Stranger Things — Filming Locations & Real Places

Going into Stranger Things, I expected an '80s-nostalgia sci-fi horror show and left it at that.

Then Season 1 opened with Will Byers vanishing, and a strange girl named Eleven appearing almost in his place, and I realized this wasn't just nostalgia bait.

The reveal of another dimension called the Upside Down, and Eleven vanishing along with the Demogorgon at the end of Season 1, still hit hard even on a rewatch.

The dazzling Starcourt Mall from Season 3 is actually Gwinnett Place Mall in Georgia. It opened in 1984, almost exactly matching the show's 1985 setting, and was dressed with real '80s brands like RadioShack and Spencer's Gifts.

Visit it today, though, and the vibe is completely different — commercial activity collapsed, the county now owns it, and redevelopment talk keeps circling without resolution. There's something ironic about the show's flashiest location ending up the exact opposite in real life.

Hopper's apparent death in the Season 3 explosion got completely flipped in the Season 4 opener, when it turned out he'd actually been shipped off to a Russian labor camp. A guy I assumed was dead walking back onscreen a few episodes later was a twist I genuinely didn't see coming.

에모리 대학교 브라이어클리프 캠퍼스(조지아주 애틀랜타) — 기묘한 이야기 '호킨스 연구소' 외경 촬영지 · Wikimedia Commons

The "Russia" setting itself turned out to be a bit of a joke, too — nobody actually went to Russia. It was just a soundstage set at a studio in Atlanta.

The real core of Season 4 was Vecna. The moment it's revealed that Vecna is actually "001," the very first test subject at Hawkins Lab — a man named Henry Creel — it turns out he and Eleven came from the exact same lab from the start. Not just a new monster, but a villain directly tangled up in Eleven's own history.

The scene of Max fighting off Vecna's curse through Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" playing on her Walkman still gives me chills on a rewatch. I only just learned that the song hit No. 1 for the first time ever, 37 years after release, following Season 4.

So the show's real stage was never some other dimension — it's a handful of ordinary Georgia towns. I've never been to Georgia, but if I ever pass through, there's something fun about knowing that spot used to be Starcourt.

Stone Mountain Park, where the woods and railway scenes were shot, is also apparently open to visitors.

Watching the cast actually age alongside their characters, season after season, is another pleasure unique to this show. The little kids from Season 1 are heading into the final season with the faces of real high schoolers and young adults now.

Hawkins isn't on any map, but thanks to this show, Georgia now means something completely different to me. If I ever get there, I want to start by stopping where Gwinnett Place Mall used to be Starcourt.