5 Off-Beat Reasons to do a Weekend in Belgium

MessyNessyChic and the team (of two) took a winter weekend break from Paris and hit the road for Belgium, visiting Bruges, followed by Antwerp. And since we had such an awesome time, we thought we might share a few travel notes from our off-beat finds… 1. ‘Secret Bruges’ Bruges had me fooled. I was waiting…

The Vault

The Last Days of Doel: A Ghost Town in Purgatory

When we headed out of Antwerp, following the road signs to Doel, we didn’t even know if it would still be there when we arrived. The small town was supposed to have been wiped off the map more than a decade ago when it was officially scheduled for complete demolition. This is one ghost town…

Pssst! You've stumbled across content that is exclusive to Nessy's Keyholders.

There’s a new way to access the really special stuff from Messy Nessy Chic …

Hidden beneath the surface layers of the internet, there’s a place where we keep our most secret addresses, untapped archives, creator’s inspiration, collector’s guides, explorer’s manuals, obscure research and much more… And it’s made for our keyholders only!

Apply now to unlock the Vault

Keyholder Login

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. XLVI)

1. Found under the carpet “Pulled up the carpet at the house, and guess what I found”– submitted by Reddit user Nnewel. 2. Unseen Photos Of Rolling Stones Discovered At US Flea Market Lauren White, whilst rummaging around her local flea market in Los Angeles, California, stumbled upon a collection of 23 photographs…

The Oil Man

“I‘m a pimp. I sell it and I’ve still got it. So that makes me a pimp.” Step into the world of Jim Rodgers. He’s in one of the oldest professions and he’s doing it the ‘old school’ way. In fact, Jim likes everything old, except his women. Filmed in Kilgore, Texas in the good…

The Last Japanese Mermaids

For nearly two thousand years, Japanese women living in coastal fishing villages made a remarkable livelihood hunting the ocean for oysters and abalone, a sea snail that produces pearls. They are known as Ama, and if you’ve dipped into Messy Nessy’s archives, you will have already met the few ladies still left in Japan that…

Night of the Living Dead: Revenge of the Abandoned

There’s only one way we celebrate Halloween on this website, and that’s by feeding our thirst for the abandoned and forgotten. But on the spookiest day of the year, there was only one explorer I could turn to– the master of abandoned night photography, Troy Paiva of Lost America. Troy has been at it for over…

California’s Best Kept Secret: A Century old Subterranean Garden

Fresno, California tends to be one of those cities that people are ‘just passing through’ on their way to see something else. But pass through too quickly and you’ll miss out on a little secret subterranean paradise… More of an underground mansion, the Forestiere Gardens are a manmade creation of sprawling subterranean passageways, courtyards and…

Sorry, this American Gypsy Airstreamer is Not Yours

Sometimes, full-on bohemian decor, a.k.a, shabby chic, can be just a little ‘too much’ for the home. But ya know where it’s not too much?! In a vintage Airstream trailer! Oh yeah… So this Airstreamer actually belongs to American country singer, Dierks Bentley who had it lying around in a bit of a run-down state…

The Travelling Library of Sketchbooks

“It’s like a food truck where you get sketch books instead of Tacos”. So here’s one of those projects that makes you wonder, how does something like this manage to exist? The Sketchbook Project is an innovative art project that pretty much allows anyone to participate in art and have their work seen by people all…

The Last Inn on the Sea

This house might look just a tad precarious for a weekend escape to the beach, but it has quite the story to tell that I thought I might share with you. The photograph above was taken in 2009 when the house had been reluctantly declared a nuisance and condemned by the Rodanthe community on Hatteras…