Places carmenmandadoesp Wants to Go

Tokyo’s only Ainu restaurant serves Indigenous food from northern Japan.

The legendary birthplace of the Japanese maneki-neko is dotted with hundreds of lucky beckoning cats.

Colloquially known as “piss alley,” this narrow street filled with tiny bars and barbecue stands looks like it was pulled straight out of “Blade Runner.”

A bibliophile's heaven that contains hundreds of bookstores, offering over a third of secondhand books for sale in Tokyo.

The sound of swaying stalks in this stunning grove has been named a governmentally recognized sound.

This Armenian monastery was carved out of cliffs and named after the spear used to stab Jesus.

The only residents of this abandoned housing development full of identical castles are stray cats and dogs.

Georgia’s answer to Easter Island immortalizes the nation’s great poets, artists, and leaders in stone glory.

An old department store turned Nazi prison turned artist commune.

A museum dedicated to the history of a terrifying secret police is now held in their former headquarters.

This unusual hostel provides a glimpse of life in a city under siege.

Siberian ghost town built by gulag prisoners.

This eerie sculpture overlooks what was known as the Road of Bones under Joseph Stalin.

This ritzy Italian market is built around a statue of an unforgiven heretic who was burned for his belief in an endless universe.

The final resting place of the poets Shelley and Keats.

Architectureal fantasy quarter of Rome.

This hidden Art Nouveau courtyard is an opulent feast for the eyes.

The crypts of Capuchin friars decorated with the bones of over 4,000 friars, including an entire "crypt of pelvises."

Empty, but not abandoned, this cavernous Brooklyn loading dock was once considered the largest individual building in the world.

Once America's longest-manned military fort, now an abandoned hulk.

A collection of fanzines, recordings, and documents detailing the rise and influence of the feminist punk movement.

Bowl in splendor, if you're lucky.

An uber-secure, windowless tower of doom in the center of Manhattan is an NSA spyscraper.

A decaying, yet still functioning, work of communist architecture.