On the internet, you can generally find a community for your hobby no matter how odd (or this case, potentially dangerous) it is. Urban exploration is perhaps the quintessential fringe hobby: it’s discussed on forums and social networks online, but there’s an unmistakable mystique to it. Enterprising adventurers take up goggles and cameras, and oftentimes document their trips to eerie and secluded locations. Frequently trespassing in their quest to explore these formerly inhabited places, these urban explorers document what society has left behind (save for the occasional squatter). The more well-known places for such urban spelunking include Centralia, Pennsylvania (an entire town that has been evacuated following a still-burning coal fire), the steam tunnels beneath Virginia Tech, or any of the abandoned mines or hospitals that are scattered across the country. It’s an activity that is at once fascinating yet unsettling—images depict decrepit abodes adorned with colorful graffiti contrasting wildly with the dust and grime that inevitably plagues these locations.

Urban legends are inexplicably intertwined with this dodgy subculture—locations like Disney’s abandoned water park, Paris’ catacombs and innumerable Midwestern “ghost towns” are a breeding ground for tales of whatever extraordinary things one “might” find here. The most intrepid explorers have even been known to take tourists on illicit “tours” of Chernobyl, the irradiated Soviet city that was evacuated in the space of a week. Though most of these places have been picked clean, locations like the abandoned Beijing Olympics venue are entirely overgrown by whatever marauding vines or enterprising shrubs that dare to push through the ancient concrete of these godforsaken places. Urban exploration is probably more accessible than most outdoor activities—assuming one has food, water and a cell phone, one can conceivably spend hours perusing former habitations now reclaimed by the elements. Though invariably dreary and steeped in mystery, urban exploration presents a chance to see what happens to our habitats when people pack up and leave—though melancholy and dirty, it is perhaps one of the more sobering and quiet activities one can engage in, so long as they are willing to bend a few rules.