Ruins have always fascinated me. What was this place, or building, or bridge, or sometimes an entire city? What was it like when it was still functional and vibrant? What happened there? Who lived there? What was its function? What triggered its demise? Littered all around the world, ruins are quite enthralling, no matter how big or small, from the bell tower of St. Magdalene Mary in Budapest, for example, to the eerily silent columns at Windsor Plantation in Port Gibson, Mississippi. When I visit them, I’m always in awe of their stories and their ability to hang on in the face of natural and manmade forces that continually eat away at them. Read about the top five ruins >
Tag Archives: Kolmanskop
Namibia’s Diverse Attractions Promise Something for Everyone
Upon landing in Windhoek on my very first day in Africa, I knew this would be a markedly different type of vacation. After all, it’s not every day that you spy a family of baboons along the road just outside the airport of a capital city or a couple of feral horses galloping through a punishing landscape. Over the next two weeks, surprises and indelible moments unfolded (you will never be unable to forget the frisson you feel the first time you see a 20-foot-tall giraffe pop up from behind a tree just a few feet from your car), and Namibia very quickly started to surpass all my expectations. With a broad range of sites and activities, from lolling about on lazy afternoons on a beach along the Atlantic Ocean to skydiving over the orange dunes of the Namib Desert, this country in southwestern Africa offers plenty of activities for everyone. Read about the top five things to see and do in Namibia >
The Eeriest Places on Earth
If you’re planning to visit a fabricated haunted house for Halloween, or to attend a party in a costume that’s anything but frightening, I have an alternative: Go to an authentic ghost town. These abandoned places teem with vacated, decaying buildings and with the spirits of a long-vanished population. You’re unlikely to run into a vampire or a sexy French maid; a rolling tumbleweed is more probable, or the hint of an odd susurration carried on the wind that blows through the silence of these eerie, deserted places. You can find them all over the globe, from Chile to Italy to Japan, and they will give you a thrill, and a chill, like no other locations in the world. Read about the top five ghost towns >

