The second look
The thing that keeps pulling me back is the second look. I don't trust a place I've only seen once.
Tjornuvik, Faroe Islands (62.2892, -7.1484). Street view, May 2015, photograph by AirtagAlex. The lane still ends at the sea. The first time I looked, a black-and-white cat stood in the empty road. The second time, a dog. Snow on the peaks.
Cape Spear, Newfoundland (47.5234, -52.6196). Everyone goes for the lighthouse. I stood at four headings and it was in none of them: only a gravel path, a chain-link fence along the drop, dark red cliffs, deep blue water, and signs pointing at the thing itself.
Tyneham, Dorset (50.622448, -2.16875). Street view, April 2017, photograph by Peter Byrne. In December 1943, 225 people were given 30 days to leave and were never allowed back. The grass is still mown short. There is still a bin, still no mailboxes. The ruin is still roofless.
And one place I never went back to: Bodie, California (38.2122, -119.0122), a ghost town held in arrested decay since 1962, with rangers living on site year round. Preserved, tidy, tended. It did nothing to me.
So it isn't emptiness, or age, or sadness. The places that pull are the ones I could not finish looking at.