5 of the Strangest Places in America (You Can Actually Visit)
5 of the Strangest Places in America
America does strange better than anywhere else.
Not the manufactured kind—the gift-shop weirdness—but places that exist because someone believed in something a little too much, or a landscape refused to behave, or history took a sharp left turn and never corrected itself.
These are five of the strangest places in the United States. They’re real. They’re open to visitors. And once you see them, they’re hard to forget.
1. Bishop Castle — Rye, Colorado
A medieval fortress built by one man, with no blueprint and no finish line
Hidden in the mountains of southern Colorado, Bishop Castle looks like a hallucination dropped into the forest. Towers rise unexpectedly. Iron dragons breathe smoke. Staircases climb to unnerving heights.
Jim Bishop has been building this castle alone since 1969—by hand, without permits, crews, or an end date. You can climb nearly all of it, feeling the rawness of a structure that has never been tamed into an attraction.
5 of the Strangest Places in America (You Can Actually Visit)
2. The Mystery Spot — Santa Cruz, California
Where gravity quietly stops behaving
At the Mystery Spot, balls roll uphill. People appear to shrink or grow depending on where they stand. Physics, at least the version you’re used to, takes the afternoon off.
Whether it’s illusion or anomaly doesn’t matter. What matters is the feeling that reality is slightly off—and that it’s doing it on purpose.
3. Centralia — Pennsylvania
A town abandoned because the ground is still on fire
Centralia looks like a ghost town—and it is—but not because of economics or war. Beneath the cracked roads and empty hills, an underground coal fire has been burning since 1962.
Steam seeps from the earth. Streets disappear into grass. The fire could burn for centuries, turning Centralia, Pennsylvania into one of the most unsettling places in America.
4. Slab City — California
An off-grid settlement with no laws, no utilities, and no rules
Built on the concrete remains of a former military base, Slab City, California is home to artists, nomads, veterans, and people who opted out entirely. There’s no electricity grid, no running water, and no formal governance.
Its spiritual center, Salvation Mountain, rises brightly from the desert—part folk art, part personal manifesto.
5 of the Strangest Places in America (You Can Actually Visit)
5. Carhenge — Alliance, Nebraska
A Stonehenge replica made entirely of cars
In the middle of the Nebraska plains, vintage automobiles stand buried nose-down in the earth, painted gray and arranged to match the proportions of England’s Stonehenge.
It started as a joke. It became a landmark. And somehow, it works.
Why America Excels at Strange Places
These places weren’t built for tourists. They weren’t designed to be shared. They exist because someone followed an idea all the way to its extreme conclusion. That sincerity is what makes them unforgettable. America’s strangest places aren’t polished. They aren’t comfortable. And they aren’t trying to impress you. They simply exist—waiting for you to find them.
FOR FURTHER READING: Is Phoenix Worth Visiting in the Summer?