13 Breathtaking Places That Are Illegal to Visit
If you’re planning your next vacation, leave these places off the list.
Published 2 weeks ago in Wow
The world is a beautiful place, with many gorgeous locations. Not all of them are open to visitors, though.
For various reasons, from preservation to extreme danger, these 13 beautiful sites are forbidden. As you look at pictures of their immense beauty, you might feel disappointed that you’ll likely never be able to visit but for some of them it might be a good thing.
Maybe you’re the type of person who likes a challenge. If that’s the case, you might be able to finagle your way into a permit or exception to set foot on one of these off-limits locales. And if you choose, let’s say, other means of visiting some of these forbidden locations, don’t tell anybody you got the idea from the list.
If you’re planning your next vacation, leave these places alone.
1
Ilha da Queimada Grande
Ilha de Queimada Grande, or ‘Snake Island’, is an island off the coast of Brazil, and you can probably guess what animal it’s absolutely crawling with. Some estimates say that there are as many as five snakes per square meter on the island. It’s also home to a rare and incredibly deadly species of snake called the golden lancehead. Because of the danger posed by the native wildlife, the government prohibits visiting the island.
2
Uluru
Uluru is a landmark in Australia formerly known as Ayers Rock, and it’s only been forbidden since fairly recently. Before it was closed to the public, it was a tourist attraction, and hikers flocked to the rock to scale it. Before that, though, it was a sacred place to the indigenous people of Australia. Following petitions by the Anangu people, Uluru was declared off-limits in 2019. You can still visit the area, but you are no longer allowed to climb or walk on the rock itself.
3
Lascaux Cave
Lascaux Cave is a cave in southwestern France that contains over 600 cave paintings made by early humans about 17,000 to 22,000 years ago. These cave paintings are considered to be the most well-preserved and impressive examples of prehistoric art. Unfortunately, after being discovered in the 1940s, the cave’s condition deteriorated from visitor exposure, and it was closed to the public. Today you can visit a replica of the cave to see the paintings, but the original cave is forbidden ground.
4
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is located on the remote island of Spitsbergen in Norway. It’s a 11,000-square-foot vault that holds over 1 million seed samples from various species of plants from around the world, acting as a backup in case an environmental disaster extincts important plants in their home habitats. To preserve its contents and prevent contamination, it’s illegal to visit.
5
Montserrat
The island of Montserrat in the Caribbean is home to the Soufrière Hills volcano, which became active in 1995. Plymouth, the nearby town, had to be evacuated, and was abandoned and consumed by ash. Today the island is a designated exclusion zone, as the volcano could and likely will erupt again. This is one beautiful tropical island it’s best to steer clear from.
6
Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
Maybe it’s a different type of breathtaking from the other locations on this list, but I’m willing to bet seeing the desolate skeleton of the Ukrainian Chernobyl Exclusion Zone would take your breath away. Enough ambient radiation has faded away at this point that parts are visitable by tourists, albeit with hazmat equipment and a licensed guide.
7
Poveglia
Poveglia is a deserted Italian island with a dark history. In the late 18th century it was a quarantine island for suspected bubonic plague carriers. Then, in the 1920s, a mental hospital opened on the island that became infamous for its inhumane mistreatment of patients. So many people died on Poveglia that some say up to 50% of the island’s soil contains human remains. It is largely closed off to the general public, besides the occasional ghost hunter.
8
Heart Reef
Heart Reef is an example of a place that is too beautiful for its own good. This heart-shaped section of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia is so photogenic that it became an iconic site for Instagram photo ops, tourism campaigns, and tourist visits. To protect the reef from damage, divers and snorkelers have been banned from the location. If you want a trendy social media pic, you’ll need to snap it from the air.
9
Surtsey Island
Surtsey Island, located off the coast of Iceland, is considered the ‘newest island in the world’. It was formed in the 1960s by an undersea volcanic eruption, and scientists decided to take the rare opportunity to study how a brand-new ecosystem develops by banning human visitation to the island. Scientists monitor how life on the island progresses without human interference. That means no tourists.
10
Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang
Home to the famous Terracotta Army, unearthed in 1974, the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang is off-limits to preserve and respect the memory of China’s first emperor. Even archaeologists have not yet received permission from the government to further excavate this beautiful tomb. This incredible testament to early China’s artistry and aptitude is a forbidden zone, so you’ll have to enjoy it from pictures alone.
11
Ise Shrine
Tourists can admire this shrine in Japan’s Mie Prefecture from the outside, but only high-ranking priests are allowed inside to maintain its sanctity. According to Shinto rituals, the shrine is rebuilt every 20 years using traditional wood-joining techniques. Enjoy this shrine from the exterior, because you’re probably not setting foot indoors.
12
Heard Island
Heard Island, an Australian territory in Antarctica, is off-limits for a good reason. The island is home to a 9000-foot-tall active volcano called Mawson’s Peak, and average wind speeds on the island are about 20 miles per hour. Even if you could somehow work out a deal with the Australian government to visit, a boat trip to get there from Australia is going to take you at least two weeks.
13
Area 51
Established in 1955 but only officially acknowledged by the CIA in 2013, Area 51 is probably one of the most famous forbidden locations in the world. Not much is known about what goes on there, besides the fact that it definitely does not involve tourists. We get it if you want to break in to get a good look at alien specimens, but if it’s a vacation destination you’re after, just go literally anywhere else in the Mojave Desert. It all looks the same.
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