10 Most Magical Destinations To Visit This Winter

Planning a holiday? Why settle for sun, sand and surf, when you can visit deserted, magical lands full of radioactive leaks, evil curses and scenic asylums? Choose your destination from 10 of the world’s best.

- Dilvin Yasa

Kolmanskop, Namibia

It’s hard to say what’s the most depressing feature of this Kolmanskop tour—seeing this once-glamorous Germanic town slowly disappear beneath dunes of sand, or the museum of old mining implements— considered the cornerstone of the tour. Admittedly, this former diamond mine—abandoned in 1954 after supplies were exhausted—does have an interesting past. Even though it’s located in the middle of the Namib Desert, it was built to look like a quaint German village so that the German staff would feel right at home. After you buy a permit at the town’s front gate to enter, you too can feel right at home— but only if by right at home you mean walking once grand residences knee-deep in sand.

Prypiat, Ukraine

Nothing says ‘holiday’ quite like donning a radiation suit and signing a lengthy waiver releasing the tour company of any liability should you contract cancer as a result of your visit. Then again, Prypiat— affectionately known as ‘The Dead Zone’—is hardly your average holiday town. Established in the early 1970s, primarily to service the nearby Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Prypiat’s 49,360 residents were hastily evacuated one day after the 1986 nuclear disaster and it has remained abandoned—and highly radioactive—ever since. Yes, the rules of visiting are long (no touching of vegetation, no placing bags on ground, etc…), but not only will you get to see the land slowly reclaim the town’s amusement park, pool and schools, you’ll also be treated to both lunch (made from ‘clean food from the outside’) and a radiation screening on conclusion. Yay!

Hashima Island, Japan