40 Real Places Ripped Right Out of Sci-Fi and Fantasy Stories

Think of the most amazing places you've seen come to life in science fiction / fantasy movies and television shows: The dunes of Tatooine where Luke Skywalker longing looks up at two suns, the lush and gentle hills of the Shire in The Lord of the Rings films, or the expansive but claustrophobic cyberpunk cityscape of the Blade Runner films. While you'll never be able to truly see those places for real with your own eyes, don't despair! There are numerous places on Earth that feel like they'd be right at home in any single one of those films. Neuschwanstein Castle looks like it's something straight out of a Disney film, the Tsingy de Bemaraha looks like a Tim Burton-esque horrorscape, and The Garden of Cosmic Speculation could easily be from some underappreciated sci-fi TV shows that nerds will mourn the cancellation of for the next two decades. That said, if you don't feel like travelling, movies are a pretty good option too.
Arctic Island Warehouse

The Siberian mine that eats helicopters

Neuschwanstein Castle

Corryvreckan Maelstrom

The Seven Strong Men

Don't fall in here

The Atomium

DSU's Optical Science Center

The Garden of Cosmic Speculation

El Alto, Bolivia

India and Pakistan's Border Wall

Chapel Torre Girona

Kinda wish this is what Dune looked like

Volcanic ice caves SOUND like they should be oxymorons...

Gonna nope right out of this cave, thanks

How did this form naturally?

What's this weird, pink lake?

A real crystal fortress?

Mponeng Gold Mine

Sudbury Neutrino Observatory

ARoS Kunstmuseum

The Ijen Crater

Salina Turda

The Polygone Riviera

This lake is ridiculous.

Sahara sea shells?

Marble caves... sort of.

Frozen waves? Not quite!

You can't convince me a unicorn doesn't live here

Minecraft in real life?

Pittsburgh Children's Museum

Berlin's Tropical Island Resort

Slab City, CA

Moshe Safdie's model society

This sea foam isn't fake

Psychadelic Russian mines

The strange colors of this tree!

Natural water stairs

Snow... snakes, yeah...

These lakes change colors!
