A Walk along the Paris inner city Railway, abandoned since 1934

I spent my Saturday afternoon, avoiding the Parisian summer crowds and tiptoeing along the train tracks of the “Little Belt” railroad (La Petite Ceinture), a surviving relic of a bygone era, closed since 1934; open for pleasant summer strolls if you look hard enough for a way in … Built in 1862, the Petite Ceinture…

The Suburban Paris Ghost Town

Paris lies is the center of Ile-de-France, the most populated region in the country with more residents than Austria, Belgium, Greece, Portugal or Sweden alone. It boasts the world’s fourth-largest and Europe’s wealthiest and largest regional economy. But one small corner of the region paints a very different picture. Just a thirty minute drive north…

The Clandestine Paris Party Planners with a taste for the Abandoned

So, there’s planning a party and then there’s planning a party in a secret abandoned location– in Paris! You’re about to delve into the world of the most unique underground party organisers in the world… A secretive group called We are the Oracle has surfaced in the French capital in recent years, throwing once in…

Summer Camp at Chernobyl

For as far back as Google’s records go, the search word “Chernobyl” has never trended higher. In the past month, the data graph has spiked like a reading on a level 5 earthquake. Of course, it’s all down to HBO’s Chernobyl, which after only one month on air, has become the highest-rated television series of all…

New York’s First Subway was Pure Luxury

As far back as 1867, the streets of New York were always bustling with crowds of people. An ambitious engineer and businessman by the name of Alfred Ely Beach had a better idea. He wanted to transport the masses by subway. The radical idea was laughed at and initially Beach could only get a permit…

The Lost Romance of the Transylvanian Spa Town

We walked with ghosts through a crumbling spa town in the valley of the Cerna river, where Empresses and Kings of Bohemia once came to “take the waters”. An early morning mist rose from the sulphurs of the riverbed, crawling through the empty streets. Whistling through shattered windows and vast corridors, the wind seemed to…

The Remains of a Hollywood Playground Wiped off the Map

Beachfront properties custom-built for movie stars and the Hollywood elite, panoramic views from the sand dunes stretching as far as Malibu, developed as “an isolated playground for the wealthy”– Surfridge, California was once one of the most coveted neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Today, it looks like this… (c) Eyetwist on Flickr (c) Houze on Flickr (c)…

The Vault

Two Ghost Towns, One that Died and One that Survived

Bodie, California has been on my bucket list ever since I first discovered my fascination for all things lost, forgotten and abandoned. In fact, the first leg of our California road trip has been more or less centered around reaching the historic gold mining town which boomed through the late 1800s, only to become completely…

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The Ghost Shops of the Champs Elysées

It’s supposed to be “La Plus Belle Avenue du Monde” (the most beautiful avenue in the world), at least that’s what they keep telling the tourists. The Champs-Élysées has earned its reputation as one of the world’s most famous streets, a highly established Parisian centre of commerce, as well as a source of national pride. But…

Exploring Tommy Suharto’s Ghost Hotel

Of all the stories of crazed dictators and corrupt regimes built on nepotism, the Suharto legacy might just be the most scandalous. The youngest son to one of the most brutal leaders in recent history, Tommy Suharto’s tale fits somewhere on the same shelf as Pablo Escobar’s and Kim Jung Un’s. Playboy embezzler, convicted murderer,…