In this Guide
Beyond the famous landmarks, there are places that will leave you wondering how or why they even exist. If you're the type of traveller who craves the bizarre or unusual, the world has plenty of strange attractions that will satisfy your curiosity.
From quirky museums filled with oddities to haunted spots with creepy histories, these places challenge conventional tourism and may change the way you see the world.
And, if your journey gets a bit too spooky or your travel plans take an unexpected turn, it might be wise to consider a travel insurance quote for added peace of mind.
Chauchilla Cemetery, Peru
If you enjoy visiting cemeteries, head to Peru’s Nazca Desert to get a glimpse of a graveyard that dates back over a thousand years. Chauchilla Cemetery is a unique burial place in that the bodies of its residents are left uncovered in open-air tombs.
The mummies of Chauchilla lie in an incredibly well-preserved state, many of the bodies sitting upright, still with a full head of hair, attached skin, and wearing the original garments they were buried in. Despite being in shallow open-air graves exposed to the elements, the dry desert climate keeps them remarkably intact. Surrounding the shallow graves, the ground around the cemetery is littered with human bones and pottery chards that lay scattered across the desert thanks to grave robbers over the centuries.
Once you’ve had enough of the mummies, you can then take to the skies to enjoy a scenic flight over the famous Nazca Lines. These geoglyphs are an archaeological enigma, featuring immense shapes of local animals, geometric patterns, and cultural elements created by Indigenous peoples as far back as 500 BC.
Sedlec Ossuary, Czech Republic
Located in the town of Kutná Hora, East of Prague, lies a chapel that is anything but your typical place of worship. Sedlec Ossuary, also known as the “Bone Church,” this morbid yet fascinating chapel contains the bones of over 40,000 people who succumbed during the Black Death and were later exhumed.
But the bones of these poor souls aren’t kept in crypts or tombs, rather they are proudly displayed as artistic design elements throughout the church. The most impressive is a giant chandelier that is said to contain every bone in the human body. Skulls and bones line the walls and hang from the ceilings, and there’s even a coat of arms made entirely of human bones.
Visitors can catch a short train from Prague to see the chapel and join a daily guided tour experience of this unique and memorable site. While it may be grotesque, it’s equally intriguing and may challenge your perceptions of death and the afterlife.
Red Beach, China
Most of us are familiar with uniquely coloured beaches, such as those with black, pink, or even purple-hued sand. China’s Liaohe River Delta offers a red beach, but it’s unlike any beach you’ve likely come across.
In fact, you won’t find any coloured sand at all, rather a vast marshland covered in a type of tidal plant that takes on a crimson red colour. Normally green in spring and summer, the marshland transforms into a sea of red that stretches as far as the eye can see each autumn. The easiest way to see the famous “Red Beach” is to book a guided tour as a day trip from cities like Shenyang or Dalian. The scenic area is visited by many tourists each year, who come to walk the network of boardwalks that cross the marsh.
And, humans aren’t the only ones to visit either, as hundreds of bird species, including beautiful, red-crowned cranes stop at this location, which is part of the East Asia-Australasia Flyway migration route.
Bubblegum Alley, USA
The next attraction on our list is sure to land you in a sticky situation. Situated in San Luis Obispo, roughly midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, is California’s famous Bubblegum Alley.
This quirky attraction is exactly as it sounds: an alley with 5-metre-high walls that extend over 20 metres, completely covered in used chewing gum left by countless visitors over the years.
The wall is quite colourful, yet a bit unsettling. Some see it as art, while others see it as an unsanitary monstrosity. Whatever your thoughts are, the gum is likely set to stick around for some time, just as it has for the past 70 years or so since the tradition began.
This is your chance to add your personal touch to what has become a worldwide community art project. No two visits are ever the same since gum is continually being added every day. So be sure to pack some gum (and maybe a pair of sanitary gloves) if you plan to contribute to the wall.
Hashima Island, Japan
If post-apocalyptic settings are more to your liking, then Japan’s Hashima Island is a must-see. Known locally as Gunkanjima or “Battleship Island” due to the island’s resemblance to a giant sea vessel, Hashima Island offers a unique chance to explore an eerie ghost town in the middle of the sea.
Once a busy coal mining community, considered to be one of the most densely populated places on Earth, the island was abandoned in the 1970s and left to sit frozen in time. Today, it’s a wasteland of crumbling buildings and concrete structures, home only to seabirds nesting in the decaying buildings.
Guided boat tours now allow visitors to explore this ghost town, as the eerie island was off-limits, which also made a cameo in the James Bond movie Skyfall. Whether you’re a photographer, a history buff, or simply a fan of dystopian settings, a trip to this isolated island is sure to be an adventure you won’t forget.
Museum of Bad Art, USA
Art museums usually showcase the masterpieces of the world’s most skilled artists, but at the Museum of Bad Art (MOBA) in Boston, Massachusetts, you’ll find something entirely different.
MOBA proudly offers a refreshing approach to art by displaying unusual, often quite flawed, and sometimes downright comical. This dedication to bad art features pieces with awkward compositions, eccentric subject matter, clashing colour schemes, and endless flaws regarding technical aspects of traditional art.
MOBA’s humorous take on art, with entertaining labels and descriptions, makes it a fun attraction even if you’re not usually into traditional art museums.
Housed in the Dorchester Brewing Co., in the heart of Boston, MOBA is perfect for visitors looking to enjoy a refreshing parody of what is otherwise usually an overly serious art world.
The Crooked Forest, Poland
Mother Nature can get a bit bent out of shape at times, especially in Poland’s surreal Crooked Forest. Located in West Pomerania, this bizarre woodland is home to a unique collection of 400 pine trees that all have bent trunks that curve out along the ground before pending vertically 90 degrees towards the sky, resulting in an odd J-shaped appearance.
No one knows exactly how the trees took on their unique shapes, and theories range from feasible to outlandish. Some believe heavy snow buried the trees in their infancy, while others suggest the area’s gravitational pull altered their growth. The most compelling theory is that foresters shaped the trees after planting them between 1925 and 1928 to create bent wood for furniture. The trees were likely abandoned during WWII, leaving a lasting ecological mark.
Whatever the truth is, the result is an eerie forest that looks straight out of a dark fairytale. The forest’s unusual scenery provides one-of-a-kind photo opportunities that are sure to start a conversation with your family and friends back home. We recommend you visit during the spring or summer to get the best photos and take advantage of the most optimal weather.
Sulabh International Museum of Toilets, India
Toilets, we all use them, and you are likely to even use one when visiting many of the attractions suggested on our list of bizarre attractions. But the next destination on our list is quite literally all about toilets.
New Delhi is home to the Sulabh International Museum of Toilets, a gallery that proudly displays the evolution of toilets. Thousands of years of bathroom history are covered, featuring a broad range of toilet designs and related artefacts. See latrines from the Roman period right up to Victorian-era chamber pots.
View a range of fancy urinals, high-tech bidets, large bulky wooden toilets, and less-appealing squat toilets. There are also ancient toilet reproductions on display, showing how the ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks went to the bathroom. A visit is sure to bring about a few laughs but at the same time provide insight into just how important proper sanitation and hygiene are and how our bathroom habits have evolved over the years. And yes, there are plenty of bathroom facilities available for visitors.
Venture off the beaten path to explore some of these peculiar, one-of-a-kind attractions that promise unique travel experiences. These destinations may not be on everyone's bucket list, but they are sure to offer a rare glimpse into odd creations by both humans and Mother Nature herself.
Before you embark on your next quirky Halloween-themed adventure, consider getting a travel insurance quote for added peace of mind. You never know when you might find yourself in a sticky situation like Bubblegum Alley!
