A Russian woman named Elena with a passion for driving her motorcycle loves to drive through the Cherynobyl "dead zone". She takes a geiger counter with her and knows what areas are safe (her father is a nuclear physicist) and what areas can seriously harm her health in minutes. The pictures and the stories she tells are compelling. Fair warning, the website has many pages and you might want to tackle it in more than one sitting.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html
*Note: The first page has an iframe at the bottom. You can ignore it and just look for the "next page" link.