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I did a part 1 of this topic a few years ago, so I thought I’d revisit it with 13 new interesting destinations for your traveling pleasure!

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1. the village of dolls

location: Nagoro, in Iya Valley of the Tokushima Prefecture, Japan

This is actually a bit of a sad story. The village of Nagoro is slowly declining in population. Part of this is because so many residents have left and continue to leave in order to seek employment. But another part of it is due to those who have passed. In 2002, Tsukimi Ayano returned to Nagoro after many years in Osaka. She felt lonely, so she began making the dolls. Each of the 350 or so life-sized dolls represents a former resident. The school is filled with dolls, perpetually waiting for class to begin. As one walks through the village, more and more dolls appear, in places those whom they represent once frequented. The village’s living population numbers only 50 or so, the dolls the primary residents.

source: Unusual Places

2. the Salina Turda amusement park/halotherapy center

location: salt mine outside of Turda, Romania

The Salina Turda, before opening to tourists, was a fully functioning salt mine. The first mention of the mine was in the Middle Ages, and it continued to operate until 1932. In 1992, it reopened as a halotherapy center, using salt in a variety of alternative medical protocols. Later, a museum was added, as well as the mini amusement park. The park includes mini-golf, bowling, sports areas, and so much more. It even has amphitheater for movies and shows.

source: Salina Turda

3. the glass slipper church

location: Budai Township, Chiayi County, Taiwan

This is another story with sad roots. The structure is 55 feet high and 36+ feet wide, made of more than 300 tinted glass panels. It was created by local government officials, to be used for wedding photo shoots and ceremonies. Sounds happy, right? Well… the inspiration for the shoe was a local story harkening from the 1960s. A young woman contracted Blackfoot disease, which is a severe peripheral vascular ailment that affects the lower limbs with gangrene and ulcers. It often leads to amputation. That was the case with this young woman, who lost both her legs. According to the story, she never married, spending the rest of her life at a church. However, the church has not been as widespread a success as officials expected, many woman seeing it as a stereotype and objectification of women with the assumption that all women want Cinderella’s glass slipper.

source: BBC

4. the Original Beer Spa

location: Prague, Czech Republic

The spa offers all sorts of beer-centric treatments, to include beer bathing. Bathers soak in handmade, 1000-liter barrels, containing the natural extracts that are used in Czech beer-brewing. These extracts have all sorts of benefits: hop silicates for vitalization and pore opening, as well as brewer’s yeast for vitamins and active enzymes that help with skin regeneration. During the session, unlimited beer is offered, and after the bath bathers can relax on a bed of wheat straw by a fire while snacking on fresh beer bread. There is also a beer-sentric sauna offered. They even offer a line of beery bath and body care products! For a single person, all this costs just over $108 USD.

source: Prague, Original Beer Spa

5. Hoia-Baciu Forest

location: Transylvania in Cluj Napoca, Romania

We’re going back to Romania for this one. The forest is named after a shepherd who went missing, along with his flock of sheep, within it’s trees. In the center of the forest is a place called The Clearing, a uniform oval among the trees, in which nothing grows. It’s considered to be a hotbed of paranormal activity with a wide range of events. In 1968, Emil Barnea, a military technician, took a photo of what he claimed was a UFO, hovering just over The Clearing. It should be noted that Barnea had absolutely nothing to gain by making this claim; in reality, he lost everything. The communist government held the position that claims of the paranormal constituted not only madness but also sabotage of the state. After going public with his claims, he was fired from his job, in a country that was notoriously not supportive of the unemployed. Even today, visitors report feelings of nausea, anxiety, even the feeling that they are being watched.

source: The Independent

6. the Sedlec Ossuary

location: Kutná Hora, Czechia

The Sedlec Ossuary is a 2-story Gothic church, built in the early 14th century, still an operational Catholic church. Initially, it was part of the Cistercian monastery, which no longer exists. The surrounding cemetery was huge, encompassing almost 9 acres of land. Due to the skyrocketing mortality rates of the 14th and 15th centuries, as well as the need for more free space, the cemetery needed to be revamped and reduced. Because, in accordance with the customs of the faith, the skeletal remains needed to be buried below ground, the church was built so that the Lower Chapel remained beneath the ground. Therefore, the Lower Chapel was used to house the remains, storing them in no particular order, while the Upper Chapel was used for services. In the late 1800s, František Rint, a Czech woodcarver and carpenter, was purportedly hired to organize the remains, although his identity is not certain. But he, or someone else, used the bones to create sculptures, chandeliers, and other decorative pieces. The only absolute the Ossuary gives to Rint is that he created the Schwarzenberg Coat of Arms from bones, as a thanks to the family who helped save the ossuary.

source: Sedlec Ossuary

7. Momufuku Ando Instant Ramen/CUPNNOODLES Museum

location: Ikeda, Osaka, Japan

An entire museum dedicated to ramen! You can try your hand at making ramen yourself in the Chicken Ramen Factory, then take home your instant noodles to eat. You can also visit the My CUPNNOODLES Factory to make your own original, flavored cup, using one of 4 base soups and 4 selections from the 12 varieties offered. You can also see a replica of the original workshed where Momufuku Ando first created his instant ramen. There are all kinds of ramen-themed exhibits to explore.

source: Momufuku Ando Instant Ramen/CUPNNOODLES Museum

8. Prada in the Desert

location: Valentine, Texas

This is a faux store built with the same aesthetics as the Prada boutiques, an art installation built in 2005 by Scandanavian artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset. While not commissioned by the Prada brand, Miuccia Prada appreciated it and allowed the use of the brand, even donating pieces from the 2005 Fall/Winter collection to display in its windows. It was built to deteriorate naturally without any repair or restoration, a plan that was slightly altered when vandals painted grafitti on the exterior and stole the contents inside on the very night the piece was completed. Some of said that the sculpture was intended to be a commentary on consumerism, a criticism of luxury branding. But others believe, it actually supports and reinforces the capitalist ideals it supposedly critiques.

source: Prada

9. The Mystery Spot

location: Santa Cruz, California

The Mystery Spot is a weird place. I used to live in Monterey, and I’ve visited this place. It’s… weird. Puportedly, it is a location of a gravitational anomoly, discovered in the late 1930s by a group of surveyors. There are all sorts of wild theories as to what is going on there, from space theories to science. One space theory suggests that metal cones are buried beneath the surface that are used as guidance systems for spaceships. Another space theory poses the idea that the spacecraft itself is buried in this location. On the science end of it are discussions of carbon dioxide leaks, ozone layer holes, and a slew of others.

source: Mystery Spot

10. the International Cryptozoology Museum

location: Portland, Maine & Bangor, Maine (soon to reopen)

The museum was opened in 2003 by Loren Coleman, the result of a lifelong dream to share the items he’d collected with both academia and the public. The museum contains exhibits that include potential evidentiary material, as well as plaster casts, samples, and replicas, as well as items from pop culture relation to cryptozoology.

source: ICM

11. the Danakil Depression

location, Djibouti, Eritrea, Afar regions of Ethiopia

The Danakil Depression is a natural location, the result of the continental drift between 3 African and Asian tectonic plates. This depression sits on the junction of these three plates, some 100 meters below sea level. In 1974, researchers found the remains of “Lucy” in this depression, an ancestor of modern humans that dates back some 3.2 million years. It is known as the hottest place on the planet, in terms of its year-round average temperatures. The depression contains a variety of lakes… salt, lava, and acidic. It also has acidic springs and volcanos.

source: Brilliant Ethiopia

12. Rainbow Mountain

location: Vinicunca, Peru

The mountain’s rainbow look is the result of centuries-long, sedimentary deposits that have been exposed. Sulphur, iron, and other minerals have created the brightly colored layers. As recently as 2013, the mountain was covered in snow, making the color of it a new thing. The only way to visit is through an official tour company that has permission to access the mountain. It should also be noted that expectations are often higher than reality. the reality is that weather over the mountains changes quickly, often obscuring the mountains by fog and rain.

source: Rainbow Mountain Peru, CNBC

13. Fly Geyser

location: Fly Ranch, Nevada

This is another one that I’ve actually seen, although a long time ago. The geyser is a small geothermal geyser, approximately 5 feet high by 12 feet wide. The source of its heat is a very deep pool of hot rock, and the geyser contains thermophilic bacteria and archaea that give the mound surrounding the geyser its hues of red and green. The geyser also contains unusually high amounts of silica, which, when combined with the temperature of it (often exceeding 200° F), causes quartz to form within it extraordinarily quickly, much faster than the 10,000 years that is usual.

source: Visit Reno Tahoe