Pretty open ended, as unsettling can really be anything. But what places– towns, national parks, buildings, entire regions, etc. just possess something that makes them extra eerie?
My pick is Searles Valley/Trona, CA. Tiny town in an alien landscape that just feels like something out of a surrealist nightmare.
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Abandoned prisons and mental hospitals. There are ones all over the country and they’re always eerie.
the outer banks felt surreal to me…way too flat
Death valley is terrifying. Beautiful, but I was a little on edge the whole time I was there.
Walking through rural Idaho at night. It’s literally pitch Black out aside from the light of the moon, like literally can’t even see directly in front of you, and it’s so entirely lonely and isolated. Being away from people like that was super unsettling
Empty freeways between small towns, especially at night. I’ve made a few late night drives and I’ve never felt more alone than when I was driving at night without anyone else on the road.
Centralia, PA
Ohio
Anywhere near old plantations at night or old Indian burial sites.
The woods of Appalachia at night. You’re just waiting for some horror movie shit to happen.
Cairo, Illinois. Looks like a bombed out German town in 1945. Rilpleys Belueve It Or Not should buy the whole town.
Centralia, Pennsylvania.
A coal mine fire has been burning for decades and has caused the place to become mostly abandoned.
Salton Sea. Looks like something straight out of Fallout.
Once you’re truly alone on roads with literally no one, little light pollution like Slope County ND. Wait for dark and stare at the stars.
When have you ever been truly more than a mile from another human being?
Not terribly far from your choice, but Daggett, California. I had to drive through it in the dead of night due to a bad accident closing part of the 15 freeway on the way to Vegas.
It looks like something out a bad 80’s horror movie
Gary, Indiana
I’ve got two: driving at night in the Berkshires in western Mass, and similarly driving at night on the backroads in the Hockomock swamp area in eastern Mass. You get the eeriest feelings in those areas, like you could see some weird creature pop out into the road at any moment!
Atlantic City feels like it was built for a dystopian fantasy movie.
[Pitcher, Oklahoma ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picher,_Oklahoma)
Went on a cross country train trip when I was 15..can’t remember if it was Albuquerque or Arizona(I think it was Albuquerque) but from the train I could see Native American reservations..and they looked..bad..like makeshift houses that looked like rundown shacks spread out through open land..kinda ruined the trip for me.
Certain areas of Baltimore
Sleepy Creek Wildlife Management Area.
We maintain a section of the Tuscarora trail that weaves through here. It’s a very foreboding area. It’s hard to explain. There have been bodies found there, but it seems like it’s more than that. Something just isn’t right in those woods. Most hikers kick it out past it to avoid sleeping there, even without knowing the body history.
Most locals claim there are bodies in the lake, heard that from old timers for years.
The Oregon Outback. I drove a hundred miles in Malhuer and Harney counties and didn’t pass another car till I got to Idaho
East St Louis
Walpack Center, NJ. It’s a town of only 12 people. It’s bizarre driving there in the middle of the day and nothing being open, not even the post office.
Auburn Washington
Most Walmart parking lots close to the interstate. Seen cleaner and safer places in Afghanistan.
Why has no one mentioned Michigan…not everywhere but…there are places
Kiryas Joel. The first place I’ve been literally thrown rocks at and chased out of an place.
People literally stop what they’re doing, men, women, kids, of they see an outsider (especially a woman) driving into their town.
The houses were shoddy third wordly bloc buildings on top of each other. Nothing in English such as signage, store names, etc. Everyone wearing full black clothing with those weird fluffy hats. You could’ve very much been dropped into an eastern European town.
Parts of New Orleans
No idea why, but the woods in southern Delaware. I grew up in a rural house there and was always scared of the woods, then I moved away and married a man who loves hiking. He’s been all over North America and Europe doing it, and I started going with him on smaller, far less impressive trips.
One of the first times we went to visit my family my husband suggested we go for a walk, and since I’ve done a lot more camping and hiking with him I didn’t even think about how much it used to creep me out. After just 15 minutes or so he said, “What the fuck is wrong with these woods? They’re too dark or something.” We turned back and left right away. We’ve never gone back into them, and he’s mentioned since then how weird it feels there.
State and county highways late at night out in the country. Where I live if your out there at night it’s usually just you and the moon is your only light source and cause I live in the prairie it’s super eerie cause you can go for miles without seeing a house