Places Runic Wants to Go

The demolished ruins of a poorly located Japanese Love Hotel.

Visitors to this park are welcomed by an ancient Japanese megalithic tomb that dates back to the sixth century.

This museum showcases the art of ancient sword-making.

Discover the past, present, and future of packaging in this unique Japanese museum.

A taste of the macabre Tokyo's ritzy shopping district.

Drinkslinger is an unlikely vocation for a Buddhist monk, but at this Tokyo bar the enlightenment is served in a martini glass.

Just your average Marie Antoinette–themed speakeasy in an abandoned 19th-century subway tunnel.

An imperial art museum offers edible versions of its most treasured displays in an on-site fine-dining restaurant.

If you've ever wanted to learn about the history of Asian fish balls, this Taiwanese museum has you covered.

Each winter this underground cave forms a dazzling ice palace.

Sunset-colored dunes of volcanic ash make taking a poor photo impossible.

This psychedelic tromp l'oeil seems to be beckoning drivers to crash into a wall.

This titanic steel chain linking two buildings was installed without permission but instantly beloved.

4,000 monkeys used for medical testing on an island off of South Carolina.

The house where the famed outlaw was shot by a dirty coward is now a museum to the criminal's legacy.

In the St. Francois Mountains in the Ozarks at 1,772 feet above sea level, Taum Sauk Mountain is the highest (and possibly oldest) peak in Missouri.

European castle ruins in an American state park are actually the product of death and grief.

This abandoned prison castle has become an imposing gallery of graffiti art.

An abandoned concrete jungle surrounded by a lush park.

A mysterious castle built as a monument to lost love.

Neglected resting place of some of the city's early luminaries—and a woman encased in concrete.

It turns out that a hurricane-prone beach is probably not the best place to house wild animals.

St Bernard de Clairvaux Episcopal Church, better known as one of the oldest European buildings in the Western Hemisphere.

Once the tallest building in Detroit, this Gothic church houses some of the oldest stained-glass windows in the country.