Intriguing Environs

Unexplained bald patches in the landscape grow and recede over time, as though they are somehow alive.

This peculiar lake of pitch is so thick and viscous that one can walk on its surface.

A breathtaking canyon offers stunning views and frightful pathways through an ecological paradise.

Numerous sculptures set along hiking trails symbolize and idealize the relationship between man and nature.

New Preston and Kent, Connecticut - where Friday the 13th, Part 2 was filmed.

Walk through depictions of the torture inflicted on those who go to Buddhist hell.

The quaint little Vermont town played a quaint little Connecticut town in Tim Burton's "Beetlejuice."

The ghost town that was one of New Hampshire's first settlements now exists as a park detailing its history.

Eyam took steps to quarantine themselves and keep the plague from spreading.

This chest hospital with a dark, haunted past serves as a fitting set for horror films and a paradise for ghost hunters.

Avoid gangster interaction while window-shopping.

Lie in a hammock where George Washington stood.

Made famous by cable TV, this oddball collection of antiques and collectibles is a cut above the rest.

A historic house in St. Louis was plagued by a series of suicides committed by family members involved in a successful brewery.

Walk into the 19th century without leaving Brooklyn.

A mailbox that saved a nature reserve.

Former island in the Aral Sea used to be a top-secret Russian bio-weapons facility.

An entire town preserved as a historic landmark.