Whether you grew up in a weird place, moved to a weird place, or just know of a weird place, they are everywhere. Here are the weirdest places to live on Earth.
24 Hours of Day
No, that’s not a typo. In Anchorage, between June 8 and July 5 there are 24 hours of daylight and Fairbanks has more than 70 days with 24 hours of daylight. Can you imagine that? Literally all day light for so, so many days, and this is some people’s reality.
Or night. Yup, that’s what you get if you live in Barrow, Alaska, where the sunset sets for the last time, for 83 whole days, before they see sunlight again. That is a long, long time to go without any light..and us Midwesterners complain when it’s overcast and rainy a lot. Yike.
The Floating Villages of Tonle Sap, Cambodia
Whole families are living afloat and this is just a part of their “normal” village life. The lake they live on provides natural resources that the villagers use for their way of life including the fish, wildlife, and the cycles of the rising and falling waters. To visit them, you’ll have to go by boat, and if you don’t have your own, a nearby ferry will take you. These settlements are lashed together with ropes, creating entire communities atop the water. In fact, most of the people who live here never set foot on the actual land. There are lots of visitors to the floating villages and tourist attractions for them as well including a crocodile farm and snake girls. There are floating bars, restaurants, a market, and even a school.
A THOW Tiny House
A THOW, or tiny house on wheels, also known as a house you can take anywhere, is weird, and awesome. Not only are these houses fully customizable, but if you get one that’s RVIA certified, you get all the perks and grandfathered in rules of RV’s, which have been around forever now. Tiny houses may be too small for most but how cool would it be to take your house and literally make home, anywhere?
Living Underground
Let’s admit it, there are a lot of advantages to not having to deal with people. (I’m a people person but let’s be honest, COVID taught us all that we don’t need others are much as we thought we would, but yet, that we want to be around them more than ever.) Anyhow, at least half the town’s population lives underground to avoid the summer heat and brutal winter that Coober Pedy, Australia experiences. This is one of the weirdest places, but would be awesome to (temporarily) experience living underground.
Mask Land
If you think masks during Corona is bad, for a short amount of time and not even required everywhere, imagine if you had to have an actual gas mask daily and how that would be. Ugh. After the 2000 eruption of Mt. Oyama, south of Tokyo, the 2800 residents of Miyake-jima Island are required to carry a gas mask with them at all times. They don’t have to wear it constantly but are alerted when the noxious gas is high via sirens. After the eruption, there was a mass evacuation. Five years later when it was lifted, people started moving back home but undergo regular health checks and age restrictions in certain areas even today.
Tent City, New Jersey
It’s not a permanent residence or even long-term, but these multi-colored fabrics have been taking over this small section of Ocean Grove, New Jersey for over 150 summers now. It all started with devote Methodists in town for community meetings but today is more so focused on some serious R&R super close to the beach. If you want the space for the whole season, you’ll have to get on the multi-year waiting list. If you just want to see it in real life, you can stroll through the 114 plots to get a small sense of what it may be like to “live” there.
Whittier, Alaska
This town, with the population of about 200, almost all live under the same 14-story roof. This building also previously served as an army barracks, and to this day has a post office, police stations, health clinic, church, and laundromat. About 700,000 tourists visit yearly, mostly during the almost non-stop sunlight during the summer months. The winter there is very rough and the towns only playground is underground and also accessible via an underground passage. Whittier as has North America’s longest tunnel, single lane, that closes at night.
If you had to pick one of these weirdest places to live, which one would you choose? Team THOW over here because they are fully customizable and you can go and live anywhere, heck ya!