Places meredithp Wants to Go

Japanese island famous for poison gas and fluffy bunnies.

This neighborhood thoroughfare is haunted by dozens of homemade monsters.

Once the most densely populated place in the world, this island is now a ghost town.

A magical place that lets you play in and explore the world of Studio Ghibli.

On Japan's Tashirojima Island, cats are king.

A surprising and unconventional mosque hidden in the subsoil of Istanbul.

Housed in an old British jail, this spot serves up Georgian, Russian, and Ukrainian specialities with a side of Turkish history.

A small etching on the white marble parapet was written in runic script by a Viking mercenary.

This museum was invented in a novel before being made real by the author.

A meow-velous tribute to a beloved street cat, made famous on the internet.

These tombs were built into the side of a mountain so that ancient angels could reach the dead.

This abandoned asylum was once a state of the art facility before devolving into one of the most deadly mental institutions in American history.

This unassuming passageway played a key role in one of the most important events in U.S. history.

A surprising, but overlooked example of geology in the middle of the nation’s capital.

This restaurant has been a haven for D.C.'s LGBTQ community since the 1950s.

A line of blue paint marks the route of the inaugural parade.

The elevator that makes it possible to fly American flags in bulk over the U.S. Capitol

A portal into the bricked up canal that runs through the heart of Washington D.C.

A hidden passageway now marks the site of an assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan that some say broke a 140-year-old curse.

Before Metro, Washington had a robust streetcar network—and you see the remains of this infrastructure if you know where to look.

Daredevil repair workers can worm their way out the access hatch, loop ropes over the apex and rappel down the monument.

There just so happens to be a court even higher than the U.S Supreme Court: a basketball court in the building itself.

Before founding the American Red Cross, Clara Barton had a tremendous humanitarian impact by locating thousands of missing soldiers.

100 years later, they're still down there.