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Category / Off-Beat & Little Known

No Tickets to Burning Man? Try Amsterdam’s Deserted Island Campsite for Space Cadets

Tickets to the Burning Man Festival sold out in under an hour this year. So if you couldn’t get your tickets, couldn’t get the end-of-summer time off, or just couldn’t get yourself to travel half way across the world, here’s an alternative that might be of interest. It doesn’t require the huge commitment that Burning Man does,…

The Other “Little” Venice built by Leonardo DaVinci

It’s both little and little-known compared to Venice and it’s Grand Canal but it has a very big name attached to it. The Port-Canal in Cesenatico has stayed off the tourist radar for many years, despite its similarities to Venice. The charming port on coast of the Adriatic Sea was drawn and designed by the renaissance…

The Neighbourhood Hippie Squat that Seceded from the European Union

The story of Freetown Christiania does, in some ways, seem like a fairy tale… a druggy, twisted, modern-day fairy tale at that, but a fairy tale nonetheless. (c) Apolasos Upon entering Christiania, Denmark, situated right in the heart of Copenhagen, a carved sign reads: You Are Now Leaving the European Union. Free town Christiania is a…

Colombia’s Beloved Jeeps Loaded with Everything but the Kitchen Sink

In the Coffee Triangle of Columbia, the locals worship an unlikely icon– the Willys Jeep, America’s military vehicle of choice during World War II. Every year in the small towns of Quindío, there’s a big folkloric parade celebrating the utility vehicles, loaded with (literally) everything but the kitchen sink. They call them “Yipaos” (loaded Jeeps) and they have become…

The Cursed Italian Dreamtown

Here at MessyNessyChic, we can’t get enough of abandoned places, can we? It’s what brings us all together, a mysterious passion we share that none of us can really quite explain… Today’s story takes us to the incredible setting of an abandoned medieval village located in the region of Basilicata, about 25 miles inland…

One Village, 150 Street Artists: A Sleepy Tunisian Town turned Vibrant Open Air Museum

Everywhere you turn in Er-Riadh, there’s art. It’s everywhere. The ancient village on the Tunisian island of Djerba, has spent the last several months of high summer being slowly transformed from a sleepy, traditional little corner of North Africa that has never heard of street art, into a world stage for one of the most vibrant and ambitious…

Fake Chalets: Unmasking the Bunkers disguised as Quaint Swiss Villas

Traditional wood green shutters, lace curtains, Swiss chalet beams; all the makings of a quaint little villa in the woods. But strangely, the windowpanes don’t reflect the sunlight and on closer approach, the house looks impossibly narrow. Because this is no quaint Swiss chalet but rather a military bunker in disguise. Architectural fakery is one of…

Palestine’s Paradise: A Mediterranean Valley of Vines

These are not the rolling hills of Tuscany. This is the Palestinian village of Battir in the West Bank hills near Bethlehem; a land of olive groves, grape vines, fig trees and seven natural springs that feed ancient agricultural terraces of rich soil planted with green beans, zucchini and eggplant so sweet you can eat it like a cucumber.…

The Cliff-hanging Castle at the Mouth of a Hidden Cave Network

Riddled with secret passageways and narrow shafts into the mountainous cave network of south Slovenia, Predjama Castle is what legends are made of. Built in the 11th century, it made a name for itself when a rebellious knight, a real-life Robin Hood of sorts, locked himself inside the fortress at the mouth of a cave for a year and…

The American Theme Park Town that started as a Beer Stand in the Prohibition Aftermath

It’s highway Americana at its best and it all started in 1949 with a shocking-pink beer stand just south of the state border for the thirsty patrons of North Carolina where it was illegal to sell alcohol in its counties. Over the years, its grown from a lone beer stand into a fabulously kitsch 300…

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