There are far-flung places on Earth that have been abandoned by humans. Humans had been there before but extreme environmental conditions made them pack their precious belongings and head to more humanly-receptive climes. Here are some of those abandoned wonders:

On the western tip of the Scottish Outer Hebrides is the ‘most windswept, storm-tossed part of Britain with waves up to 5 meters high and recorded windspeeds as high as 130 mph.’ This is the archipelago of St. Kilda, forty miles into the Atlantic Ocean, and owning one of the most ‘monstrously rugged’ terrains on the planet. It is also one of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites.

Northern Siberia has otherwise been known for its erstwhile utility as the location of the detention and forced labor camps of the former Soviet Union. This place that is more associated with the term ‘gulag’ is an arctic or subarctic environment. No one would dare live in the place if only because 18 million people were once ‘victims of cold, hunger and inhumanly hard labor’ at the site. One million people are estimated to have died there.

The most uninhabited and uninhabitable ghost town in remotest Ethiopia has an average yearly temperature of 34°C (94°F). During summer, the temperature does not go lower than 40°C. It’s a veritable oven on Earth. Dallol, found in the farthest corner of northern Ethiopia’s Afar Depression, has no connecting roads.

Via WebUrbanist