For a long period of time, islands have fascinated people by representing either paradises or peaceful retreats from modern life pressures. However, there are islands in all corners of the globe that are nothing but a total opposite of an idyllic setting. Reputedly these are considered as the most dangerous, mysterious, and uninhabitable places on Earth, which no sane person would ever attempt to go near. From far-flung outposts lost to dark waters and treacherous shores, to islands of deadly creatures, there are secrets these deadly places have kept nearly untold.

This article uncovers some of the world’s most forbidden islands whose histories, until now untold, have kept people away from them. Each island has different aspects of hazards: natural, supernatural, human-that have kept them forbidden to explorers and tourists and most governments of the world. Yet, despite the dangers, these islands live in our imaginations, their mysteries taunting us.

1. The Island of Sentinel: Where the Most Isolated Tribe in the World Lives

Perhaps most well-known of all the dangerous islands listed, North Sentinel Island is located in the Bay of Bengal and also forms part of India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands. About the size of Manhattan, this dot contains a few square miles of the Sentinelese, one of Earth’s last uncontacted tribes. The Sentinelese are not only violent in refusing outsiders into their midst but have been doing so for tens of thousands of years, virtually living in complete isolation.

The government of India has long recognized the need to protect the Sentinelese from contact with the outside world, and for this reason, the island is strictly off-limits. Anyone who tries to set a foot on North Sentinel gets violent revenge in return. In 2006, two fishermen entered the area illicitly and were killed by arrows from members of the tribe. Most recently, in 2018, an American missionary who wanted to spread Christianity to the tribe was killed by the Sentinelese shortly after he landed on the island.

Their mode of subsistence involves hunting and the gathering of fruits from trees. Much could not be known relating to the Sentinelese since there was no outsider stayed with these tribal people and remained there to observe their trends over long periods. Mysterious combined with dangers maintains North Sentinel as being among the spots on Earth fraught most with mystery.

2. The Island of the Dolls: Spooky and Creepy Place in Mexico

There is an island which, though nestled in the canals of Xochimilco, Mexico, has gained notoriety among tourists as one of the spookiest places in the world: Isla de las Muñecas, Island of the Dolls. The thousands of decaying, abandoned dolls hanging from trees, fences, and buildings make this island nothing short of eerie. According to local legend, the island’s sole resident, Don Julian Santana, began to collect dolls after he discovered the body of a young girl who had died from drowning in the surrounding canals.

The locals tell that Santana believed the dolls would keep the evil spirits away; he was haunted by this girl’s spirit. As time went on, he continued collecting the dolls-mostly mutilated: with their eyes torn out or hanging on threads, hanged on the trees of this island, to save him from this girl’s ghost.

Since his death in 2001, the island has been a sort of macabre tourist attraction. Visitors to the island report that the dolls often appear to move with the wind and seem to stare back with cold, dead eyes. But Isla de las Muñecas has been avoided by all people for there was absolutely no threat the Island of the Dolls posed to physical health, morbid history behind its creation and hauntings due to which very few people try visiting that place.

3. Poveglia Island: Island of Madness and Plague-Italy

This island is a small island that belongs to Italy and has gained a notorious reputation over a while lying in the sea off Venice, Italy. This small island was used as a quarantine station for plague victims during the 18th century, where the infected, in their thousands, were shipped to their deaths. It later became a mental asylum in the 1920s where patients were subjected to terrifying experimentation. With all this dark history, the place has often been considered to be haunted, having spirits of the dead lingering within its abandoned buildings.

Perhaps the most famous rumor surrounding Poveglia Island is that of its asylum doctor said to have been driven mad by the spirits of the plague victims, jumping from the bell tower to his death. Other versions say that gruesome medical procedures were performed upon patients in the very same bell tower, further enhancing the island’s reputation as a place of suffering and despair.

Nowadays, Poveglia Island is inaccessible for anyone except a few people, but the associated cruelty with the history has turned it into a hot destination for takers of paranormal activity. Its reputation for death, insanity, and loneliness earned Poveglia a spot on the list for being one of the scariest islands in the world.

4. Iriomote Island: A Deadly and Remote Paradise in Japan

While many think of Japan as a country of bustling cities and serene temples, the island of Iriomote offers another kind of hazard. Part of the Yaeyama Islands in Okinawa, Iriomote is a place of dense jungles, steep mountains, and remote wilderness. The island is home to the endangered Iriomote cat, a small wildcat found only on the island but also houses deadly arrays of predators and natural hazards.

These jungles have high concentrations of the habu-a poisonous, pit viper known to strike very fast. Next come the risky rivers and dangerous waterfalls; risks to every adventurer’s desire for survival on their expeditions. As a matter of fact, as recently as the year 2017, one such trekker was declared missing in the areas on this island. Subsequent and aggressive searches led nowhere to finding them. This makes this isle not safe for visiting purposes in relation to its distance, inhospitable topography, and number of threats.

Given that Iriomote Island should, in reality take on the aspect of a tropical paradise, it is actually one which those best prepared, most experienced would have the courage to embark upon in light of perils lying in its forest crevices.

5. Tristan da Cunha: The Most Remote Island in the World

Tristan da Cunha is a chain of volcanic islands in the South Atlantic Ocean, usually regarded as the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world. The biggest island, also called Tristan da Cunha, is over 1,500 miles away from the nearest landmass, Saint Helena, and some 2,000 miles away from continental land, the southernmost tip of South Africa. It houses a small community of about 250 people on this island, largely dependent on fishing for their livelihood and sustenance.

Despite the fact that Tristan da Cunha is so far away, it has been of interest to adventurers and scholars. It is still very dangerous to reach due to the distance from the next large land area, as well as powerful storms and low temperatures. Long sea voyage is the only possibility to reach it, and only a few ships visit the island annually.

Isolation presupposes that a tourist should prepare for actual extreme and scanty conditions; though there has been a community on Tristan da Cunha for centuries, it is still an inhospitable and hostile nook of the world, far from all comforts of civilization.

6. Chiloe Island: The Land of Myths and Mysterious Disappearances in Chile

The Chilean Chiloe Island is one of those places that abound in folklore and mystery. It is an island of lagoons, swamps, thick forests, and rolling hills; it is world-renowned for the rich variety of its cultural life, but also hosts a great amount of legends of chilling taste. Among them, the most famous stories speak about the “Caleuche,” a ghost ship that would sail in front of its coasts, and “Pincoya,” a sea creature with a mermaid-like look that rules the waves.

Other activity that has taken place on Chiloe Island in history is disappearance activities that are not explained. The thick forests and foggy coasts impede investigations by authorities making mysterious island more mysterious. People residing around the island are reported to have observed strange lights in the sky, strange sounds in the night, and supernatural happenings that have no explanation.

It is not an island of danger, per se, but with all the mythical and mysterious charm, it is the kind of place that is preferably avoided in the dark.

7. Bouvet Island: A Frozen Wasteland in the South Atlantic

The island of Bouvet lies in the South Atlantic Ocean and is listed among one of the remotest islands on earth. Glaciers almost completely cover this tiny uninhabited island, described as one of the most inhospitable places on Earth. It was discovered as early as 1739 by a Norwegian explorer but only much later gained the interest of scientists. Nowadays, Bouvet Island is a protected wildlife reserve; however, extreme conditions make it hardly reachable and very dangerous to visit.

The waters are icy cold. The climate is so unpredictable. High winds with freezing temperatures virtually make it impossible for human inhabitation. Inhabited hardly by humans, this is a haven of seals and penguins. This extreme isolation makes Bouvet Island a hazardous destination. It challenges any fearless explorer who dares to take such a significant risk to visit.

From the deathly wildlife of Iriomote Island to the ghost ships of Chiloe, these islands are usually out of sight. Most dangerous islands are best avoided. This is where stories about death and mystery, all that is not explained, will be told. Most of them are so isolated, remote, or environmentally hazardous that reaching them is basically impossible. They are protected for indigenous tribes. Yet, they keep beckoning us. They beg to have their secrets disclosed. Whether it is a place of legend, scientific interest, or historical mystery, these islands’ unwritten histories draw us in. They are etched into our curiosity. This curiosity connects us with the world’s darker corners.