the Travel Enthusiast
- 08 Nov
lizzy_a in Travel Planning | NO COMMENTSTop 5 weird underground tours
Seattle Underground
Being underground is never a very pleasant thing, unless you are a bit like a mole and like dark places under the earth. Not many people enjoy long subway commutes or train tunnels, but the relative darkness and depth of a place can be an advantage in the case of tours. Bored of city tours in the sunlight? Take an underground tour instead! And here are the weirdest of them all.
1. Seattle Underground Tour
By all appearances, Seattle is a bustling (if a bit rainy) American city, but under its well-adjusted surface you will find something completely different. Under the city lies a complex network of passageways and basements, buried since the the end of the 19th century. The Great Seattle Fire of 1889 devastated much of the city, and instead of rebuilding the streets, the locals elevated them.
The ruins were used as illegal flophouses, opium dens and brothels for a while, and then fell into disuse. Since 2004, there’s also an adult version of the tour which deals with the less savory parts of Seattle’s history, such as prostitutes and criminals.
2. Underground Portland Tour
The underground Portland tour explores both the metaphoric and literal underground of Portland’s history. Those who find crime, scandals and shady characters fascinating will be given a basic introduction to the illicit life of the city. 3/4 of the tour takes place above the ground, through the Old Town, Chinatown and other areas with a sordid past. The last part of the tour takes visitors to the subterranean part of the city, the infamous Shanghai Tunnels.3. Kaymakli Underground City, Cappadocia
Kaymakli Underground City lies under the citadel of Kaymakli, in Central Anatolia. The over 100 tunnels were dug out in Hittite times, and they are used even today as storage areas, stables or cellars. The tunnels are narrow, steep and stuffy, and only 4 floors of the structure are open to tourists. It’s difficult to imagine an entire town living in these caves, but seeing how this ‘trend’ was quite popular in Cappadocia (36 underground cities in total), they must have been quite comfortable.4. Old Sacramento Underground Tour
Like in many other cases, the streets of old Sacramento were raised because of a natural disaster – in this case floods. The streets of the city were raised with much effort over the span of ten years, in the second half of the 19th century. Walking the original streets of Sacramento is a very strange experience, especially since the tour will take you through some historical buildings too.In addition to the Old Sac tour, there’s also a ghost tour operating in the same tunnels, which will take you back in time to the most scandalous and horrifying events in the history of the city.
- Flights
- Hotels
- Packages
- Cars
- Cruises
travel search by Travelgrove (get this widget)5. Beijing’s Underground City
The underground city of Beijing is quite recent as far as underground cities go: it dates back to the Sino-Soviet conflict in the 1960’s. In fact, it’s not even a city, but a bomb shelter. However, the sheer size of it entitles the shelter to be called a city.It covers an area of 85 square kilometers, and it took more than 300,000 people to build it. 40% of the capital’s population was supposed to fit into the tunnels in case of an attack, and they had all the necessities for a proper life: schools, clinics, restaurants, shops. Some parts of the tunnels have been transformed into shopping centers or hostels, but most of what’s left is open for visitors.
You might also like
© Copyright 2004 - 2025 Travelgrove, Inc.