Don't Go There: A Tour of the World's Most Sinister Spots

by J. W. Ocker

Embark on a guided tour of 30 of the most dangerous and mysterious locations that we simply cannot stay away from.

Have you ever visited a forest or an abandoned building and gotten a bad vibe? There are places that are rife with rumors of hauntings, monsters, and sinister phenomena that can’t be explained. And there are just as many sites that are the confirmed home of disasters, murders, and man-made mistakes. Everyone’s heard about the Bermuda Triangle, but do you know these chilling sites?
There’s a lake tucked high in the frozen Himalayan Mountains . . . and it’s full of skeletons.Mount This mysterious mountain in California inspired the I AM cult and is said to host UFOs, bigfoots, and lizard people.Nahanni National Called the “Valley of the Headless Men,” this national park in northern Canada is famous for legends of a hidden gold mine . . . and a series of decapitated miners.Pine Best known as the home of the Jersey Devil, this desolate pine forest has also hosted pirates, the mafia, and moonshiners.Ciudad This fabled pre-Columbian “Lost City of the Monkey God” in Honduras doesn’t want to be found, and explorers seeking it have met violent ends.

Award-winning travel writer and dark history expert J. W. Ocker explores these and many more locales around the world in this fascinating compendium that will ignite curiosity . . . and perhaps inspire some dubious travel plans.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, Paranormal, Adult, History, Audiobook, Halloween

281 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 14, 2026

Reviews

[Ivonne Rovira · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this book thinking it was a guide to super-spooky locations (think Waverly Hills in Louisville or the Stanley Hotel in Colorado), but it’s not. Author J.W. Ocker claims: “These places need to be avoided because they are laced, latitude and longitude, with weird forces that seem to cause strange deaths, mysterious disappearances, and inexplicable, reality-shaking phenomena.”

In other words, think Bermuda Triangle.

Ocker includes the Bermuda Triangle, of course, plus the Pine Barrens of New Jersey (mob slayings, Jersey Devil, ghosts), Skinwalker Ranch in Utah (cryptids, UFOs, ghosts, portals, crop circles, cattle mutilations), the Lost City of the Monkey God in Honduras (hidden treasure, debilitating heat, disease, drug cartels, poisonous snakes and insects, big cats, monkey-human hybrids), Mount Everest (corpses, ghosts, the reckless rich, too much trash and feces), the Paris Catacombs (6 million skeletons, drunken trespassers), Chernobyl and neighboring Pripyat in Ukraine (radiation, ghosts, cryptids), Aokigahara Forest in Japan (lots of suicides, ghosts, Logan Paul — shudder!) and plenty of other places I hadn’t heard of from all over the world.

Here’s a sample on Manchac Swamp:

Swamps are the worst of all worlds when it comes to dangerous environments: They’re wet enough to drown you as dead as any ocean. Dense enough to disappear you without a trace as much as any forest. They can get hot enough to burn you crispy as any desert and cold enough to freeze you stiff as any tundra. They contain creatures deadly enough to kill you fast as any jungle. And they’re disease-ridden as the most crowded city. In fact, there is very little that could make these places more terrifying than they are already. You’d have to go supernatural, I think. Like maybe a swamp that’s been cursed by a witch. Like maybe Manchac Swamp in Louisiana.

Ooh! Shudder! I’m ashamed to admit that it was fascinating in a can’t-look-away-from-a-car-crash kind of way. I suspect other readers also won’t have heard of most of these places and would really enjoy the guilty pleasure.

In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley and Quirk Books in exchange for an honest review.

[Amber Hathaway · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ocker is an auto-buy author for me, and I was excited to dive into Don't Go There. The book is divided into a six core parts, each one corresponding to a different type of landscape: forests, waters, islands, deserts, ruins, and snowscapes. Within each section, you'll visit several different frightening locations. Some of these were familiar to me like the Pine Barrens, Haynesville Woods, and la Isla de las Muñecas, but most I hadn't heard of before. I think unless you're a real spooky locations buff, there'll probably be plenty that is new for you. We've got a wide variety of spooky locations too. There are your classic ghosts, cryptids, and UFOs. There are plenty of curses to go around. And then we've got places that are just plain dangerous or weird. But also maybe cursed and/or haunted.

What I love about Ocker's work is that he doesn't sensationalize. He'll lay out the legends for you, but if there's nothing to back them up, he'll let you know that too. Honestly, some of these places, such as the Bermuda Triangle, might seem less spooky after reading this. But even when the most logical explanations are the mundane, it's still a fascinating look at some of the strangest places on earth. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who enjoys reading about the paranormal and spooky locations.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thanks to NetGalley and Quirk Books for this new travel companion to places and locations of high weirdness, areas where angels fear to tread, but UFO's, cryptids and spooky others have made their home, places both familiar and forgotten, around the corner, and around the world.

I grew up in a small New England town that had a haunted house. The place had a name and a story, one that grew in the telling. Built around the Civil War, it had long been deserted, a home fought in custody battles, decaying as the court cases dragged on. Depending on the teller and the day the body count fluctuated, haunted by slain servants long in the past, to kids from my own school, a grade or two ahead disappearing, but the town never mentioning them, because of fear. The place is a senior retirement center now, but I always get a chill passing it. A chill of regret for never going in, seeing the insides of the murder house, a chill for the atmosphere still present, the psychic energy given to the place from all the ill thoughts. Places have auras, places are given power by what people believe, even when what the believe are mostly legends. And for these people J. W. Ocker has written the perfect guide of places that have these feelings, these legends, this weirdness and more. Don't Go There: A Tour of the World's Most Sinister Spots by J. W. Ocker is in a way an anti-travel manual, a Fodor's of the forbidden, a Stern's book of the Satanic, a list of places with reputations for the odd, the weird, the paranormal, and even visitors from beyond the stars.

The book features a variety of places, all around the world, and broken down by environment. Lakes, triangles of land and sea, deserts, mountains, and even a lost city or two. Each entry begins with a little information, where the places are, what one can find there, and what might be wrong with it. There are man-made lakes with high body counts in the United States. Lost cities in China and South America, triangles, Bermuda and Massachusetts. My home state of Connecticut has a haunted village. Lakes full of bones. And the top of Everest, filled with bodies of lost climbers, Yetis and tons and tons of human waste, again from climbers. Ocker discusses the history, what makes them haunted, why the legends started, and how many of these legends became truth.

A really fun book, one that I expect from Ocker. This is the fourth book I have read by Ocker and I enjoy the way Ocker treats the subject matter. Never making fun, never talking down, presenting the facts, the myths, any busting that might have gone on. Even scientific explanations for say a lake of bones, or the many lost cities in South America. Ocker does a lot of research, traveling to spots, which makes for fun reading. Ocker has a very god style, one that keeps the reader engaged, and makes one wonder what else is out there and why.

A fun book for burgeoning cryptid fans, fans of the X-Files and for writers this is a perfect prompt book for story ideas. Also role players will get a lot of material for adventures. As I wrote I have read quite a few books by Ocker and have enjoyed them quite a bit. I look forward to more adventures into the unknown.

[Sacha · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars

Most readers are going to have one of two distinct responses to this title: (1) "Okay! No worries! I wouldn't dare!" or (2) "Don't threaten me with a good time!" I quickly learned I fell in the latter group as Liz Lemon's words, "I want to go to there!" haunted me with every new detail.

I experienced this book in two formats: an ebook, which I recommend for the moody visuals and an audiobook, which I received from Libro.fm. I enjoyed listening while I read by sight and advise prospective readers to do the same if they appreciate visual appeal (mostly decorative).

I loved the concept - learning about 30 distinct locations that are said to be haunted, dangerous, and/or just plain creepy in some ways - and the way this material is organized is both palatable and engaging. If you like creepy lore, learning about the connections between a place's reputation and its reality, and thinking about possibilities beyond what most of us encounter in daily life, you'll have a blast reading this. I know I did!

*Special thanks to NetGalley, Quirk Books, and Libro.fm for this arc and alc, which I received in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

[PJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to @librofm for the ALC of Don't Go There by J.W. Ocker, published by Simon & Schuster. This book was such an easy, fun, and delightfully quirky read. I saw it described as “a travel guide for those of us who like spooky, risky, and eerie,” and that alone hooked me. If you’re drawn to the strange and unsettling, this is absolutely your travel guide. And if you’re like me — a certified scaredy cat — it’s still perfect, because now I know exactly which places to avoid.

I listened to the audiobook, and each chapter felt like its own mini podcast episode, something you can dip in and out of without losing the thread. I was halfway through when my husband joined me on a day of errands, and I assumed I’d have to pause since he hadn’t heard the beginning. Instead, he jumped right in and was instantly invested.

The biggest surprise? How many of these eerie, bizarre locations are right here in the United States. It made the book even more fascinating — and a little unsettling. I learned plenty of strange, memorable facts without ever having to set foot in these places myself. Overall, it was a fun, engaging read that’s absolutely worth picking up.

[Jessica Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

J.W. Ocker’s Don’t Go There: A Tour of the World’s Most Sinister Spots is such a fun travel companion for anyone who likes a little mystery to their adventures. As a travel writer, Ocker presents an informative (I learned a lot!) compilation that covers all famously creepy grounds, spots, and environments across the world, both real and supernatural. As a dark history expert, he perfectly mixes familiar favorites and some of the world’s best kept secrets to create an entertaining compendium of international fears. In addition to its truly interesting writing of regional legends, creepy cryptids, and haunting atmospheres, Don’t Go There is wonderfully illustrated by Adam Parata adding a layer of visual care and spooky imagery. Ocker has certainly inspired my future travel plans. Don’t Go There is a great guide for all the places in the world you want to avoid… or all the places you might just want to visit… if you dare.

[Rebecca]

I did not get very far in this one. I started listening to it, but it just seemed like a somewhat encyclopedic listing of bad things or associations connected to a particular place. I just didn’t find it that interesting. Thanks to Libro FM for a free educator copy of the audiobook.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Ocker’s books, they are always fun introductions to so many stories. I often wish he would dive a bit deeper into cultural impacts but his fast-paced introductions allow you to decide what stories you want to pursue. If you want a fun nonfiction beach read, I definitely recommend this book.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was pretty mediocre. I liked United States of Cryptids better; I think this one suffers from a lack of focus. The places seemed to be chosen just at random, and a few are lifted straight from entries in that book or wikipedia. I still learned some things, though.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75
"The World" appears to be 80% USA

[Hannelore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative and fun.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable tour of the world's weirdest spots!