Urban exploration fanatics rejoice – you can join in on the action from the safety and comfort of your sofa without fear of contracting a respiratory illness or falling through a floor with this list of some of the best videos on YouTube. Complied by Angela Allan.
Abandoned John B. Gordon Elementary School, Georgia, USA
One of the best YouTube channels for urban exploration junkies, The Unknown Cameraman ventures into the most amazing buildings. This vid of an elementary school built in 1909 is an interesting walkthrough (if you can get over the close-ups of poop. Yes, you read that right, they zoom in on the poop). The giant teddy bear in the toilet block is actually a little sad, but what’s more poignant is the homeless guy sleeping in the building. Two trees are growing inside the school, which has been abandoned since 1995. This year, the school and its land were sold and will be redeveloped into a three-storey apartment block.
Abandoned Cat Lady House
This is perhaps one of the saddest abandoned house videos. There are a few videos online exploring this house, with its floral wallpaper ceilings, cat calendars, and round rooms with a TV made to match (yep, a curved TV) but this one is the most interesting by Tikitrex, who also runs a great urban exploration YouTube channel of places mainly in Canada. The woman who owned this house was named Fern, and she loved cats, and you can find more about her on this blog. It’s sad to see such a beautiful house and Fern’s cats and life just left to decay. This is an interesting narrated walk-through but the sadness of a life left in ruin is palpable.
Abandoned Wonderland Hotel and township, Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee
This is a forest frolic, really, as the hotel is no longer accessible and visitors are not able to enter the houses as there are park rangers nearby who will slap you with an expensive fine. There are beautiful houses, sitting by babbling creeks, and the sound of the trees and birds and the water is eerily relaxing. It’s narrated the entire way through with subtitles, so you don’t miss a moment of history. Or commentary.
Abandoned Florida Mansion
This is filmed entirely on an iPhone by a teenager whose bicycle tyre apparently blew out right in front of this house. He ventures inside and finds a relatively untouched house, not many personal belongings left behind, but the house has two kitchens, so it’s pretty spacious. There is a revisit to this home a few months later, which you can click through to watch later on.
Abandoned Insane Asylum (actually a Tuberculosis Isolation Hospital)
Hailing from Canada, this pair of wannabe presenters are fairly amusing. They venture into this abandoned hospital that has surfaces covered in ice and makes creepy noises from the dripping water and echoes. There’s a part two to this one, where they explain a mysterious “scream” you’ll hear in the video.
Abandoned town Centralia PA
A deviation from the abandoned house walkthrough, this is an abandoned township of Centralia, Pennsylvania. While you won’t see many houses in this one, it does show you where films, such as Silent Hill, got their hellish, post-apocalyptic inspiration from. The cracked highway and the temperature of the soil just six inches below the surface is mind boggling.
Abandoned Psychiatric Hospital, New York
A long 50-minute video covering an abandoned insane asylum, this is one of the most fanscinating and in-depth looks at a relatively untouched mental hospital. Documents, patient notes, test tubes, even blood slides have been left behind in one of the rooms. There is a creepy noise from the upper floor that only stops after the two explorers slam the door. Oh, and watch out for the morgue.
Angela Allan
Angela Allan is founder and editor of Soot Magazine. She is an award-winning journalist, conversion copywriter and digital marketer . Angela loves her three dogs, blues music, and she believes Stevie Nicks from Fleetwood Mac is her spirit sister. Follow her on Instagram here.
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