Getting Away from It All in Out-of-the-Way Places

I have often visited the big tourist cities of the world like Venice, Rome, and London. But I also like to escape the crowds when I’m travelling by going to the odd, forgotten, and out-of-the-way places neglected by other tourists. If you’re tired of art museums and group tours, you can find your way to little corners of obscurity in even the most visited places in the world.

One way to escape the crowds is to visit the most peaceful places in the urban jungle – cemeteries. Roaming through a cemetery may seem an odd way to get to know a city, but they contain as much art and history as some of the greatest museums, as well as being calm and pleasant spaces. And you get the chance to visit a lot of celebrities, although they probably won’t be able to sign an autograph for you. Some of my favorite travel memories are seeing the tombs of famous people like Oscar Wilde and Marcel Proust in the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris, and Stravinsky in the cemetery island of San Michele in the Venetian lagoon. If you want to know which ones to visit, you might want to check out 222 Cemeteries to See Before You Die.

Another way to avoid the tourist crowds is to visit places that most tourists avoid. The Atlas of Dark Destinations shows you where to go if you want to investigate the dark side of human history. It includes the sites of major battles, catacombs, and burial places around the world.

Atlas Obscura catalogues some of the quirkier sites in the Heartland of America you might want to visit. Typical of the sights it recommends is The House on the Rock in Wisconsin, which is a collection of oddities I’ve visited twice in my travels. It may not be on any list of architectural must-sees, but the strange collections, including the world’s largest carousel, more than make up for it.

You don’t have to go far for an out-of-the-way travel experience. For weird travel destinations closer to home, you would probably want to check out the Weird New Jersey website. It lists a lot of obscure and interesting sights you can visit in the Garden State.

If you want to get really adventurous, you can go “urban exploring” and visit the old ruins and abandoned places that dot the urban landscape of New Jersey. If you decide you’re actually not that adventurous, you can visit them vicariously through books like Abandoned Northern New Jersey and Abandoned Southern New Jersey: a bounty of oddities, and find out about hidden parts of New Jersey that you never knew existed. Abandoned Ruins on Public Lands in New Jersey leads you into old abandoned mansions, tunnels, and factories on New Jersey public lands, so take it with you the next time you go hiking. Whenever I am driving around New Jersey, I love to spot some of the odd and quirky sights on the back roads. It makes travel feel like an adventure, no matter how close you are to home.

By Michael, West Windsor Branch