If you search the travel channel for programs featuring haunted houses or entire haunted towns you’re not alone. The mystery and nostalgia surrounding ghost towns, with their ever-disintegrating buildings that house the remnants of lives long gone, beckons many kindred spirits to these forgotten places, languishing away at the end of wind-swept dirt roads.

It isn’t only the thought, or perhaps fear of encountering a ghostly specter inside one of the eerie homes or businesses that has captured the attention of thousands of visitors each year. These makeshift mining towns and railroad stops that sprang up years ago and whose residents suddenly vanished are attracting history buffs, outdoor enthusiasts with a desire for a smattering of mystery and adventure, and anyone with a penchant for the nostalgic.

You can find them across the U.S. Western states boast 100 to sometimes over 200 ghost towns in each state, but the west doesn’t have the monopoly on ghost towns. Eastern states and mid western states also have from 10 to 100 per state. So, no matter where you live, there are abandoned towns close enough for everyone to visit.

A ghost town is really nothing more than just the shell of its former self. A mysterious shadowy reminder of lives once lived. Whether it was a bustling mining town, a burgeoning farming community or railroad stop there are always plenty of unanswered questions for the history buff and the curious.

People that visit these places are usually eager to capture a slice of history with a camera, notebook or Geiger counter. They want to answer the unanswerable. What made the inhabitants choose this particular location to build?  Why did the people leave, where did they go and how did they live their lives out in such a place? Visitors to these oft-times abandoned towns come in droves searching for memorabilia they can pass down to their grandchildren, a palpable reminder of our forbears and how this country once was. Since Americans do not preserve old towns and cities, the photos and writings these visitors record are things to cherish before the towns disintigrage and fall into oblivion.

Visiting ghost towns became one of our favorite pass-times a few years ago too. We tried to see everything from accessible towns like the charming Virginia City in Montana, Jerome in AZ, and Calico and Bodi in CA to the obscure. Favorites were ghost towns that still had residential homes and businesses still standing. They were an enigma. Looking through dirt-smeared windows and tattered curtains I tried to get a palpable feel for what it would have been like to live during those times, in that place, in that house. My husband loved photographing the textures of the wood and interesting angles of buildings.

Several towns we saw listed in books and on websites were never found. After four-wheeling down dusty, rutted roads for miles we’d finally stop where the map indicated the town was near. If there was a local nearby we’d ask if they knew of any ghost towns in the area. Often they looked suspiciously at us. We'd show them the map and they'd scratch their chin and finally nod.  “There was a town here.” Then they’d point. The only vestige of a previous town was a nearly unidentifiable cornerstone to some long forgotten building surrounded by cacti, dry tumbleweed, rattlesnake tracks and jackrabbit holes in the dirt. “Gone for years now,” they'd say.

Although some ghost towns were never found either because they had recently been destroyed or the directions were difficult to decipher, we didn't mind too much because most of the adventure is in the journey anyway...