- Would you rather ride around in an excavator bucket or experience the horrors of Soviet oppression?
Once you’ve been to one amusement park, you’ve been to them all. They all have more or less the same rollercoasters, merry-go-rounds, arcades…
If you’re burned out on theme parks, perhaps you need something other than Busch Gardens or Hersheypark. There are a lot of theme parks out there whose themes are, shall we say, unique.
Here are 10 of the strangest theme parks in the world and where you can find them.
1. Salina Turda
Salina Turda in Romania offers many of the same attractions as your regular theme park, like minigolf, bowling, arcades, and Ferris wheels. The difference is that they’re several hundred feet underground.
Opened in 1992, Salina Turda is located in an ancient salt mine that was in commercial use from the days of the Roman Empire until 1932. In addition to playing with its theme park attractions, you can explore an underground lake and the mine’s 2,000-year history in its shafts and corridors.
2. Window of the World
Want to see the whole world in one place? Just go to China. The Window of the World, located in the southern city of Shenzhen, displays the planet’s most famous buildings and structures.
Only, they’re a little smaller. The park features 130 scale replicas of various landmarks, from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to Athens’ Acropolis. You’d struggle to call some of them miniatures, though, as the one-third scale Eiffel Tower, for instance, is still 300 feet tall.
3. Diggerland
Fans of heavy metal should visit Diggerland. No, we’re not talking about rock music, but industrial construction equipment.
In addition to various rides (like getting carried around in an excavator bucket), Diggerland hosts dump truck races and other such events. Although the original park is in Strood, England, you can also find one in New Jersey.
4. Ferrari World
Feel the need for speed? Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, might then be up your… Well, speed.
This mostly indoor park features many rides and games themed around the famous red sportscars, such as a drag race between two rollercoasters. Even from the outside, the red-roofed park looks suitably sporty.
5. Imsil Cheese Theme Park
You won’t believe what they celebrate at the Imsil Cheese Theme Park in South Korea. That’s right; all types of cheese!
The park has a museum dedicated to covering the entire known history of cheese. It also features professional cheesemaking facilities that let visitors try their hand at making their own chunk of yellow goodness. Of course, the biggest draw is the annual cheese festival, with even more cheesy activities.
6. Haw Par Villa
Haw Par Villa in Singapore (also called Tiger Balm Gardens) takes you on a trip through Chinese mythology. It’s displays and attractions feature historical, semi-historical, and legendary statues, stories, and scenes from Chinese literature and folklore.
Although the park markets itself as fun for the whole family, some of the attractions might not be completely family-friendly. Case in point, the display depicting the 10 levels of Chinese hell gets pretty gruesome.
7. Crocosaurus Cove
Visiting anywhere in Australia can put you in close proximity to some dangerous critter. But if you want a brush with danger, Crocosaurus Cove is the place to be.
Housing “the world’s largest display of Australian reptiles,” this theme park/zoo/aquarium’s biggest draw is the Cage of Death. It involves locking you in a transparent plexiglass tube and dropping you in a pool teeming with ginormous saltwater crocodiles.
Don’t worry, though; there are no recorded cases of the cage breaking (yet).
8. Soviet Bunker
Some 15 miles northeast of the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, you’ll find the Soviet Bunker, which houses the Underground Museum of Socialism. Here, you can also participate in the 1984 Survival Drama, which is modeled after everything the Soviet regime put Lithuanians through in that year.
The willing participants get to participate in such delightful activities as gas mask drills, random arrests, KGB interrogations, and forced body searches before dining on military rations with the local party leadership. Step out of line, and you’ll get to see what a Soviet-era isolation cell looks like.
If that’s not enough Soviet repression for you, I’ll throw in an honorable mention for Grutas Parka, a theme park featuring hundreds of statues of Lenin, Stalin, and the gang. The Lithuanians sure have found a unique way to embrace a sore spot in their past.
9. Patriot Park
Moving from Soviet times to today’s Russia, here’s Patriot Park. It’s a theme park celebrating Russian military might from World War II to the modern day.
This delightful whole-family park lets kids explore detailed models from WWII battles like Stalingrad before climbing into full-sized display models of tanks, missile launchers, and other death-dealing machines. To wrap up the day, they can try their hand at urban warfare in one of the park’s many simulators.
10. Love Land
If you’d rather make love than war, head over to South Korea’s Jeju Island. There, you’ll find Love Land: a tourist attraction themed around the tender act of lovemaking.
Initially intended as a sex education destination to boost South Korea’s falling birth rates, it has become a popular naughty travel destination. The park features many statues and interactive diagrams exploring all the ways to dance the horizontal mambo.
Some of the park’s attractions got a bit too raunchy, though. The peeping show, in particular, has drawn criticism due to allowing people to peek up the skirts of unsuspecting women.