Out of all the various types of locations humans choose to abandon, places of residence are by far the most common. It's fair to say there are thousands upon thousands of abandoned houses left to rot across the State of New Jersey alone. From urban cities to rural cow towns, it's entirely likely that hardly a single zip-code in New Jersey exists that doesn't contain an abandoned house or twenty. Some of the first ruins I ever snuck into as a kid to explore were houses. Particularly forever engraved within my memory is former Chain Saw House, a small rotting abode that I used to hang out in regularly as a young teenager. Looking back at my old pictures it is clear now that the house had once belonged to a hoarder, but at the time, I had no conception of such a term and could only let my mind and imagination wander as to why this Chain Saw House was haphazard with so much stuff. However, as a graduated from bicycle to automobile my travels took me to grander and larger adventures, poking around buildings that would take years to truly explore in entirety.
As my curiosity became fixated on these massive, large scale abandonments, the early days biking to random abandoned houses around town quickly faded in favor of driving hours to a location only to spend hours more wandering around inside just barely cracking the surface of what there was to see; returning time and time again and pressing my luck in order to try and experience as much as possible. Fast-forward to year 2020 and so many of these massive playgrounds from years past have been demolished in favor of mud lots and condos, however the memories still exist fresh in my mind as some of the best times I've experienced thus far in my life.
With so much having been demolished over the past few years, I've begun again to concentrate on the smaller locations again. The places that can't easily be Googled or found plastered on social media. I've been told by some that the golden age of exploring has died, however I disagree. Exploring has changed, for the better and for the worse, but I still think it is just as exhilarating and fascinating of a hobby as it was back when I was balancing upon two wheels. Many gems are still out there to be found, and in turn I've found myself looking more and more locally and truly surprising myself at how much exists within even a 50 mile radius of home. Social media has sort of turned the exploring community into a game of popularity. However, I was never into sports nor competition, so it is easy for me to see beyond the drama and instead concentrate on uncovering what the rat race to popularity overlooks. There is so much out there still to be discovered and explored and as society grows ever more unsustainable the fruits of ruin will continue to drop to the ground, forgotten and overlooked. Half the fun, for me at least, is always the discovery.
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