Whenever I travel, I enjoy visiting the usual tourist spots, but I have a special fondness for discovering the odd, unusual, and lesser-known sights. The places with—as this website suggests—a weird history or dark past.
Several years ago, during a vacation in Italy, I made our bike tour guide in Rome take my family and me to the extraordinary crypts of the Capuchin friars beneath the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini. The rooms feature ornate displays created from the bones of more than 4,000 capuchin monks lining the walls and vaulted ceilings. Several monks remain fully in tact with their robes. How is this not part of every bike tour?
If you, too, are curious about everything from haunted places and sacred sites to homes of cryptids and legends, Atlas of Paranormal Places: A Journey to the World’s Most Supernatural Places serves as an ideal guide.
In this beautifully crafted hardcover book, author Evelyn Hollow —an award-winning Scottish writer, paranormal psychologist, and occult columnist—takes dark tourists through the unique and unusual history of each location.
There are must-see places you’ve probably heard of, like the remarkable Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California, the Paris catacombs, and Skinwalker Ranch in Utah. But for the most part, Hollow takes us on a journey of truly obscure places I now need to go.
In Luzon, Philippines, for example, there are the Hanging Coffins of Sagada. Rather than burying their dead, the Igorot people hang them in coffins on a mountainside to be closer to their ancestral spirits. “Although there are ongoing problems with the preservation of the coffins, including graverobbing, they are still accessible to those who wish to visit,” Hollow writes. As with each entry, a map is provided to help locate the site.
A witchcraft-themed chapter introduces readers to a “witchcraft” market in Bolivia, where shoppers can purchase goods from local “witch doctors” and spiritual healers, such as painted sugar to help ward off evil and love potions. And if you’ve been looking for a dead llama fetus, you’re in luck.
If you’re headed down under, be sure to check out Australia’s version of Area 51 at Wycliffe Well. As Hollow says, travelers “may find themselves surrounded by hundreds of little extraterrestrial beings.” The location has had reports of UFO sightings for more than fifty years. Like Roswell, New Mexico, the area has embraced its lore with widespread alien-themed décor.
Then there’s the Island of the Dolls in Mexico, where a haunted recluse has hung hundreds of creepy dolls from trees. Creepy might be an understatement.
These are just a few weird and wonderful examples you’ll find in Atlas of Paranormal Places, available September 3, 2024, from Ivy Press. So plan your itinerary, pack a bag—and pray you’ll return.
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