Step into a world of wonder. Part of you doesn’t want to look, the part that scares easily, that thinks the best place for bones is in the body, not decorating a church in macabre sculptures. The other part of you can’t stop looking. This mixed feeling runs through most people who visit the spooky Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic, and that speaks to the special attraction we have to strange and mysterious places. In the pages of this magazine, take a can’t-help-but-peek tour of creepy but cool locations around the world, like the island where a tortured man hung broken dolls from every tree, or the isolated Australian spot that every year is invaded by so many crabs marching to the beach that the locals have to set up roadblocks and sweep them off the streets. Take a ride down Nevada’s Extraterrestrial Highway and look out for UFOs, or visit a Texas graveyard where they say an outer space alien is buried. Travel to Pompeii, where the final agonizing moments of ancient volcano victims are encased in plaster casts, step into the dark halls of the Great Pyramid of Giza and brace yourself for its reputed cosmic powers, or wonder at the skyscrapers the people of Yemen erected hundreds of years ago out of brick and mud. And stand upon the banks of California’s Salton Sea and try to imagine the days when this dusty hellscape was a popular Mediterranean-style resort for celebrities. No matter where you go, you’ll swear the mind is playing tricks on you— until you realize, it’s all right there in front of your face.