30 Real-Life Places That Seem Too Surreal To Exist

As the name of my project suggests, I wanted to step "off the beaten track." Many people travel and visit only the main tourist attractions, but I needed something different—places that nobody else was visiting. It was challenging at first because I didn’t have a clear definition of what an "unusual place" meant to me. However, little by little, I found what I could call my kind of place, and I’ve now visited so many extraordinary locations that I can even categorize them.

I use various methods to search for bizarre and unique places. I review many resources dedicated to art environments—both exteriors and interiors filled with diverse decorations, sculptures, and any form of art, usually created by self-taught artists.

Quite often, unusual places are marked on Google Maps. I also occasionally come across articles in online media about local eccentrics who have turned their homes into something bizarre. Sometimes, I simply imagine the kind of place I want to find and search for it by entering specific keywords in Google. I once found an unusual location this way—a garden decorated in the style of Alice in Wonderland!

Followers of my project have shared many incredible locations with me, and who knows secret, unique places better than the locals? I’ve also discovered a surprising number of new places while researching other locations. And finally, I found some fascinating sites by accident while traveling to ones I had already planned to visit.

I’ve visited many bizarre places, but the most memorable so far is still one of the first unusual locations I visited—the house of hanging dolls in the Czech Republic. Imagine a cabin on the outskirts of a village, surrounded by thousands of creepy dolls hanging in the garden, on the walls of the building, and even inside. And an old man living there, surrounded by these dolls. After leaving the place, there was only one question in my mind: "Why?"

With almost 200 places visited, the next step for Off the Beaten Track is to search for even more unusual locations. I also want to develop more efficient research methods that will lead me to incredible sites that barely anyone knows about. The more unusual places I visit, the more similar they start to feel, so I hope to find locations that are truly different from everything I’ve seen before. I achieved that this year by discovering the amazing moving watermills in the Czech Republic, and I hope there are even more hidden gems out there waiting to be found.