Thankfully for Thissen and the companion who was with him on the trip, the issue was resolved with the help of lawyers who made a deal with the prosecutors to let them off with a fine, he said.Recent Examples on the Web Democrats win urban areas by large margins. "So I risked five years in prison for that adventure." "I got charged for espionage and for possessing state secrets," Thissen said. However, it wasn't until 2021 that he received a lawyer's letter from the Italian authorities. "For me, it was important to document as much as possible before everything is gone because it's also a way to preserve a little piece of history," he added.Īn abandoned underground Cold War bunker in Liguria, Italy.ĭespite running into serious trouble with local law enforcement because of his visit, this abandoned Cold War bunker in Liguria, Italy, is one of Thissen's favorite spots.Īfter learning about the existence of the underground military facility from an old newspaper article, Thissen was intrigued - but quickly realized that there was next to no information about it online.Īs it turns out, the site had not been documented by any other urban explorers before, he said.Ī 2020 YouTube video about the bunker that Thissen uploaded made the rounds online and was even picked up by Italian media outlets. Since the disaster, the Japanese government has been trying to clean up the place by demolishing the damaged buildings, Thissen said. "You can feel the sadness of the situation because people were afraid and they left in a hurry," he added. According to him, among the most gripping sights are abandoned shopping carts filled with groceries, and school backpacks left behind in classrooms. "When you go there, it's like a perfect time capsule where everything is left exactly the way it was on March 11th, 2011," Thissen said. More than 160,000 people were evacuated from the nearby areas, based on estimates from World Nuclear Association. On March 11, 2011, tsunami waves triggered by an off-shore earthquake damaged the reactors in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants, causing them to melt and release radioactive materials into the surroundings. The zones intrigue him so much that he's been there four times to photograph what's left of the area after the 2011 nuclear disaster. Traps were also laid in the desert to catch trespassers, including sharp pins hammered into the ground that will rip the tires of any vehicle passing through, he added.Īn abandoned grocery store in the Fukushima nuclear exclusion zone in Japan.Įxploring the Fukushima exclusion zones in Japan is another highlight for Thissen. "We even heard gunshots at one point, but we didn't know if they were us." I had to tell my girlfriend and family that I didn't know if I would get home because if they see you, they could shoot you since it's a live base," Thissen said. The Baikonur Cosmodrome is an active spaceport where Soviet and Russian space missions were launched - including Vostok 1 in 1961 which carried Yuri Gagarin, the first man to ever fly in space.Īfter driving through the open grasslands of the Kazakh Steppe, Thissen and his companions had to trek through 20 miles of the desert while avoiding detection by authorities to reach the spaceport. Seeing them in person was an experience like no other for Thissen, and it has earned the top spot on his list of favorite places. Two abandoned Soviet space shuttles sit inside an old hangar in the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Thissen standing on one of the abandoned space shuttles in the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Below he shares with us some of his favorite adventures. Thissen says that he's visited abandoned places in over 75 countries so far. He shares videos of his adventures on his YouTube channel, Exploring the Unbeaten Path, which has garnered 454,000 subscribers. "Before that, I was just strolling around in abandoned buildings, and then I found out there was a whole underground scene of people doing this," Thissen added. It was only years later, in 2007, that Thissen discovered on the internet that his hobby had a name: urban exploration. When he turned 16, Thissen got himself a scooter so he could get around and explore small buildings in his neighborhood. "I was really curious about the place, but at that age, I couldn't go," Thissen told Insider. His intrigue for abandoned areas was kicked off as a young child when he was drawn to a derelict monastery that his parents often drove by in his hometown of Maastricht. Thissen, a 37-year-old from the Netherlands, has been an urban explorer even before he knew the term existed. It often indicates a user profile.īob Thissen is an urban explorer who documents his adventures on the YouTube channel "Exploring the Unbeaten Path." Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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