survey, a tourist who thinks to have a unique holiday vacation is ending up choosing ghost towns as their vacation spot.
While people would opt to visit Ghost towns for a varied reason like one has to get away with the daily routine life of running behind the work and personal life and find a peaceful area. Or it might be because of curiosity that what was the history of a ghost town as all ghost towns were once a booming place. Even If you have a desire to explore this kind of place for a reason, then gather likeminded people and start planning for your adventurous visit to the 8 of the world’s ghost towns.
Town Bodie is a place located in Bodie hills to the east of Sierra Nevada. This place had become a boom town in 1876 after the discovery of a profitable line of gold. Bodie town had nearly 10,000 residents in the 1870s with almost 2000 buildings, and it was the second-largest city in 1880. This town got its name by a man named Waterman S. Body, who coincidently discovered small amounts of gold. The gold mine was closed in 1913, and after that consistent decline in the civilization lead to declaring Town Bodie into a ghost town in 1915.
The things that attract you at this place are the Body cemetery, which has 80 headstones of locals who lived and died in the town,
Buildings of Bodie, which gives a tourist glimpse of the gold rush in the city and business that were running in the town. Bodie Store is a book store in a ghost town, and they sell books about the ghost town and also one can ask for maps of the town and also cemetery that was alive in the town.
The names itself explain the gold mining, which, is famous in Arizona. People love to visit these places because it is famous for reenactments, wagon rides, activities and to explore the charming beauty of the city. The goldfield is situated between the 2-small hill, Superstition Mountain, and Goldfield mountain. The Gold here was discovered in 1892. When the new miners arrived in the city, the goldfield has boomed, and the supply was vast. Due to the more miners the quality of the gold dropped, and hence the Miners moved on. And that’s how it eventually became a ghost town despite having a good tenacious miner in the town. And then, after the entry of George young in Arizona, who was a governor, brought new mining methods, and then the goldfield slowly came back to its position. So now we know why it was called a Gold Field Ghost Town. You have beautiful bird watching the view and the superstition ziplining to travel and explore more about the place.
The Calico Ghost town was a silver mining town before which is situated in the san Bernandino county; the closest civilization near Calico is 3 miles away in Barstow and 3 miles away in Yermo. It was a silver mining town during the 1880s, which saw its decline in 1890s due to drop in the silver price. But after 60 years, the restoration of the town started by Walter Knott, but even today, one can see the original buildings that were there during Calico Civilization. Now it is converted as a country park and known by the same name, Calico Ghost town.
Tourists can take a glimpse of the old post office, school, and a silver mine, Maggie mine, which is only to silver mine that is safe for a tourist to see. One can opt for a guided tour that takes you through the history, civilization, equipment used, and also the technique used during those days for mining. Tourists can also take part in a spooky ghost tour.
Hashima is commonly called Gunkanjima, which means Battleship island in Japanese language, and this island is 15 km away from the city of nuclear disaster Nagasaki. Hashima is a reminder of the forced labor that was performed during world war 2. The primary reserve in Hashima was the coal mine, which was started in 1887, and island had reached its highest population of 5259 in 1959. But when the coal depletion started in 1974 and people started to move out, this island became abandoned. Now this place has gained to be one of the most visited tourist spots in Japan, and this Hashima island became the UNESCO World Heritage site in July 2015. Only a small portion of the island is open to the public but has gained a unique attraction because of the unique rapid industrialization, and if you have seen a James Bond “Sky Fall” then visiting this island would make you remember some of the scenes of that movie.
In June 1998, there was the national park service, which took over many popular buildings and the lands in the historic town, and that is Kennecott in Alaska. It is one of the towns which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The most prominent thing in Kennecott is the Copper Mines, which was the National Historic Landmark situated in the lands of Wrangell-St. Copper in Kennecott. It was very popular during the age of inventions of electricity & telephones. While exploring the greatest glacier, Jacksmith and Clarence Warren founded the richest amount of copper, and this is how the copper mining became very famous in Kennecott. After we know the history now, it is time to take our visitors to know the things that one can do in Kennecott, Alaska. Even though copper mining has declined in this place, but we have a beautiful national park, “Wrangell-St Elias National Park” and their preserve. The most adventurous things to do are Glacier trekking, Whitewater Rafting and more.
You can visit anytime between May to September. The place would be waiting for tourists to explore and know about the place.
The Virginia city is much of a live ghost town in Virginia City. There are no more colorful pioneer mining camp exist here. Virginia city is a beautiful area; this is located at the natural beauty, recreation, and entertainment. This city has a well-preserved gold mining town, which is just 20 miles west of Yellowstone national park. Before in 1864 this city is meant to have a population of 10000, but now the current, is just 132 because of the exploitation in the gold mining and when gold mining started declining there was still enough left so that many homes and business are occupied, but the effort to restructure this city went into ruin. And now people here are either dependant on the tourist attraction or travel to other cities for their daily needs. There are a lot of guided tours that offer a tour guide to Virginia city from Nevada, and one can explore the historic dressing style, their working skills, and also the old technique used for gold mining. These demonstrations are good to see for all ages. Tourists can also experience the oldest operational Opera house, Live music and brewer follies in Virginia city. If you’re hungry and looking for a slice of pizza or want to sit down and have a good meal, the tour guides will usually include in their trips. If you have plans of visiting Yellowstone park, then make sure you at least have a day time to explore the stunning ghostliest town in the city of Montana.
China’s ambitious plans for urban growth have led more than 50 abandoned ghost towns in China in which the Ordos has become the largest ghost town of China. The Ordos, which is also known as Kangbashi was once a gold rush and cash town. Coal Mining was the boom and became very famous, where government had vision to make an epic center for culture and their economy. There were around 1 million residents and plans of accommodating at least 3 million people; by this vision, local government keeps borrowing and borrowing money to build more and more buildings, but as bad luck it has become waiting city where people did not migrate to ordos.
A good trip to Ordo would say as a matter of boldness where one can see the school, different apartments, and a hospital which is greeted by a security guard who looks rejoiced by finally seeing someone. The Ordos has built big schools to serve thousands of students, but it is serving only hundreds, to the matter of fact ordos even do have a spaceship-shaped airport to visit the strangest place in china. And again, this is also one of the Ghostliest towns in the world, out of which we should take a chance to travel.
The Pripyat is a ghost town located near northern Ukraine, near to Ukraine – Belarus border. The name has come because of the place nearby Pripyat River. The city was proclaimed in the year 1979, and the population was about 49360 by the time it was evacuated on the afternoon of April 27, 1986, because of the explosion of the nuclear reactor called Chernobyl disaster (Nuclear accident). The result of the explosion is such horrible that nature has taken the city completely because of the radiation that has come from the explosion.
If you have planned to visit Pripyat ghost town individually, then my answer is NO. Only a guided tour is an option to explore Pripyat ghost town. Even if you are going with a guided tour, there are lot of safety measures that should be considered during your travel like a long sleeve top, long pants, and closed shoes. Still there is lot of soil and dust that are contaminated due to nuclear radiation, so don’t keep your belongings on sand or dust because while on exit everyone is scanned under radiation control checkpoint. If a tourist is expecting unusual travel experience of his trip then this is one of the places and if you are going to a place and learn practically instead of media truth then for you it’s an education tour, whatever the reason it is. This place in Ukraine will sure give you a different experience on your trip.
For a reason, all the ghost towns tell you a story of disaster and remind about the tragic events that have occurred in the place once a while. Visiting this place will teach all the tourists about the history of these ghostliest places, how the situation went wrong and those places were re-born. There are many such places out of which the above places are few, which is famous and listed as the world’s ghostliest places. The people who visit these places are meant to experience challenges, braveness, adventure and knowledge sharing of a past and the present. So, my recommendation for the tourists to plan their trip accordingly to visit at least one of the ghostliest places in the world. This gives the lifetime memory which reminds you about the challenges taken in your life and surely a cherishable moment for all the age groups.
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