10 real-life destinations straight out of a Tim Burton movie
Few directors working today have a visual style as distinctive as Tim Burton. The writer-director has been building gothically surreal and whimsically macabre worlds for decades, blending darkness, oddball energy, and the downright bizarre to create darkly funny, unmistakable movies for viewers of all ages.
Although his feature debut was Pee-wee’s Big Adventure in 1985, his true coming out as an auteur was 1988’s Beetlejuice. Full of gallows humour, eccentric paranormal beings, and a truly surreal version of the afterlife, it set a high watermark for Burton’s career and offered actors like Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton, and Catherine O’Hara some of the most delightful roles of their careers.
Although Burton’s visual style is unmistakable, he’s used it in a wide variety of settings. From mist-shrouded forests in Sleepy Hollow to the secluded castle in Edward Scissorhands and the wild skeleton party in Corpse Bride, he’s found all the ways to make horror tropes as stylised and charming as possible.
Given their darkness, it might seem strange that anyone would want to live in or even visit the world of a Tim Burton film, but as any of his fans could tell you, there is more beauty, mystery, and quirkiness in that cloak of doom than you might imagine, and spending just a few moments in those fantastical settings would be worth a trip around the world.
Highgate Cemetery, London
A lot of business happens in the cemetery in Beetlejuice. It’s where the freelance bio-exorcist of the title dwells, waiting for someone to call on him for assistance. And as a result, it’s where Michael Keaton does the most… enthusiastic acting of his career. The graveyard may be nothing more than a model come to life, but the atmosphere is set by all those tombstones, even if they are made of cardboard. Then, there’s Halloween Town in The Nightmare Before Christmas, which is full of sinister grey stones and curling mist.
Any self-respecting Burton fan should make a trip to a graveyard, and few are as scenic as Highgate Cemetery in north London. Designed by architect Stephen Geary nearly two centuries ago, it is home to about 170,000 bodies and covers 15 hectares (37 acres). It features winding pathways lined with towering crypts, moss-covered gravestones, and almost certainly supernatural activity. It may not be the location of any of Burton’s films, but it definitely feels like one.
Hallstatt, Austria
One of Burton’s favourite stylistic touchstones in the gothic period. Whether drawing on architecture or simply putting all his characters in dark eyeliner, he is committed to all things goth, in both the capitalised and lowercase sense of the word. Many of his settings also feature isolation, especially tall houses on hills above a town. This architecture gives his main characters an added element of loneliness. He loves characters who are ostracised, and putting them in whimsically haunted houses far away from civilization adds to their charm and moroseness.
Hallstatt in Austria is just such a place. Tucked away in Austria’s mountainous Salzkammergut region, it sits on Lake Hallstatt and features 16th-century architecture that is both beautiful and haunting. With a population of less than 800 people, it feels cloistered and remote, just like the best of Burton’s locales.
Sedlec Ossuary, Czech Republic
Let’s not beat around the bush. Burton has a love of the macabre, specifically skeletons, so it stands to reason that you’d need at least one travel destination that leads you to human bones. Under most circumstances, this sort of adventure could get you arrested, but not if you visit Sedlec Ossuary, a Roman Catholic chapel in Kutná Hora, Czech Republic.
The location began as a burial site around 1278. During the Black Plague, thousands of bodies were buried there, and when workers began to build a church on top of them in the 15th century, many of them were exhumed, and the bones were stacked in piles. Eventually, those bones were turned into art. There are garlands of skulls, a bone chandelier, and a general atmosphere of extreme eeriness. You can imagine Tim Burton feeling right at home.
Hoia-Baciu Forest, Romania
Known as the most haunted forest in the world, the Hoia-Baciu Forest is located near the Transylvanian capital of Cluj-Napoca. It’s only three square kilometres, but it has more than its fair share of legends, from classic ghost stories to modern claims of paranormal activity. Regardless of what you believe about the supernatural, the forest is full of tall, twisted trees that are often shrouded in mist.
Burton has used shadowy woods in his movies, both animated and live-action. Like the misty forest in Corpse Bride or Western Woods in Sleepy Hollow, the Hoia-Baciu Forest gives the impression that those trees disappearing into the fog are hiding more than branches.
Oaxaca, Mexico
In Corpse Bride, Victor accidentally makes a young dead woman believe he has married her, and she takes him down to the world of the deceased. There, they visit the Ball and Socket Pub and are serenaded by Bonejangles and his band, who tell her story through song.
The upbeat nature of the music is wonderfully out of sync with the macabre setting, but Burton didn’t invent the idea of colourful, joyous depictions of death. In Mexico, Dia de los Muertos is a days-long holiday honouring loved ones who have died. Instead of being a sombre occasion, it is full of colour, music, and ecstatic pageantry. Decorative skulls are everywhere, and people paint their faces to look like skeletons and erect shrines covered in bright orange marigolds to celebrate those who have passed. In the city of Oaxaca, Dia de los Muertos is as vibrant and busy as Carnival in Rio. Full of colour and dancing, it’s like a bigger, more joyful, citywide version of the Ball and Socket Pub in Burton’s stop-motion classic.
Neuschwanstein Castle, Germany
Chilly mansions situated far from the cosy streets of civilization is one of Burton’s most common tropes. Often, these buildings aren’t haunted; they’re just a metaphor for the isolation of his characters. Edward Scissorhands is the primary example. Sweet and innocent, he becomes a curiosity when he is brought down to suburbia, but being different has tragic consequences in a world of conformity.
Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany is known for being the inspiration behind the Disneyland castle that appears before all the studio’s movies, but one look at the real castle, and you’ll see that there is nothing twee or sweetly fantastical about it. Located on a steep section of the foothills of the Alps, it appears chilly and inaccessible, exactly the sort of place where characters like Edward Scissorhands are banished.
Ashikaga Flower Park, Tochigi, Japan
One of the most gorgeously surreal destinations to visit is the Ashikaga Flower Park in Tochigi, Japan. Bursting with carefully manicured gardens featuring flowers of all shapes and colours, it looks fantastical and otherworldly. One part of the park features a ceiling of dangling purple wisteria blossoms, and at night, LED lights illuminate sections of the gardens with even more colours.
If Burton had been looking for real-world settings for Alice in Wonderland instead of relying so heavily on CGI, he could have done worse than get a filming permit for the Ashikaga Flower Park. Short of that, we can all aspire to visit the real location.
La Petite Venise, Colmar, France
In the northeastern French city of Colmar, there is a historical neighbourhood called La Petite Venise that features colourful Alsatian half-timbered houses lining a canal. The Alsace region is close to Germany and Switzerland, giving it a distinct style of architecture that isn’t governed by a single national identity.
With their steeply pitched roofs, stepped gables, and pastel walls, the houses look like they belong in any number of Burton films. The colours are reminiscent of his stylized version of suburbia in Edward Scissorhands, while their half-timbered facades are reminiscent of the Dutch houses in Sleepy Hollow. You could even imagine Bonejangles bursting out of the Ball and Socket Pub to play jazz in the streets.
The Dark Hedges, Northern Ireland
One of the most distinctive elements of Sleepy Hollow is the Western Woods, the misty forest where the Headless Horseman was murdered and the Crone Witch lives in a hollow. It is full of atmosphere – trees with twisted branches, leaves covering the ground, and fog so thick you can only see the spectral outlines of limbs.
The world of the film takes place in Upstate New York, but if you want to visit a group of trees that is at least as atmospheric as the one in the movie, you need to visit the Dark Hedges in Northern Ireland. Although they only form an avenue along a road rather than a forest, their undulating shape and towering height feel completely immersive. The trees may not bleed like the Tree of the Dead, but when they’re shrouded in mist, they seem just as supernatural. Not surprisingly, they have already been a boon for filmmakers, specifically for the crew behind Game of Thrones.
Park Güell, Barcelona
Burton’s more recent forays into colourful, psychedelic fantasy may not be nearly up to the cinematic calibre of his earlier work, but they can’t be accused of lacking style. If you’re looking for a place that mimics the garish, surreal worlds of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Alice in Wonderland, Park Güell in Barcelona is a close approximation.
Designed by pioneering Modernist architect Antoni Gaudí, the park is famous for its colourful mosaics, rounded edges, and geometric shapes. Walking through it feels like stepping into another world, just like Charlie and Alice do in their respective movies.
