While there are plenty of locations in the world where you can freely roam, there are five places that are absolutely prohibited for any visitor to set foot on, and the reasons are wild.
OK, so you might be immediately thinking that Area 51 is going to be the craziest area on this list, but it doesn’t even touch the sides.
And while the named locations might not have alleged aliens or ‘UFO‘ spottings, there are super serious reasons why you can’t travel willy-nilly to them.
For one, it could be dangerous to your health, and it also could get you arrested.
With that, here are the places that are locked down tighter than Costco to shoppers without a loyalty card.
North Sentinel Island is off limits (2024 Maxar Technologies/Getty Images)
North Sentinel Island
As much as anyone can get on board relaxing on white sand beaches, with a cocktail in hand, there’s one place you wouldn’t want to take a dip.
The North Sentinel Island in the Indian Ocean has banned any tourists from visiting as it remains untouched by the outside world.
It is one of the 572 archipelagos making up the Andaman Islands and is believed to be home to up to 500 natives who have never been widely contacted.
The island is run by a voluntarily isolated tribe, known to brutally kill anyone who decides to encroach on their space.
Sadly, they murdered US evangelist John Allen Chau in 2018, who planned to live among and preach Christianity to the Sentinelese.
Don’t think about entering the vault (Stefano Bianchetti/Corbis via Getty Images)
Vatican’s Vault
There’s nothing quite like looking into the history of Catholicism and walking through architecture and finding hidden gems.
But one gem you won’t be able to feast your eyes on is the Vatican Secret Archive which was founded in the 17th century.
It was renamed as the Vatican Apostolic Archive in 2019 and contains all of the personal documents of the popes.
While nobody had been able to enter for 250 years, in 1881, Pope Leo XIII relaxed certain rules and allowed a select group of Catholic scholars to access it.
But nobody else is allowed to step foot within the space.
Thinking of visiting? Think again (LISE ASERUD/NTB Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)
The Doomsday Vault
Another vault you’re not allowed to go in is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, AKA the island of Spitsbergen’s Doomsday Vault, that contains seeds from over 1.3 million plant and crop species.
It has so many seeds, just in case anything happens to the world and we need to repopulate the lands with crops for everyone to eat.
Strangely, the vault is 100 meters inside a mountain and has been built to withstand earthquakes, nukes and more.
To keep it sanitary, nobody is allowed in to contaminate the stash.
The snakes on this island can kill you (9 News)
Snake Island
Ilha da Queimada Grande, AKA Snake Island, separated from Brazil around 11,000 years ago and there’s a reason it got its name.
Essentially, it’s teeming with local snakes that evolved to become the incredibly dangerous golden lancehead vipers.
It’s said that their venom can melt human flesh and even kill you within an hour.
Urban legend claims that the last person who lived here was its lighthouse keeper, who was killed, along with his family, by the venomous snakes in the 1920s.
Because of how many snakes live there, the Brazilian government has banned anyone from setting foot on the island, but some scientists can for research purposes, as long as a doctor comes with them.
This isn’t a church you can pray in (Getty Stock Image/Rudolf Ernst)
The Church of St. Mary of Zion
You may already know about this place if you ever watched Indiana Jones embark to the Ark of the Covenant, hidden inside of a church in Aksum, Ethiopia.
Close enough.
It’s supposedly inside the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion which might be a replicated version of the Ark. And it’s believed that only a guardian is allowed in the chapel where its apparently housed.
