35 Stunning Abandoned Places Around the World You Can Still Visit

17. Fordlândia, Brazil: Henry Ford’s Jungle Dream Gone Wrong

In an ambitious attempt to break Britain’s rubber monopoly in Southeast Asia, American industrialist Henry Ford established Fordlândia in the heart of the Amazon rainforest in 1928. The idea was to create a self-sufficient American-style town complete with white picket fences, ice cream parlors, and assembly-line discipline to support a rubber plantation. But the project failed dramatically due to cultural clashes with Brazilian workers, poor understanding of the rainforest’s ecology, and rampant disease. Within a few years, the dream crumbled, and by the 1940s, Fordlândia was largely abandoned. Today, the skeletal remains of water towers, mansions, and rusting machinery sit quietly as the jungle creeps back in, reclaiming what was briefly taken. Remote and difficult to reach—typically requiring a boat trip from Santarém—the site draws curious travelers and historians fascinated by its surreal clash of Midwestern Americana and Amazonian wilderness. Fordlândia is a powerful parable about the hubris of industrial ambition and the quiet strength of the natural world.