I was watching a show last night about Chernobyl, and decided to pull it up on google maps. I was astonished that the google street view car was allowed to drive right up to and through the abandoned towns. I spent nearly 2 hours virtually driving around Pripyat and other spots in the exclusion zone. It was eerie looking at the crumbling buildings and how the trees have grown up and completely taken over the town.
Even more surprising was the number of tourists that I saw wandering around the ghost towns and taking pictures of things like the old rusted ferris wheel.