Best Bandos
102
inspadesmag.com
It could be said that some of the best bandos
can be found in the quieter places of the world.
The further away from civilization, the better
the chances for finding well-preserved and
relatively undisturbed bandos. Remote locations
are also safer environments for photographers;
the chances of walking into a squatter’s residence
are practically nil when exploring a bando
hundreds of kilometres from the nearest city.
“I have found that some of the best
abandonments are in the mountains, far away
from the city,” Kira Holtegaard, an experienced
bando explorer, shares with INSPADES, “It’s
tough to say where the best abandoned places
are, because I feel that the location of an
abandoned building determines its grandeur.”
For an urbexer, the combination of big cities
with poor funding and sprawling suburbs—such
as Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago and Boston—
create the perfect conditions for finding bando
gems. Bandos of the domestic sort, are among
the most fascinating. Homes turned bando,
with all of the trimmings of a family household
left perfectly in place: calendars dating back to
the 1970s, beds neatly made, a vase of dried
flowers on the kitchen table. In some bandos,
it appears that the inhabitants left in a hurry,
the breakfast dishes still sitting in the sink for
who knows how long—all that is known is that
they never returned.
With every bando, there is a back-story, but
without knowing this story, imagination is quick
to oblige. Each bando of unknown origin leaves
us only its untold secrets and, often, the haunting
question that begs is simple, what happened here?
CANON.COREY - COREY SMITH