Dark tourism: a weird type of tourism
Are you a traveler passionate about the glaucous, terrorizing and criminal stories? If yes, you have probably already practiced the "dark tourism" also called "thanatourism". But what is it ? Dark tourism has been studied by Dr. Philip Stone. According to him, it is "the act of travel to sites associated with death, suffering and the seemingly macabre". For example, the visit of Pere Lachaise cemetery is an act of macabre tourism.
Examples of tours belonging to this type of tourism:
Visiting slums
- Townships in Cape town
Visiting places where crimes against humanity happened
- Auschwitz camps
- Ground Zero 9/11 memorial in New York city
Visiting places where a natural disaster occured
- Chernobyl
- Volcanic eruption
- Katrina cyclone in New Orleans
Morbid places
Murder places
- J.F.Kennedy's death in Dallas
- Pablo Escobar tour
It is true that an important number of people do not understand why those places are "trendy" to visit. Others like thrill seekers, want to see with their own eyes the real decorations of those places of commemoration, those places of mourning and have this desire to live the experience of the disaster. Reliving the catastrophe is simple in a world like today where everything is easy, everything is reproduced and accessible. Tourists come to find the rare pearl, to see what they have heard on the news.
Those dramatic events have attracted tourists who come from all around the world. They have changed those places into morbid activities or even must-see sites to visit on the spot when you go on a trip or vacation.
Vienna, the capital of dark tourism
If you want to visit a dark place, we advise you to venture into the international capital of dark tourism: Vienna in Austria. With a large number of cemeteries and catacombs, it is a city that has been devastated by the plague, which has claimed thousands of lives. Then, Vienna has to face the war and other numerous catastrophes. If you are interested in this type of activity, do not wait and book your ticket to Vienna! Click on the link above that shows you all the activities to do on site in Vienna.
Dark tourism, why it is contested ?
This macabre tourism is criticized because we do not know the exact aim of those "dark tourists". Why would it be logic and respectful that years ago, people were dying in extreme conditions whereas today, people wearing shorts and sunglasses come to take pictures of those morbid places? What are their motivations? We don't know if they visit those places in order to feel thrills or extreme sensations, to take pictures of smiled persons, selfies and share them after on social networks, to do voyeurism, to perform their duty of memory or to implore their respect to people tragically disappeared? The sad thing is that people who visit those places, mostly practice voyeurism and don't go there to improve their knowledge because the content of the guided tour doesn't teach you more than what you have already heard on the news when the disaster occured. In other words, you know everything about what happened, but you are just here to see places where people died. We can think after that of a marketing of the death, the suffering and the macabre.
But now what about you? Do you consider yourself as a dark tourist? Have you ever been to those ghoulish places? Do you plan to go there?
If the macabre attracts you, go to MyLittleAdventure website where you will see all the morbid activities to do on the spot or click on the proposed activities above to learn more about them, to check the availability or to book for your next trip!
