There are normal destinations, and then there are places that feel like a deadpan cartoon panel come to life. While British artist David Shrigley is trending right now for his brilliantly weird illustrations and dark, minimalist humor, the real world is hiding locations that match his energy: absurd, slightly unsettling, and weirdly unforgettable.
If Shrigley ever swapped his sketchbook for a backpack, these are the kinds of places he’d accidentally wander into, stare at for 10 minutes, and then turn into a drawing titled something like “HOLIDAY” with a stick figure screaming in the corner.
Below are 5 very real, very strange travel discoveries that feel like they’ve been storyboarded by a sarcastic artist who thinks the universe is one big inside joke.
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The Hand That Escaped the Sketchbook: Mano del Desierto, Chile
In Shrigley’s world, a random hand in the desert would just be labeled “HELP.” In Chile’s Atacama, it actually exists. The Mano del Desierto is a giant stone hand erupting from the sand 46 miles south of Antofagasta, and it looks exactly like a doodle that got too ambitious and crawled off the paper. The sculpture, by Chilean artist Mario Irarrázabal, rises out of a landscape so dry NASA uses it as a Mars test site. You stand there, alone with a giant half-buried limb, and suddenly your existential crisis feels very on-theme.
There’s no visitor center, no curated “experience,” just a rough pull‑off on the Pan-American Highway and whatever surreal thoughts your brain cooks up in the high desert silence. Go at sunrise if you want the hand casting a long, creepy shadow across the dunes. Go at night for some of the darkest skies on the planet and a photo that looks like the hand is trying to grab the Milky Way. Bring water, fuel, and a healthy appreciation for the absurd: this is not a place you stumble on; it’s a pilgrimage to a punchline carved in concrete.
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The Cathedral of Bones: Sedlec Ossuary, Czech Republic
If David Shrigley designed a wedding venue for goths, it would look a lot like the Sedlec Ossuary beneath a tiny church in Kutná Hora. Picture this: chandeliers made of femurs, skull garlands draped like party bunting, and a coat of arms spelled out in bones. This is all very real—between 40,000 and 70,000 human skeletons were turned into décor by a woodcarver named František Rint in the 19th century, because apparently “subtle” was not on the job description.
Stepping underground, the first thing you feel isn’t horror—it’s confusion. Why is it…kind of beautiful? Why is your brain telling you this is both wrong and artistically impressive? In classic Shrigley fashion, the space forces you to confront mortality, but the medium is so over-the-top it loops past grim and lands on absurd. Visit early in the day or late afternoon to avoid heavy crowds. Afterward, wander Kutná Hora’s crooked streets and consider how many centuries of people had to live and die to turn this into Instagram content for you.
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The Door to a Parallel Cartoon: Uranium Glass Bar, Prague, Czech Republic
Somewhere between “radioactive rave” and “museum of bad decisions” sits one of Prague’s strangest under-the-radar bars: a glowing temple to uranium glass. Under UV light, the shelves blaze neon green like someone turned Chernobyl into interior décor. It feels like stepping into a Shrigley drawing titled “THIS IS FINE” with a stick figure sipping a bright green drink that definitely isn’t FDA-approved.
The bar doubles as a mini-museum of Vaseline glass—yes, actual uranium in tiny quantities—shaped into goblets, sculptures, and fragile curiosities that look like they’d shatter the moment you make eye contact. You’re perfectly safe (levels are far below anything dangerous), but your brain will still whisper, “This can’t be normal.” Order a drink that glows under blacklight, lean into the weird, and resist the urge to steal anything unless you want your conscience to haunt you in fluorescent green. Perfect prelude or nightcap to Prague’s already chaotic nightlife.
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The Island of Abandoned Dolls: Isla de las Muñecas, Mexico
If David Shrigley storyboarded a horror movie but drew all the characters as limp stick figures with unsettling captions, you’d get Isla de las Muñecas. Tucked into the canals of Xochimilco south of Mexico City, this tiny island is festooned with hundreds of decapitated, dirt-streaked dolls hanging from trees and nailed to walls. Limbs missing, eyes clouded, hair matted—it’s like a toy store had a nervous breakdown and no one came to help.
The legend says a caretaker began hanging dolls to appease the spirit of a drowned girl. Over decades, more dolls appeared, slowly turning the island into a collaborative fever dream. You reach it by taking a trajinera (flat-bottomed boat) into the canals—colorful party boats drifting past mariachis, floating food vendors, families celebrating birthdays—then suddenly you’re docking at a place where every pair of plastic eyes is judging your life choices. It’s touristy, yes, but still deeply strange: a folk-art shrine to grief, superstition, and the human instinct to decorate fear. Go on a cloudy day if you really want the full psychological impact.
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The Ancient City That Won’t Stop Moving: Coober Pedy’s Underground World, Australia
Most towns are built on the earth. Coober Pedy, in the South Australian outback, politely declined that memo and burrowed into it. First glance: dusty, sun-blasted nothingness, like a Shrigley drawing of “HOLIDAY DESTINATION” where the landscape is a single beige line and a confused stick person. But then you realize the real city is underground—houses, churches, hotels, shops—dug into the rock to escape the brutal desert heat.
You can actually sleep in an underground hotel room carved out of sandstone, walls glowing warm orange under soft lights, silence so heavy you can hear your own brain arguing with itself. Above ground, the outskirts are cratered with opal mine shafts, abandoned machinery, and the occasional spaceship prop from films like Pitch Black and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. It’s frontier chaos meets community resilience: people who looked at an unlivable landscape and thought, “We’ll just go inside the planet, then.” If you’ve ever wanted to feel like a mole person with frequent flyer miles, this is your moment.
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Conclusion
The real world is currently obsessing over David Shrigley’s dark, minimalist illustrations, but you don’t have to stay glued to a screen to experience that flavor of surrealism. Out there are deserts with giant hands, chapels built from bones, uranium-lit bars, haunted doll islands, and underground towns that feel like concept art for a graphic novel no one dared to publish.
Weird places don’t just give you photos—they rewrite your internal commentary. They make you feel like a character scribbled in the margin of someone else’s notebook, wandering through locations that shouldn’t exist but stubbornly, gloriously do.
If your travel bucket list still looks like a brochure rack at an airport, it’s time to redraw it. The world is already absurd. You might as well go visit the punchlines in person.
Key Takeaway
The most important thing to remember from this article is that this information can change how you think about Weird Places.
