5 Spooky Places On Earth That Look As If They’re From Nightmares

All around the Earth there are places that look and feel both terrifying and unsettling, quite similar to places that usually haunt our bad dreams. Sometimes they are naturally created to look that way, sometimes they are man-made. They all have one thing in common – you get scared instantly, and the places always give off a disturbing aura that haunts any who visits or lays eyes on the area. If you’re adventurous, want to go ghost hunting or just really like creepy vacation places, you should definitely visit every single weird scary place from this list.

5. Kolmanskop, Namib Desert

Have you ever had a nightmare where you were swallowed by a sand dune? Or maybe one where you were running but never fast enough to escape, as if you were running in sand? If you’ve already got goosebumps just from reading this, you should definitely stay away from the ghost town of Kolmanskop in the Namib Desert in southern Namibia. In 20th century, the town attracted big amounts of people as there were diamonds discovered in the sand and the price of diamonds was skyrocketing at the time. It was a busy town until the prices of diamonds dropped and people moved away, leaving the town to be swallowed by sand storms. Today the buildings are slowly decaying and the sandstorms have blown sand into the buildings, making it look like the town is drowning in sand.


4. Shicheng, China

Until 1959, Shicheng was populated by 300,000 people. Then the Xin’an Dam and a hydroelectric plant were built and the whole town was flooded completely. All the buildings, some going back to 1360s, are now sitting intact under 130 feet of water. It has been called “Atlantis of the East” with a lot of architecture completely intact, the water shielding it from wind and sun. If you know how to scuba dive, you can explore the city and look at the preserved stonework.


3. Miranda Castle, Belgium

Miranda Castle was built in 1886 in Belgium by French Aristocrats who had escaped their death via the guillotine. During WWII, it was used as an orphanage and since then it is know as The Noisy Castle. It was abandoned in 1991 and there have been several attempts to put it to use again, but the owners refused to sell. The urban legend says they were cursed by the ghost of orphaned children. Nowadays the castle looks like a perfect nightmare venue – completely abandoned, ruined and very spooky.


2. Derweze, Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan is a Central Asian country bordering Afghanistan that is the home country of the Karakum Desert, commonly known as the Black Sands Desert. Not far from a town called Derweze there’s a fiery crater that the locals have started calling “The Door to Hell.” It is 225 feet wide and 99 feet deep and although it resembles the entrance to hell, it’s actually a natural gas fire. The country hopes they can turn it into a tourist attraction.


1. Hoia Baciu Forest, Transylvania, Romania

Romania’s Hoia Baciu forest, commonly known as the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania first gained international notoriety in 1968 after a biologist took a picture of a UFO flying over it. However, the forest itself is way spookier than the UFO sightings. Misshapen trees, part of the forest completely devoid of trees and paranormal researchers completely certain it is a place where strange activity happens all make it one of the creepiest places on earth. People who have visited the forest have come back feeling extremely anxious, with strange rashes, unexplained cuts and burns, even nausea and memory loss. Locals swear there have also been cases of people going in and never coming back. You might want to avoid this one.