Intriguing Environs

A Saint Nicholas-themed ghost town in the Mojave desert.

An Italian crevasse filled with abandoned buildings gives visitors a look at the world without humans.

The villagers of the coldest inhabited place on Earth adjust to unique challenges presented by day-to-day living.

The studio of influential composer Charles Ives is perfectly reconstructed, hidden in the back of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

While exploring the desert, you can stop by the home of a fictional heretic from a parallel universe.

The mysterious, fantastical woodland inspiration for "The Lord of the Rings."

Once one of the largest producers of pig iron in the world.

Final resting place for hundreds of prisoners of war.

This famous city eluded concrete detection until the early 2000's.

The Vatican's secret porn-festooned bathroom was painted in erotic murals by one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance.

This rocky spread has been squeezed up directly from the bowels of the earth.

Artistic cabins actually grow deep in the Canadian wilderness.

This underground power plant looks more like a super-villian's lair than a public work.

Some of the tallest ancient American ruins continue to inspire awe and curiosity.

An out-of-place slice of France, smack in the middle of Shanghai.

An abandoned stretch of highway, deteriorating next to the operational one.

A newspaper building that made radio history.