Northern State Recreation Area

In the late 1920s, this was the site of the state's largest mental asylum. Today, the land is full of hiking trails between the two areas of buildings: one is the campus of buildings for the asylum, and the other is the self sustainable canning and dairy farm that fed the asylum staff and inmates. This place is a photographers dream, and the paradise of all hikers, explorers, wanderers, and history buffs! There are a few other places that could give you the eerie, surreal, and time-frozen feel of this place, and the way nature is reclaiming what man built. There's a lot of graffiti and some broken glass in the buildings, but the big empty spaces, falling in rooves, and rotting wood create the most mesmerizing -- some might even say haunting -- aura. The area is closed from Sunset to sunrise, but you could easily spend a weekend or more exploring this area! A couple final notes: one, a few of the buildings on the asylum campus are still being used, so those are off limits -- and two, there is a disc golf course spread across much of the land, so bring your frisbees!