A closer look
Why stay at a luxury resort when you can hike through thick fog to stare at the post-apocalyptic remains of a collapsed mining empire? The Matsuo Ghost Apartment Hotel in northern Japan is the crown jewel of 'haikyo' ruin exploration tourism. Once a booming sulfur mine housing 15,000 people, it was entirely abandoned in the 1970s. Now, intrepid ruin-hunters trek through the overgrown mountains just to photograph the eleven brutalist apartment blocks slowly rotting back into the earth.
