Road Tripping PA: Centralia

During our trip, we also made it a point to checkout the place formerly known as Centralia, Pennsylvania.  After a mine fire broke out under the town a few decades ago, the town was largely abandoned by its residents and condemned by the government as unsafe.

We wish we had more photos to show you, but there really isn't much to see.  With the exception of a handful of people that still live there, all buildings have been demolished leaving eerily overgrown sidewalks and building foundations.  The most fun part of the town is an abandoned stretch of Route 61 which you can get to with a sturdy SUV or a short walk from where the center of town used to be. 

The highway, now fractured and buckled because of the fire burning beneath it, is covered in literal street art of questionable quality (think "Jen wuz here" tags and penis drawings).  PA-61 would be a real fun project if somebody with some legitimate talent showed up to paint on it.  It's fun to see regardless of the quality of the graffiti and it makes a cool story to tell your friends that you visited the town that the Silent Hill video games were based on.

Even though the town has been wiped from state maps, Google still has it listed, so just search for Centralia and find a car!