You're going to have to really want it to visit this abandoned city. Kennecott produced $200 million worth of copper ore from 1911 to 1938. When the copper ran out, so did the residents.
Folks going to the Lesser Antilles may fly right past Plymouth, Montserrat, and with good reason. This capital city was vacated in 1995 because of a looming volcanic eruption. Two years later, Soufri?re Hills volcano blew its top, covering Plymouth in 40 feet of ash.
Back in 1908, Kolmanskop was a happening town. That's when the first diamond was found in the area. And not long after, there was a casino, movie theater, school, ice factory, and other modern goodies. But the city started to see its population shrink as the diamond supply was depleted.
The Gold Rush giveth, and the Gold Rush taketh away. During the late 1800s, Bodie was hopping with a reported 65 saloons at the height of the money grab. But it drew its last breath when the post office finally closed in 1942. The state of California turned the old ghost town into a historic park in the early 1960s.
Welcome to arguably the worst nuclear power disaster ever. Reactor No. 4's core at the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant exploded in late April of 1986. And Pripyat's nearly 50,000 residents were forced to leave from the nuclear fallout in the days immediately following the explosion.
Hashima Island was the place for coal in Japan. At the height of production, there were 5,000 coal miners living on this island east of mainland Japan. But when petrol became the country's choice for fuel, the island was abandoned in the mid-1970s. You cannot visit on your own but you can find tours of portions of the island.
An abandoned island near New York City? You betcha. This 20-acre island in the East River was built up because of its isolation. Riverside Hospital was built here in the late 1800s to quarantine people with smallpox. It was even the home of Typhoid Mary during her final years.
When Route 66 was up and running, Glenrio was one of the more popular stops to get gas on the New Mexico/Texas border. But things went downhill fast with the completion of Interstate 40, which literally passed by Glenrio. The town is mostly intact and it's on the US National Register of Historic Places.
This town in Western France has one heck of a history. The original Oradour-sur-Glane %u2014 along with 642 residents including women and children %u2014 was razed by a German Waffen-SS company on June 10, 1944. Only a few survivors remained, and a new village of the same name was built not too far away.