The world is full of fascinating and beautiful places. For every picture-perfect location, there’s a more unusual one just down the road. We've ranked our top 10 'stranger than fiction' communities, where things aren't always as they seem.
From Norway's northernmost town where you aren’t allowed to die, to a creative village in Japan where the inhabitants are life-sized dolls, click or scroll to tour some of the strangest towns and villages in the world....
We've based our ranking on the opinions of our well-travelled team. The list is unavoidably subjective.
Just 62 miles (100km) east of Toronto, Port Hope is one of the most picturesque small towns in Canada, with its perfectly preserved 19th-century downtown quarter, which has a river running through it.
A designated Heritage District, with stunning examples of Victorian and Edwardian architecture around every corner, a stroll down its main street, said to be the best-preserved in Ontario, is like taking a step back in time.
Its charms have not been overlooked by the many movie production companies who have filmed here, either. It has featured as the backdrop to countless films and TV shows, including Schitt’s Creek and the big-screen adaptations of Stephen King’s horror novel It, which feature various downtown locations.
Props aren't hard to come by either, this store, complete with a giant Optimus Prime Transformers statue, sells unique art and home décor from around the world. Who knows what you might find inside!
Nicknamed the 'antique capital of Ontario', its picturesque downtown quarter is the perfect place to while away an afternoon browsing through its other quaint shops and boutiques.
And, if you fancy a peek behind-the-scenes of some of the vintage architecture (seen here) that Port Hope is famous for, there’s the annual Port Hope House Tour every September.
Port Hope has its quirky traditions, too. The town hosts the annual events, including a local tradition where hundreds of participants launch homemade crafts into the Ganaraska River to commemorate the great flood of 1980 that devastated Port Hope’s downtown area.
The river is also a popular fishing destination and people come just to watch the trout and salmon swimming upstream to spawn.
With its elegant Tudor-style buildings, bookshops and pavement cafés, East Grinstead might seem like a normal Sussex market town. Yet its long history of housing religious sects makes it one of Britain's strangest.
The home of Scientology in the UK, the small suburban town has also been connected with Catholic sect Opus Dei, the mysterious Rosicrucians, the Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christian Scientists, as well as druids and pagans.
It is most famous as the hub of Scientology in Britain and the church’s headquarters are based at Saint Hill Manor, a secluded country house on the southwestern edge of the town.
The building was the former home of the Maharaja of Jaipur before being acquired by the church's founder, L. Ron Hubbard, in the 1950s. Tom Cruise, the sect’s most famous disciple, has visited the mansion many times and is said to have spent lockdown during Covid-19 here as reported by the UK newspaper The Argus.
The Mission Impossible actor is believed to have shelled out £3 million ($3.7m) for this spectacular country estate in Dormans Park in 2006, which is just down the road from Saint Hill Manor.
Known as Rede Place, the four-storey home housed the actor and then-wife Katie Holmes until 2016 when it was snapped up for around £5 million ($6m) by reality star Peter Andre, according to British newspaper The Sun.
With its spacious rooms and architectural features, the modern mega-mansion would have served as a splendid meeting place for the star’s like-minded friends.
Seen here on the steps of his grand home, L. Ron Hubbard acquired Saint Hill Manor and some 60 surrounding acres in March 1959. The Manor served as both his home and as the worldwide headquarters for the Scientology religion until 1967. The house is among the most historically significant estates in Sussex, first appearing in records from 1567.
Yet the Church of Scientology isn’t the only religion to have taken up residence in East Grinstead. Opus Dei hosts self-improvement retreats at Wickenden Manor, while the home of British Mormonism lies a few miles north at the impressive London England Temple. Meanwhile, druids and other pagans are known to have held gatherings in the woods of Ashdown Forest.
One of the few remaining Berber villages in Tunisia, Matmata is famous for its unusual underground housing structures carved into the stone and known as troglodyte dwellings.
The entire area lies in the parched valleys of Tunisia’s Djebel Dahar region and was largely unknown to the outside world until the 1960s when severe flooding brought it to the attention of the Tunisian government.
Highly unusual even in Tunisia, the houses were built first by digging a large circular pit into the sandstone, which was soft enough to work with simple tools.
Caves were then dug out around the edges of the pit, forming underground rooms and connecting passageways which protect against searing summer heat and winter winds.
Although many of its original inhabitants have moved out to seek work, there are still 1,200 troglodyte dwellings in Matmata.
Life in the community is tough, however. “We have to fetch wood and water, we have no electricity and can’t even install a solar panel,” Matmata resident Mounjia told independent Arab news site Al Jazeera.
The area has a surprising link with the Star Wars franchise. The Hotel Sidi Driss featured as the home of Luke Skywalker on the planet Tatooine in the 1977 film Star Wars Episode lV: A New Hope, and again in the 2002 prequel film Star Wars: Episode ll: Attack of the Clones.
The village and surrounding area have also been used as a setting in the Call of Duty video games, but it's the everyday living that gives the place its charm.
Berber traditions such as couscous-making and rug-weaving are kept alive in the cave-like homes and families display tools that are used exclusively in Berber society.
Often hailed as Europe’s last surviving matriarchy, there’s little that women don’t do on the tiny island of Kihnu, off the western coast of Estonia in the Baltic Sea.
The island's male population are mainly fishermen and spend months at a time out at sea, leaving the women in charge of this community of some 700 people. They have been running the show for centuries – even the keeper of Kihnu’s 19th-century lighthouse, seen here, is a woman.
Women govern the island in their men’s absence, acting as guardians of its traditions and culture. Singing and dancing are integral parts of life for the local inhabitants and children are taught traditional musical instruments at school as well as Kihnu’s local dialect.
Kihnu culture was recognised as a UNESCO Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2003, according to website Al Jazeera.
As well as the traditional female tasks of weaving and making clothes, women run the farms, raise the animals, fix the tractors and have been known to perform church services when the Russian Orthodox priest is not available, reports the British newspaper The Independent.
The women typically wear a Kihnu homespun striped skirt (called a kört in Estonian) which has colours that even influence some of the homes on the island. This one has the colours of the skirt painted on its façade.
At nearly seven square miles (18sq km), Kihnu is the seventh largest of Estonia’s more than 2,000 islands and has a year-round population of just 300.
About five are men. "People think we are making some statement with women being in charge, but that’s our culture," says Mare Matas, president of the Kihnu Cultural Space Foundation.
One of the highlights of the year is the summer solstice, when the midsummer celebrations culminate with the burning of a fishing boat upon a bonfire, accompanied by singing and dancing.
The picturesque town of Hallstatt, in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, looks like an authentic alpine village, with its colourful houses and dramatic church spires, but it's actually an exact copy of its centuries-old namesake in Austria, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
It was built by a metals and mineral trading company called Minmetals Ltd in almost complete secrecy until a stray blueprint was discovered in an Austrian hotel leftover from a research trip by the Chinese architects, as reported by website allthatsinteresting.com.
Playing on a fascination with historic Western places, the town was constructed on the outskirts of a major industrial city attracting buyers willing to pay more for one of the quirky houses.
It’s unclear how China's fascination with Hallstatt originated, but a report by BBC Travel suggests it may be due to the popular South Korean soap opera Spring Waltz, which shot some episodes in and around Hallstatt, introducing the area to millions of viewers in Asia.
The copycat town cost an estimated £769 million ($940m) to build according to website Business Insider but became a major tourist attraction and real estate hot spot in the Pearl River Delta region.
It's part of a broader trend in replicated town layouts; China features many such places, including a version of Venice complete with canals in Dalian, Liaoning province, a faux Eiffel Tower in Tianducheng and a version of the American skiing destination Jackson Hole in Hebei.
Hallstatt is the first time an entire town has been cloned in this way, where streets, buildings and civic details like fountains have been reconstructed.
The attention to detail exhibited in imitating the original Hallstatt has been impressive, but many of the buildings in its Chinese counterpart have been repurposed. The grand hall of this church, for instance, is used for functions and banquets rather than being a place of worship.
Meanwhile, the Austrian Hallstatt (pictured here) has since experienced a boom in tourism too, thanks to its Chinese twin.
The tiny Austrian town, which has around 700 inhabitants, has been called 'the most Instagrammable town in the world' and before Covid-19 hit, there were records of more than 1 million overnight stays per year.
While the Austrian reaction was initially hostile, according to a report for the American publication the New York Times, the two towns have built up a friendship over the years.
Despite the white crosses in Norwegian town Longyearbyen’s old cemetery, nobody has been buried in the graveyard since 1950, when dying became illegal. That may sound drastic, but it makes sense for the location. It's on the archipelago of Svalbard, about halfway between Norway and the North Pole, making it so cold that bodies cannot decompose.
Residents are required by law to fly to the mainland for their final days if they are terminally ill. If an unexpected death does occur, the body must be transported off the island.
The system is so well organised that the government offers support to families to make the process easier, according to online magazine, Diggit.
It’s not all doom and gloom, joyful painted wooden houses fill the town. Longyearbyen is a former mining town, so the majority of accommodation was built for mine workers and people providing services to them. Today, many are still either owned by the mining company, the local government (for their employees) or by the island's university.
What little private accommodation exists gets rented very quickly and often at very high rates. The upside is you get to live in one of the most beautiful places on Earth, surrounded by the Arctic wilderness, with spectacular views of the Northern Lights in winter.
The town is so far north that it stays dark for four months of the year and, when the sun officially reappears in March, citizens gather to welcome its return and kick off a week-long celebration called Solfestuka.
But entertainment is available year-round as the Community Council funds many buildings including the modern 'kulturhus' (Culture House), pictured, which opened in 2010 and hosts concerts and even a cinema that shows over 100 movies a year.
In fact, Longyearbyen is a cosmopolitan city with modern hotels, a brewery and more than 15 different restaurants, including the world’s most northernly haute cuisine eatery, Huset, which boasts one of Scandinavia’s largest wine cellars.
The Scandi architecture and décor are as beautiful as the snow-covered streets. And, of course, there’s the town’s four-legged residents which means your neighbours include over 1,000 polar bears and countless reindeer.
While at first, it seems like an ordinary town, there is more to Coober Pedy in the Australian outback than meets the eye.
Not only is it recognised as the world's opal mining capital (after a teenager discovered a piece of opal in the area 100 years ago), but more than half of its 2,500 inhabitants live underground to escape the brutal outdoor temperature.
How brutal? It can rise to 53˚C (127˚F) in the summer months.
There are over a hundred subterranean homes dug into the sandstone bedrock. While around 70 opal fields operate in the area, many of the old tunnels have been converted into living quarters.
Ventilation shafts allow air to breeze through the dugouts so they don’t get too stuffy, while most of the energy needed to run the town comes from solar panels and wind farms on its outskirts.
You don’t have to worry too much about planning permission in Coober Pedy, there are few rules so you can build pretty much anything you want, according to the Channel 4 documentary series World’s Most Extreme.
Churches, a hair salon, a bookshop and even a pool room have been built to accommodate the increasing number of subterranean dwellers.
Digging your new extension can bring unexpected benefits; when one hotel in town decided to burrow down to create a few more rooms, they hit the jackpot, discovering some valuable opals and earning themselves around £1.2 million ($1.5m) in assets.
The idea of living underground came when the original opal miners began sleeping in their mine shafts while they searched for their fortunes. Today, some inhabitants have since turned their cave dwellings into artworks.
Check the home of Crocodile Harry, a one-time Latvian baron who has become something of a local institution and charges a two-dollar fee to visit his extraordinary abode. The town also served as a backdrop in the film Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.
The Damanhur Federation is an ecovillage based in Piedmont in northern Italy. Founded by the late Oberto Airaudi in 1975 as a form of commune for the philosopher and his friends, it combines neo-pagan beliefs with a passion for nature.
Members assume animal and plant names and live in community houses of 10-30 people. According to its website, Damanhurians have created many businesses in the field of arts and crafts and beyond. The community even has its own currency, called the Credito.
Beneath the community’s countryside complex is a network of stunning temples, built by hand in the 1970s at depths reaching up to 100 feet beneath ground level, and completely unknown to the Italian authorities until 1992.
Known as the 'Temples of Humankind', they have been called the eighth wonder of the world and are dedicated to the planet and its biodiversity. Covered in murals and sculptures, they have a New Age feel about them and are said to correspond "to a profound journey inside oneself". This particular hall is called 'Hall of the Earth'.
There are seven rooms in total, each one dedicated to an element. The 'Hall of Spheres' is entirely covered in gold leaf, while the 'Hall of Mirrors', pictured, is a four-sided pyramid topped with a stained-glass dome. The community use it as a space for meditation.
Today, the community of Damanhur numbers around 750 people. Some live permanently on site, while others contribute to its upkeep and live here at least three days a week.
They have their own schools, rules and regulations, even on marriage, according to site Gaia, whereby you agree to be married for a specific number of years, after which you renew (or not!).
The buildings above ground are just as highly decorated and there are many beautiful spaces including peaceful woodlands.
Although there have been numerous reports of singing plants and unlocking the secret of time travel, members insist they are not a cult and regularly welcome visitors and temporary residents, according to the British newspaper the Daily Mail.
Long hailed as Australia’s UFO capital and on the way if you’re driving from Darwin to Adelaide, this eerie Australian town is filled with green alien statues, wacky street art and an iconic 'Welcome to Wycliffe Well' highway sign that provides the ideal spot to strike a pose with.
Whether you’ll spot any UFOs during your stay, however, is another matter, although there is a wide-open sky which is perfect for sightings if you're brave enough to stay out after dark...
With its bright green alien-shaped mannequins and UFO sculptures, Wycliffe Well feels like an abandoned theme park. According to the guidebooks, it was once considered one of the top five places in the world to spot UFOs, as reported by withoutahitch.com.
Founded more than 160 years ago, it began as a watering point and was one of four government wells established along the Overland Telegraph Line between Tennant Creek and Alice Springs.
The well served as an army farm in the 1940s. A roadhouse was later erected on one of the existing concrete slabs built for the army, and when a fuel pump was installed, visitors started stopping off for the night. That’s when the stories of mysterious lights and other unidentified objects in the sky began.
The walls of the original roadhouse are covered with hundreds of laminated newspaper cuttings confirming the many alleged UFO sightings. A sign above reads: 'Welcome to Wycliffe Well: UFO Centre of Australia'.
It became a UFO-themed tourist attraction in 1985 after a man named Lew Farkus took over the roadhouse and caravan park and set about capitalising on its UFO connection.
He built the Galaxy Auditorium, a 300-seat restaurant and a lake, and invested around £3.3 million ($4m) in the property, before selling it in 2009, according to the American website Vice.
There are many theories as to why it’s a UFO hot spot; some suggest that the aliens are attracted to the town’s cosmic alignment of landforms, tectonic plates and manmade structures, which emit a type of UFO-friendly energy.
On Shikoku, Japan’s smallest island, Nagoro might be one of the oddest villages in the world. At first glance, you might be tempted to say hello to one of these friendly elderly residents apparently waiting patiently for a bus.
But don’t expect a response as they are, in fact, life-sized scarecrows, and outnumber the village’s human inhabitants 10-to-one...
The cotton-stuffed effigies were the brainchild of Tsukimi Ayano, a crafts hobbyist who moved back to her hometown in 2002 to look after her ailing father. She created her first functional scarecrow in her father’s image to deter birds from eating seeds in the garden.
Her hobby has since morphed into an eerie 300-strong invasion of the village by the life-sized dolls, which now populate every corner of the once-lively community.
Even the village school, which closed several years ago, has been taken over by a class of attentive but mute 'children', listening to the pearls of wisdom of their motionless 'teacher'.
Elsewhere, the village dolls go about their daily business, whether it’s a team of construction workers 'installing' a road sign, a fisherman waiting for a bite, or an affectionate old couple on tree stumps watching the river go by. This pair are greeting some of the many tourists that pay a visit to Nagoro each year.
Tired of seeing the village population dwindling as its inhabitants either died or moved to cities in search of work, Tsukimi decided to repopulate the village by creating the dolls, often in the likeness of former villagers so she could 'speak' to them like old times.
Nagoro’s growing community went unnoticed for many years until 2014, when a visiting German filmmaker, Fritz Schumann made a short documentary on Tsukimi’s work. Entitled Valley of the Dolls, it has since put the quiet village on the map as reported by American news aggregate CNN.
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