An explorer who often captures beautiful buildings returned to a hotel in Michigan he’d featured in the past, only to discovered it had been closed down and heavily vandalized.
The TikToker, who uses the handle @true_explores, visited the unidentified hotel in 2021 and was impressed with how it looked, despite a few obvious signs of decay and mold building up in one of the hotel pools.
However Bobby, the Michigan native who runs the account, came back in 2023 to see that it had been closed down during the pandemic and completely after it had closed down, with the lobby looking like it had almost been completely turned over.
Bobby made a point to explain that this is the exact reason he never reveals the location of the buildings he visits.
The video has received over 15.2m views and 2.7m likes on TikTok.
An explorer who often captures beautiful buildings returned to a hotel in Michigan he’d featured in the past, only to discovered it had been closed down and heavily vandalized
It’s unclear why exactly the hotel closed down, according to Bobby, who is headquartered in Detroit.
‘I think the hotel was already struggling with getting customers and the pandemic completely put them out of business,’ he said.
Bobby was upset by the destruction, having called it ‘one of the freshest abandoned place I have explored’ the first time he went.
The hotel was more or less left in one piece, noting there were bottles of alcohol, TVs and pianos still there.
While he’d started to see mold in the pool and flooding in the basement, he compared his return to an episode of The Walking Dead and saying it was ‘very apocalyptic.’
‘Everything was left behind. Very interesting but also very upsetting knowing that all the stuff left behind just went to waste,’ he added.
He blamed whomever owns the hotel, noting that they likely own several other buildings in the region.
‘I believe whoever owned this hotel also owned many other properties and just left it to be forgotten,’ Bobby said.
The TikToker, who uses the handle @true_explores , visited the hotel in 2021 and was impressed with how it looked, despite a few obvious signs of decay and mold building up in one of the hotel pools
The TikToker, who uses the handle @true_explores , visited the hotel in 2021 and was impressed with how it looked, despite a few obvious signs of decay
The hotel was more or less left in one piece when Bobby visited in 2021, noting there were bottles of alcohol, TVs and pianos still there
Bobby made a point to explain that the vandalism is the exact reason he never reveals the location of the buildings he visits
Bobby was upset by the destruction, having called it ‘one of the freshest abandoned place I have explored’ the first time he went
The video has received over 15.2m views and 2.7m likes on TikTok
‘They didn’t see value in selling everything and trying to sell the building.’
The building has since been boarded up and there are now security details keeping it from further vandalization.
Commenters on the video spoke about what a shame it was and that they would’ve liked to have visited themselves.
‘It’s sad because real urban explorers like myself want to preserve the places, not destroy them,’ Bobby added.