My biggest disappointment to date comes from a mother-daughter trip I took to Romania a couple of years back. There are so many Soviet-era industrial abandonments just moldering away in that country that I was practically salivating the whole time, unable to act because (A) I was spending time with my mom and didn't want to go and ( we had hired a driver, so I had no access to my own transportation.

We had a bit of extra time one day, and the driver decided to take a little detour and drive past an old palace from the 1700s. We were told that unfortunately it is closed so we can't go in, but we can look at it from the road.

Well, it turned out that "it's closed" was a bit of an understatement. The place had been converted into a hotel during the communist period, and it had closed down shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. When he saw how cool I thought that was, the driver jimmied open the lock on the gate and we got to wander through the grounds.

I peeked in through the windows and I could see that everything had been abandoned in place. Talk about a time capsule! I even scoped out what appeared to be a workable POE, but I wasn't able to act on it for the aforementioned reasons. I think it physically hurt to walk away from that place!

I really hope to get back there someday, but who knows how long it will be around and pristine?

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(Apologies for the amateurish photos--they don't do this place justice!)

This past Christmas Eve, I had just recently started actively exploring, and was looking for more explorable locations in my area. I remembered a river-side mill/factory building only five minutes from my house, and decided to go and scout out a possible POE. Sure enough, at the back of the building, a door stood wide open, beckoning me in.
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While I was pleasantly surprised to find the building so easily accessible, I had already gone to another building earlier in the day (taking advantage of the holiday), and wasn't really in the mood to go in here. With daylight running out and the Christmas spirit calling me home, I decided to snap a few pictures of the exterior and come back a different time.

Two or three weeks later, I returned with a friend excitedly, hoping to spend a couple hours here, only to find this door welded shut. I circled the building, but could not find any other feasible points of entry. I'm sure I'll be back at some point in case the door is reopened somehow, but I'm definitely bummed that I missed my chance here for the time being.

My biggest disappointment (and surprise) happened a few weeks ago. I had noticed an abandoned house up the block from my parents house for awhile. It covers most of the block in the big residential area, boarded up windows, no parking lot, fenced off, vines growing over everything.. So I decided to scout it one night.
And I do. It's pretty cool, it's got a big barn (one entrance, locked), a garage (with a bunch of shit in it), and I think two smaller shed-like buildings that are boarded up tight. House is boarded up too.
And I want you to realize, it's 1AM and there is NO ONE around. I'm walking around, jiggling handles, talking to myself, tapping windows and stuff. I'm being sneaky so no one can see me, and not making a lot of noise. But if, you know, someone actually LIVED in this house, it would be quite noticeable...
Anyways, so I finish my scouting and walk back home. Next day, I ask my step-dad "So what's up with that abandoned house up the street?"
He replies, "What abandoned house?"
"The brick one, just up on the corner of ____ street."
"Oh! That house. That's not abandoned."
"WHAT." I'm pretty sure if I had balls, they would've dropped in that moment.
"Yeah, some old guy lives there. I've seen him maybe once or twice, but someone definitely lives there. They are just a hermit."
Conversation keeps going BUT needless to say, I hope I didn't scare the shit out of that guy the night before because I definitely wasn't being quiet with looking for POEs. And also super disappointed because that house looks SO COOL. T_T
I ended up googling the address later that day, and sure enough, it's not for sale.

Posted by L'Ali Most of these are cross boarder disappointments. Walking in to the still open Kutcher's Hotel about a week/two weeks before it was officially closed. We at least walked around a bit as we just couldn't find where the washrooms were ;). The same trip there were a few locations where having ON license plates would have made it very visible where we were so we either passed or had some switch offs with drivers. Being outside the old Buffalo Steel Admin building and having some idiot bicyclist eyeing us and then going to a security building pointing us out so we left (bldg now demoed). One of the biggest local disappointments is having a great local place open up and close up again instantly because someone just couldn't resist blabbing about it everywhere online.

I had a similar experience with Kutchners. Me and a friend were in the Catskills area to explore last summer. Kutchners was in the process of being demolished. We got denied entry by a foreman at the gate. He seemed generally confused about the number of people they had to run out of the place recently. He asked if we were from "that website with pictures of abandoned buildings". Apparently some kids were arrested a few days previous because they ran from security instead of talking to them like we did. We also go (very politely) denied entry to another resort by the owners nephew and his friend who lived up the road. Apparently they had not even been allowed on the grounds. From what I understand the guy is currently living there and upgraded security measures considerably.

I to missed out on the Buffalo Steel Admin building. Despite living in the area I really did not get into exploring until after the building was demolished. They blew up most of the plant buildings years ago when I was a little kid. I remember hearing the explosions 30 miles away at my parents house.

My sister worked in this huge, 1960's nursing home that was closed for two years without any graffiti, vandalism, or copper stripping as it was comfortably tucked away in the suburban back streets without anyone in the whole city knowing about it but me and her. I went there in January this year to check it out and all the power and water was still running on site - perfect. I came back a month later and the entire place had been demolished after sitting vacant for two years.

Completely disappointed.

Although I had been to a nursing home *just* like it six months beforehand (all the equipment was still left inside) so I guess I can't get too greedy.

You can't win them all but boy you ought to try.

Don't know if I'd call it an exploring disappointment, but I was down in Atlanta and found rooftop access for a huge hotel. I've been wanting to do some rooftop photography, but obligations and liabilities left me hesitant, and ultimately I decided not to.

One time me and a couple buddies found some ruins under an old factory we could easily access. We waded through waist high water in our jeans and boots. Once inside we crawled about 100 feet though a hole in jagged rock barely big enough to squeeze through, getting hit in the face by bats the whole time. Once we made it through we were greeted by more tunnels with knee-high mud. We trekked though the mud for about 200 yards and come to end, where the end of the tunnel had collapsed and there was nowhere else to go but straight back the way we came. It was super disappointing, but at least I can say I made the journey!

I drove 2 hours to a location only to find it bulldozed flat when I got there