We love to do things that are forbidden! Imagine how painful it is to know that amazing, spectacular places exist in this world but you just cannot visit them! And you can’t even break the rules here. You can just see their images and dream about visiting them. That’s all you can do!
1. Club 33 at Disney World…it has a 14-year long waiting list! You can only dream of visiting it.
You can visit the Disney World any time you want to but you cannot visit Club 33 just like that. To begin with, it has a 14-year long waiting list! Can you imagine?! And even if you get yourself on the list and don’t die before that, it has an initiation fee of $40,000 (about 27 lakhs) and an annual fee of $27,000 (about 18 lakhs). Okay. So, I really want to visit it but can I? No.
2. The Lascaux Caves in France can be entered only by a guard just once a week for a few minutes! Art and paleolithic knowledge buried deep..must be painful for historians!
If you are an art or a history lover, you would wish you were born before 1963; because that’s when the The Lascaux Caves were banned for the public. These caves in Southern France are famous for it’s paleolithic paintings as old as 17,300 years. Any human presence in the caves can be potentially destructive and hence we cannot visit these caves. Only one guard is allowed once a week for a few minutes! Can I just take that job?
3. North Sentinel Island – an Indian island declared off-limits. You can be attacked and killed if you go anywhere near!
It is one of the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. The Sentinelese population consists of about 50 to 500 individuals. They reject any contact with other people and are virtually untouched by modern civilization. The population faces the potential threats of infectious diseases to which they have no immunity, as well as violence from intruders. And hence, the island has been banned by the Indian Government and the island along with its surrounding waters extending about 5 km is declared as an exclusion zone. This only makes me want to visit it more!
4. Jiangsu National Security Education Museum, open only for citizens of China. This James Bond kinda place has no doors for us!
Only a Chinese citizen can visit this museum! This museum is home to top secret documents about the history of Chinese espionage. There is also a collection of tiny pistols, guns disguised as lipstick, miniature cameras, concealed wiretaps, hollowed-out coins used to conceal documents, and maps hidden in decks of cards. This cool place should definitely be open for weapon lovers! But sadly, they don’t trust us enough.
5. The beautiful, haunted island in Italy, Poveglia. Even if you want to visit, no one will take you there!
This beautiful island in Italy served as a quarantine station, a dumping ground for plague victims, more recently a mental hospital; it now stands rotting, rumoured to be deadly and haunted. It has been said that a crazy man ran an asylum there and killed people. Eaten up by guilt, he jumped from the bell-tower and died. Even if you don’t believe in horror stories and want to visit this breathtaking island, absolutely no one will take you there!
6. The Queen’s room in the Buckingham Palace. Who doesn’t want to see it with their own eyes?!
Who wouldn’t want to see the royal room buried very deep in the Buckingham Palace? It’s so heavily guarded that it’s nearly impossible to even break in. Though a man named Michael Fagan did break in and hide in the Queen’s room and is the only one who has seen its interior without permission. If you are a nobody like me, you can only dare to dream!
7. A very young Icelandic island, Surtsey. It’s untouched and brand new. We can’t visit it because it has to be preserved for studying evolution!
This Icelandic Island came into existence only in 1963. It’s a young island formed due to a volcanic eruption. In spite of being so young, it houses about 90 bird species and plant species evolving at the rate of 2-5 new ones a year. It’s evolution is carefully monitored from a small hut ensuring no outside seeds or unwanted visitors turn up to hurt the naturally evolving ecosystem – they even had to dig up some potatoes a bunch of kids planted for a laugh!
8. Only one monk can enter the Church of our Lady Mary of Zion. That’s just sad, isn’t it?
It is impossible to access the beautiful church of our Lady Mary of Zion in Ethiopia because it’s claimed to contain one of the most important biblical objects, the original Ark of the Covenant. Only a specially chosen monk has the privilege of entering the temple, and no one else is allowed to lay eyes on it or even get close due to the holiness and relevance of the ark.
9. Niihau…it has no roads, no electricity, no stores, no restaurants! It makes me want to visit it so badly! But, it was declared closed in 1915.
I keep dreaming of visiting this island. No roads, no electricity, no stores, no restaurants, no indoor plumbing; imagine living a few days there..wouldn’t it be absolutely surreal? It has a school that runs entirely on solar power! It was bought by Elizabeth Sinclair in 1864 and in 1915, the island was declared closed for most visitors by her grandson. How I hate him!
10. The holiest and the most important Shrine in Japan, Ise Grand Shrine. Only the priest/priestess from the Japanese imperial family is allowed to enter!
Ise Grand Shrine in Japan is a Shinto shrine dedicated to the goddess Amaterasu-omikami. I would have loved to visit this shrine purely because no one can. Only ONE person has the authority to visit the Shrine, the priest or priestess, who should belong to the Japanese imperial family! Isn’t that just unfair?
I am terribly sorry to have introduced you to places that you cannot visit!