Winchester Images

The Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California is one of the most beautiful mansions in the world.

It’s also one of the most bizarre. Windows in the floor. Doors that open to a two-story drop. Secret passageways. Stairways to nowhere (which could have been a famous song by Led Zep had they ever written it).

Why such an odd construction? It was built by ghosts.

The mansion was the brainchild of Sarah Winchester, the wife of William Wirt Winchester, who was the heir to the Winchester rifle fortune. After her infant daughter and husband died, Sarah Winchester sought the guidance of a spiritualist.

The Boston Medium explained to her that her family was cursed by the ghosts of all those who died by the “The Gun That Won West.” The only way to appease the spirits and save her life was to move west and use her blood money to build the spirits a house.

Legend has it that Mrs. Winchester literally let the spirits design the house. She would conduct nightly séances where good spirits would give her instructions that she passed to her foreman every morning.

That turned the mansion into a sprawling 7-story maze of 160 rooms, 47 stairways and 13 bathrooms. In fact, the number 13 appears quite a bit in the house: rooms with 13 windows, walls with 13 panels, chandeliers with 13 candles, even walls with 13 coat hooks.

The unusual design of the mansion was also spawned by Mrs. Winchester’s attempts to disorient evil spirits that were stalking her. She allegedly never slept in the same room two nights in a row and would often sneak through secret passages to deter ghosts… because ghosts can’t pass through walls or anything.

Mrs. Winchester also believed that if construction never stopped, she would live forever. So her crew worked around-the-clock, even on weekends and holidays, for 38 straight years, until Mrs. Winchester died of heart failure in 1922. Today, her eccentric $5.5 million construction (that’s around $20 million in today’s money) still remains in an unfinished state… which I’m sure didn’t look good on the architect’s resumé.

The tour of the house was an informative and entertaining look inside the mind of a woman gone mad. And you have to stay with the group, because if you get lost, they literally have to send a search and rescue team to find you (if the bad ghosts haven’t gotten you yet). I always had the feeling that one wrong turn would lead us into a portal to nowhere; after all, the mansion is basically a mirror maze away from becoming a carnival fun house.

Unlike the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, however, when you leave you don’t hear a man say, “…and a ghost will follow you home!” Bummer – that would have been a cheap souvenir.

By: Bret Ahmed

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Some people travel for fun, others for excitement, but perhaps the most alarming genre of tourists are the ones who get their kicks from visiting the most horrifying and ghoulish destinations from throughout history. If you plan on going to any of the top 10 most terrifying places on earth, you might just want to adjust your travel insurance cover to incorporate the possible outcomes…

1. Haunted House

Optional travel insurance: cover for potential ghostly nightmares.

The Winchester Mystery House in San Hose, California, is a well-known California mansion that was built continuously for 38 years from 1884 and 1922, and is thought to be haunted. It once was the home of Sarah Winchester, the widow of gun magnate William Wirt Winchester. Sarah Winchester thought the house was haunted by ghosts of people killed by Winchester rifles and that only continuous construction would appease them.

2. Eerie Instruments

Optional travel insurance: for accidental execution.

Museum of Execution Instruments, Paris, Fountaine de Vaucluse – Its founder was personally acquainted with the issue – he had worked as an executioner for more than ten years. It comprises execution instruments of all times and nations. At first glance you may consider the giant guillotine to be the most dreadful instrument. But smaller instruments, so ordinary and harmless at first sight, may turn out much more dreadful.

3. Frightful Field

Travel insurance: considered essential for the sinful or senseless.

The field of the Valley of Death in Tibet is full of bones – yogis go there to die; other people to find purification or obtain the secret knowledge. Few return with their original mental state, and it is believed that in the Valley of Death the human sole undergoes a special trial and that sinful or senseless lives are ended.

4. Mortifying Museum

Optional travel insurance: cover for general mental health.

The Museum of Anatomopathology in Vienna is a monument to pathologies, abnormalities, genetic mutations and harsh medieval medicine. Situated in the isolation ward of a former lunatic asylum, even the most cynical tourists agree that this place is horrifying.

5. Chilling Chapel

Optional travel insurance: for bone-related accidents.

The Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic is a small church filled with the sculls of plague victims from the Black Death. The macabre building contains approximately 40,000-70,000 human skeletons. In 1870, Frantisek Rint, a woodcarver, was employed to put the bone heaps into order, and he artistically arranged them to form decorations and furnishings for the chapel. Four enormous bell-shaped mounds occupy the corners and an enormous chandelier of bones, which contains at least one of every bone in the human body, hangs from the center of the nave with garlands of skulls draping the vaults.

6. Creepy Castle

Travel insurance recommended: against bloodsucking vampires and impalement.

Dracula’s Castle in Transilvania, Romania The medieval castle of the famous vampire is situated on the edge of an abyss. After passing through narrow passageways, dark rooms and resonant stone stairs, you find yourself in the bedroom, where, on the big bed with a canopy, the vampire used to suck his victims’ blood. This castle accommodated Vlad the Impaler, one of the most monstrous personalities of the Middle Ages, who had impaled hundreds of innocent people.

7. Horrendous History

Optional travel insurance: against historical fascist dictators.

The Auschwitz Museum is on the territory of the former concentration camp where millions died during WWII. In 1947, in remembrance of the victims, Poland founded the museum and by 1994, 22 million visitors had passed through the famous gateway. Not for the faint-hearted.

8. Terrifying Torture-chamber

Optional travel insurance: for torture chambers

Museum of Torture in Mdina, Malta has a tremendous collection of guillotines, tongs for pulling out nails and other instruments of torture. The application of torture instruments is vividly demonstrated by frighteningly lifelike wax figures.

9. Creepy Catacombs

Optional travel insurance: cover for Parisian entombment.

Paris Catacombs, France In the Denfert-Rochereau Ossuary or Empire of the Dead, far below the city streets of Paris, in the quiet, damp darkness, seven million Parisians lie motionless, their skeletons neatly stacked and aligned to form the walls of nearly one kilometer of walking passage.

10. Gruesome Gulag

Optional travel insurance: for disturbing memories.

Millions of people passed through Gulag in the Soviet Union for the twenty years of its existence. The camps had extremely hard conditions; elementary human rights were violated and minor breaches of regime were drastically punished. Mortalities from starvation, diseases and exhausting labor was extremely high. Today, under the northern sky in Solovki, you can see the deserted barracks, tunnels, punishment cells and depositories with prisoners’ clothes and shaved hair.

By: Patrick Chong

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So you are in the market for a new pair of binoculars? If that is true, there are a few things you should know before throwing down hundreds of dollars on a pair that you know nothing about. Here are some suggestions on what to look for and how you can locate a pair for a discounted price.

There are many things to consider when looking for a new pair of binoculars. The first thing is the field of view. When you look into them, the widest area that you can see is known as the field of view. So if you are at 500 yards in distance away from an object, the field of view represents the width of the image that you are able to see. The higher the field of view in number denotes a reduction in clarity of what you are looking at.

You should also consider a variable called exit pupil. This determines how much light is actually transmitted to your eye. The reason you want to consider this depends upon what time of the day and what area of the wilderness you are going to be using this scope.

For instance, if you are looking at things in broad daylight where there is plenty of natural light to illuminate everything you are seeing, then you can probably spend a few hundred dollars less on the model you are looking at because there will be no need to adjust for low light settings.

Another thing to consider is collimation which refers to the mechanical and optical alignment. If you decide to pay less money, collimation will automatically be offset. They will not take the time to adjust it in a laser precision manner if you are only paying a few dollars. However, high-end models will allow you to enjoy the scenery around you without the worry of headaches for eye strain that typically accompany cheaper models that are not adjusted properly.

A final thing to consider are the objective lenses that are found in the front which are called prisms. These are used to gather light which is first represented as an upside down image that needs to be re-reflected upright. Regardless of the type of prism that you get, understand that the higher the price, the better the quality, and the clearer the image will be.

Purchasing a pair of binoculars does not have to be a financial burden. You can usually pick up a decent pair that you can use in almost every setting that has adequate light for a few hundred dollars. You can find even better deals on the Internet looking at websites that sell them exclusively.

By: Bobby Winchester

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Many visitors to the UK choose London for their base when visiting the country. If you’re planning to stay in the capital, then let’s take a look at some other great locations that can easily be reached for a day trip.

The great thing about staying in London is that it truly is a city that never sleeps. With great entertainment, from musicals to plays, it’s a place where you will rarely be short of things to do.

In the evenings, you’ll find that England’s capital city is a great place to enjoy the nightlife, with top quality restaurants, bars and nightclubs.

Be sure that you get out and explore some of the rest of the country too though. There are plenty of benefits in spending time away from the city, including getting to see a bit more of the real England.

My own home county, Hampshire, has plenty on offer. You can reach the the most southerly part of the county in less than 90 minutes by car (or train from London Waterloo) and you’ll find that the short trip is well worth it.

Hampshire includes one of the UK’s newest National Parks, the New Forest. It also has a large number of great unspoilt English villages, complete with thatched cottages, country pubs and village greens. In many ways, this part of the country reflects many visitors ideas of what England should be like.

If you don’t leave London and its immediate surroundings then this may well be a part of the country that you’ll miss out on.

Any discussion of the joys of a visit to Hampshire would be incomplete without making mention of Winchester. Winchester, the ancient capital of England, can be reached in less than an hour by London and has some great transport links.

It’s also heaped in history – this is the place where Jane Austen lived during the final years of her life. It also boasts a Norman Cathedral, the site of William the Conqueror’s Castle and its renowned links to King Arthur.

Winchester is a truly mystical place and is part of a wonderful part of the country – be sure not to miss it.

By: Keith Barrett

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The 243 Winchester has been around for a long time. The .243 Winchester is a necked down 308 round and it inherits the overall good accuracy from the 308.

Bullets from 55 grains all the way up to 115 grain Match bullets are available for the 243. The most popular would be the 60 to 85 grain bullets designed for Varmints and the 95 to 105 grain bullets designed for Big Game.

The controversy over whether or not the 243 Winchester is an adequate round for Deer has been an ongoing one since the round was first introduced. Honestly, I don’t expect to settle it here, I’mh just hoping to shed some light on the round and what it is, and is not, capable of.

In the right hands, the 243 is well capable of taking Deer sized game in the the right hands.

In years past, many problems were encountered with the bullets used. Truth be known, te bullets made for the 243 have caused more problems for the round than the power of the cartridge itself.

The problem existed (and exist to a certain extent even today) with the erratic performance of early bullets. There were many stories around about bullets not expanding as they passed through game animals and many problems with the bullets blowing up on impact. Sometimes a hunter would have this problem with the same bullets from the same box of ammo!

Technology has brought the 243 Winchester a long ways. Cores are bonded to jackets better and the overall performance of the little 24 caliber bullets has risen over the years.

Still, this round is not a beginners rifle. A marginal hit from the 243 can leave wounded game in the field. The 243 Winchester really shines in the hands of a competent rifleman or riflewoman. Many beginners lack the experience to control the “shakes” and wait patiently for the right time to place the first shot where it belongs.

For beginners, there are better light recoiling calibers available that should be considered. Rounds such as the 257 Roberts, 260 Remington and 7mm-08 Remington are all great Deer rounds. Not only that, they are light recoiling and do far more damage than the 243 in case of a marginal hit.

So before you run out and buy a beginning Deer hunter a 243 Winchester, stop and think and then move on up in caliber size. Let the new hunter get some experience under their belts before handing them this little Deer round.

By: Tony Travis

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