Ghost towns

These settlements were deserted and left to deteriorate. Come, explore them with us

There’s something incredibly eerie about a town with no inhabitants, but there are many such places dotted around the world, left behind by those who once called them home. With no one remaining to maintain houses, buildings and roads, they slowly degrade over time, until one day rusted ruins and old stone structures are the only clues that humans once thrived there.

There are many reasons for an entire population to abandon a once-prosperous town, with floods, earthquakes, droughts or war driving people away for their own safety. Though both natural and human-made disasters can make an area uninhabitable, some settlements are left behind by choice when resources run out or the economy begins to collapse. Many of the world’s ghost towns started out as mining communities, but once the ground stopped providing, there was nothing left to sustain them. Others were forsaken when the construction of a new road or railway bypassed the town, with people relocating to more accessible areas.

While many places are simply left to rot away, some of these neglected locations get a new lease of life as tourist attractions, acting as town-sized time capsules frozen at the point at which the occupants moved on. Those fleeing from disaster would often need to do so in a rush, so some buildings remain fully furnished, as if the people could come back at any moment.