If you know where to look, these woods — known to locals as “Hell House” — are full of crumbling artifacts of a Catholic seminary. St. Mary’s College called Patapsco park home for over a century before it closed down in 1972, but it wasn’t associated with darkness until it mysteriously burned to the ground on Halloween in 1997.

After the fire, only a few things remained: some foundations, staircases, a water tower, an empty pool, and the altar. Sometime during the Covid-19 pandemic, a local artist repainted the altar with black and white dragons. Once an altar housing a giant metal cross, this space and its surrounding ruins are now devoted to the dragon shrine.

Remains of this formerly-sprawling campus at St. Mary’s College are sprinkled all throughout the woods. As of 2024, the pool is still there — though filled in — as well as lots of small staircases and structures. The largest is a two-room, half-underground building that overlooks the river.

If traveling from DC, Ellicot City is a twenty minute drive from the BWI Rail Station (MARC Penn Line).

Enter Patapsco Park via Illchester Road. Climb your first set of stairs to reach the Illchester Railroad Tunnel, and opposite the Grist Mill Walking Bridge, you should find a second stone staircase. Eventually you will stumble upon some ruins — follow the trail of them to locate the shrine, the seminary foundations, the pool, and small altars along the way.

Keep an eye out for ruins of the giant metal cross. It no longer hangs from the shrine roof, but its frame has been said to be visible in woods during the winter.

Closed in 2021, this site — formally known as the Wilkins-Rogers Mills — was the last of many that turned Ellicot City into a milling town during the Industrial Revolution. Today, the building is still accessible from the street. There is a corrugated metal overhang that you can easily crawl under. External fire escapes and broken windows provide access to the full interior, though I haven’t tried entering myself. 

Opened in 1950, the Carter Barron Amphitheater is a 4,000-seat outdoor music venue built on the 150th anniversary of Washington D.C. At the time it was built, it was one of the only racially-integrated performing arts venues in the city. It closed in 2017 due to “structural issues” with the stage. It has been the city’s plan to renovate ever since, but as of 2024, it sits in abandonment.

The amplitheatre is located at 4850 Colorado Avenue, NW, near the intersection of 16th and Colorado. Access might require passing a gate.

In the 1950s, they were functioning sand filtration silos with underground catacombs with sand banked knee-high at the corners. In 1987, they were long abandoned and sold to the District, where they would sit for thirty-seven years as nothing more than a spot for DMV urbex. In 2024, they were renovated into a public park for families— and not only that, but a sand silo-themed playground.

If urbex is nothing more than a playground for grunge adults, McMillan Reservoir is a rare success story. After over three decades of decay, it would have been a typical urbex storyline for the park to be bulldozed to make space for something new and clean. Instead, the district chose to preserve the silos and catacombs. As quoted in this Washington Post article at the time of the renovation:

It gives the 6.2-acre park somewhat of an otherworldly feel, an unlikely cross between industrial and recreational. From the indoor pool, you can peer through the glass windows into the eerie catacombs, which once held sand for the city’s 20th-century water filtration system. The city leaned into the theme: The playground has a sandpit, a slide that pays homage to the shape of the silos, and a miniature play “regulator house” that mimics the brick control rooms next to the old sand towers.

To visit, you can enter McMillan Sand Filtration Site into your GPS. It's located at the corner of Michigan Avenue and North Capitol Street in Washington, D.C.

Visit this abandoned hospital (where Hillary Clinton was born!) by taking the red line to Bryn Mawr. Once you're there, walk to 5700 North Ashland Avenue. Climb through any opening in the fence and make your way in through the back of the building. There is a door, but if it's blocked off you can climb over a small brick wall to access an easier entrance through the east side of the building. The lobby is the first room you will probably be able to enter, but large windows make it easy to be spotted inside.

Edgewater is an easy place to get to, but not an easy place to get into. Enter at your own risk. Police frequent the area and asbestos has rendered the building unsafe for long visits.

If you're looking for a way to explore some underground tunnels that aren't illegal (imagine!), there's no better place than the Pedway. Chicago has a huge network of connected paths that will take you almost anywhere in the business district. Click here to see where it can take you - and enjoy traveling through a less-crowded, less-frigid Chi-town! (Disclaimer: Pictures above aren't mine... I ended up just taking video footage. See below!)

Welcome to my favorite adventure site in Chicago, the ancient Damen Silos! Located at 2860 S Ashland Ave on the south branch of the Chicago River, they're relatively easy to get to without being super public. The easiest way to access the Silos is by taking the Orange Line on the CTA 'L' train to Ashland. If you are driving, this website gives detailed instructions for parking at a nearby Target.

From the L stop (or parking lot), walk through the business park until you're halfway down the fence and crawl through the hole directly across from the warehouse. You should see something similar to the images above - that's how you know you're at the right place. Once inside the fence, you can explore the abandoned warehouse and silos without much trouble, as long as you keep inconspicuous.

Offering its own sort of adventurous charm, the warehouse has three crumbling floors of colorful graffiti and artistically-disheveled metal. If you were a fan of Milwaukee Wisconsin's Solvay Coke & Glass factory (rest in peace, my friend), you'll absolutely love this place. The building is almost identical in structure.

Climb in through the hole pictured above (located on the silos' north side) and explore the cavernous tunnels of the silos! The amount of rooms and walkways seems endless, so be careful not to get lost. If you have stronger upper arms than me, you can probably climb to the top on the rope, too. It's located on the building's exterior on the river bank side, accessible and hidden from view.

If this place's risk-of-getting-you-arrested was on a five-star system, it would be a solid two. There's a security guard that patrols the site and does a few rounds at night, but he's fairly easy to avoid. He sits in a car with a flashing green light at the top, but he'll turn off the light if he's trying to sneak up on you. I haven't been caught by him, but some friends who have said he just gave them a stern warning and told them to leave. Doesn't sound too risky to me! Nevertheless, be careful swinging your flashlight or taking pictures with flash if you're visiting at night. The windows in both locations make it easy to give yourself away.

I know WAY TOO MUCH about this wild place. How much, you ask? Click here to read one of the longest essays I've ever written about the history of the Damen Silos. It's entertaining, I promise.

To access the roof, you've got to walk in the front doors of the Tannery, which is an office building. A really, really nice office building. Once in there, you can take the stairs to the sixth floor and go into the boiler room. There's a window in there through which you can exit onto the roof. 

A lot of universities have underground tunnels built to allow students to walk between classes in subzero temperatures. Northwestern isn't one of them. Our tunnels are strictly off-limits to students, but that doesn't stop literally everyone with a taste for adventure and an iPhone from finding their way down at one point or another. Walking through these can take you from the observatory on North Campus to Fisk Hall on South. It's also insanely hot... and incredibly cramped.

The easiest access point is an air vent outside of the observatory. Make your way to the green, tent-shaped cover hidden behind the row of bushes and pull it off to reveal a ladder down into the tunnels. Be very careful not to touch any uncovered pipes with your hands or you will be burnt! If you are sneaky enough, you can climb down the pipes without hurting yourself and get onto the ground into the first tunnel, pictured above. From there, keep walking until you reach the end or leave through one of the many other access points. Remember to close the one you went through on your way in!

There's not many places you can explore where you're confronted with the actual history of the site rather than the depth of your spray paint cans or scope of your camera lens. This abandoned ski lodge, still filled with hastily-scribbled paperwork, snow-stained lift tickets, slightly-faded race bibs, and sun-washed vintage posters brings to mind the memories of a real, living and breathing business in the way that a completely-trashed elementary school hopelessly covered in graffiti does not. The bedrooms here are still made up - sheets tucked in and trash cans emptied as if they could accept residents tomorrow. The room that was once the dining hall still has empty cases of soft pretzels and slushie machines, logos familiar enough to be seen in a modern cafeteria. The route map outside proclaims most of the runs to be open and plowed, despite being closed and empty for years. This place was abandoned, it seems, instantaneously - leaving an ever-present snapshot of that moment in history. Finds like these are a gem in urban exploration, rare to exist and even rarer to find. Welcome to Sugar Loaf mountain.

The resort itself is fairly large with an open reception center and banquet hall in the front, ski rentals and dining hall in the basement, hotel rooms in a wing to the left, and a sad-looking outdoor pool to the back. Behind the initial lodge is the mountain, which boasts black diamond runs on the facing side and easier slopes over the back edge. 

There are tons of doors on the lodge that appear as if they could be opened fairly easily with the right tools, but you don't need anything other than yourself to climb through the back window on the mountain-facing side of the resort. You will find yourself inside of an old office-type room once entering, filled with closets of vintage memorabilia and more scattered paperwork than they use for the school's-out scene of a high school movie. After digging around for souvenirs to take home, the door opposite from the window should lead you into the rest of the building.

The interior of Sugar Loaf is cool enough to be its own adventure, but don't leave before climbing to the top of the mountain itself. You're going to have to make the hike up a black diamond slope without the help of automated lifts (although five of them sit, vacant, to mock you), but the view at the top is worth it. Bring paint pens or Sharpies to deface the old lift lodges with dozens of other young explorers, adding to the list of inspirational messages along the lines of "hit me up if you like it in the butt" and "dude, call your mom."

One of campus' few accessible roofs, Swift Hall is a central location on campus to climb and explore. This can be a good thing, because it offers a unique view of Northwestern at night, but it is equally dangerous. If you see someone that appears like they have spotted you... you probably want to climb back down *swiftly.*

Next time you're by Storms Driving Range, walk around to the back and take a right to see the most well-built tree-house in town. A second, smaller one lies nearby as well. Coordinates: 43.042407, -88.109729

​If you're afraid of heights, keep scrolling: this site marks the highest climbing structure I've been to. Climb a 30-foot ladder to the top of an old grain mill to see the blaze of city lights all around, then climb down to investigate the eerie glow of old boating buildings and other, less impressive towers. 

Note from August 2024: The address to this site has been lost! On my next trip to Wisconsin, I'll try to relocate -- but from Google Maps, my best guess would be to park at 1235 W Canal St and make your way toward the grain silos. 

This site is still visible on Google Maps but can also be found with the coordinates 42.947797, -88.15724.  Many people enter through the door around back, which is frequently sealed by police and then re-opened by trespassers. 

There are three floors. When you first walk in, you can either go up the stairs or down the hall to a door. This first door doesn't open—it leads to the basement where a local group practices some kind of service around a massive upside-down cross, which you can see through the door window.

The staircase should take you to the rest of the school. There is a gym, two levels of classrooms, a cafeteria, and many hallways. Take caution to limit your time inside due to the threat of asbestos.

Mix picturesque Italian architecture with modern art exhibits and you'll find Milwaukee's most underrated gallery. Villa Terrace is part museum, part marvel, all gorgeous. Go after hours and climb the fence to walk the gardens or stop in during a quiet time to walk the halls, peruse the art, and escape onto the rooftop. 

This route is the easiest and least fun way to access the quarry, but it will get you there. Park in the end of the neighborhood on Waynescott Road and enter the woods to the left of the house with the American flag. There should be a trail to follow that will take you right to the water. You'll have to pass a "No Trespassing - Private Property" sign, but that's how you'll know you're going the right way.

Park at the Ridgewood Baptist church at 2720 Lilly Road and enter the woods near the "No Trespassing - Private Property" signs. If you weave through the woods, you should find a trail that will take you to the upper ridge of the quarry. You can walk the entire distance around the lake (1 mile) on this path and there are a few treacherous routes from the rim down to the water if you want to go in. 

Park near 302 E Greenfield Avenue. There might be a fence up around where Solvay Coke and Glass used to be, but if you can get around it, there's plenty of things to explore in the back. One easy way is to walk along the train tracks following the Google Map shown above until you see the two tall red-brick towers. There's a link posted below as well and GPS coordinates above.

The coordinates of the actual site are 43.137675, -88.206257, which you can plug into Google maps.
Park at NAPA Auto Parts or Sussex Inn in Sussex and walk down the Bugline trail (otherwise known as the sidewalk on Waukesha Avenue). You'll cross train tracks to get there, but there should be a narrow trail.