7 types of dark tourism

What is dark tourism and why is it so popular?

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Dark tourism is a type of tourism that has received increasing attention in recent years. TV shows, such as Chernobyl and The Dark Tourist, have introduced the concept of dark tourism to the minds of motives of many tourists around the world. But what is dark tourism? Is dark tourism ethical? How can you be a ‘good’ dark tourist?

In this post I will define the concept of dark tourism, explain why dark tourism is so popular and provide a few examples of dark tourism sites. I will also discuss the ethics of dark tourism, which are somewhat controversial.

What is dark tourism?

Dark tourism definitions

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Dark tourism, also known as black tourism, thanatourism or grief tourism, is tourism that is associated with death or tragedy.

The act of dark tourism is somewhat controversial, with some viewing it as an act of respect and others as unethical practice.

Popular dark tourism attractions include Auschwitz, Chernobyl and Ground Zero. Lesser known dark tourism attractions might include cemeteries, zombie-themed events or historical museums.

Dark Tourism started to gain academic attention in the early 90s, but it is only recently that it has sparked the interest of the media and the general public.

An early definition defined by John Lennon and Malcolm Foley , define dark tourism as “the representation of inhuman acts, and how these are interpreted for visitors”.

In a more recent publication, Kevin Fox Gotham defines dark tourism as “the circulation of people to places characterized by distress, atrocity, or sadness and pain. As a more specific component of dark tourism, “disaster tourism” denotes situations where the tourism product is generated within, and from, the aftermath of a major disaster or traumatic event”.

Dark tourism has become the subject of academic debate more and more in recent years, most notably for its critiques and assessment of associated impacts.

Dark tourism encompasses many different ‘dark’ activities. These can range from visiting an attraction such as the London Dungeons, where people are seen laughing and joking (did you know it finishes with a height-restricted ride that imitates people being hung!?), to tourists racing to the scenes of a disaster to provide help and relief. Naturally these are two very different ends of the dark tourism spectrum.

To help us understand the dark tourism sector better, we can organise activities according to the dark tourism spectrum.

On one end of the spectrum (the darkest end) we have extreme or serious dark tourism activities. These are activities which often involve an educational element, such as learning about a Nuclear disaster or a ship wreck. Activities on this end of the scale are associated with an authentic experience, whereby the tourist visits an actual historical site or speaks with people who were involved. Examples might include visiting the Berlin Wall or Tuol Sleng and the Killing Fields in Cambodia.

On the other end of the spectrum, activities tend to be of a more commercial nature. A Jack the Ripper themed funfair ride or a comical play based around the Black Plague are effectively romanticised versions of dark events or times in history. The intention is for the tourist to have fun and enjoy themselves, rather than to be educated about said historical reference.

The question is, why is dark tourism so popular? Why do we choose to visit places of death and tragedy? What is it that attracts us to such sorrow?

For many, it is purely the possibility of being able to emotionally absorb oneself in a place of tragedy. It is important for people to engage and immerse themselves in past history and culture . By visiting dark tourism sites, we are able to give ourselves time to reflect on history.

Dark tourism has close ties with educational tourism. Particularly in cases of darkest/darker tourism. For many people, this is a dominant, if not their main, motivation for being a dark tourist. Whilst dark tourism may not be a happy leisure experience, many people enjoy the educational aspect that comes with it. I know that I have certainly enjoyed visiting famous cemeteries and learning more about WW2 during my travels to Berlin and Poland .

Visitors of dark tourism sites are from a wide socio-demographic group. Motivations stem from educational purposes, the desire to understand past affairs, etc. Whilst other motivations stem from the desire to experience something different or new.

I recently watched a series on Netflix called The Dark Tourist. In this show, journalist David Farrier focuses on dark tourism and tourist behaviour towards popular dark tourism sites that are historically associated with death and/or tragedy.

In each episode, David travels to a different dark tourism destination. Some of these sites I have visited before and others I have now added to my bucket list. If you’re interested in learning more about dark tourism attractions around the world then this is a great show to watch!

If reading is more your thing, there are also a couple of really great books on dark tourism. Two of my favourites are Don’t Go There: From Chernobyl to North Korea—one man’s quest to lose himself and find everyone else in the world’s strangest places and The Dark Tourist: Sightseeing in the world’s most unlikely holiday destinations. Both books are comical repertoires of the authors’ adventures and mishaps when visiting dark tourism attractions around the world. This makes for some great like, leisurely reading over a glass of wine or a cup of tea!

Types of dark tourism

According to Stone (2006), there are seven main types of dark tourism sites.

Fun factories are essentially play centres. Whilst these are usually associated with children, they can also be aimed at adults. There are, for example, escape rooms which evolve around a dark theme, zombie chases or theatrical activities that all take place in dark fun factories.

There are many different dark exhibitions throughout the world. I visited several during my travels to Berlin that were focussed on the Holocaust. I visited exhibitions on the Khmer Rouge Regime in Cambodia. I have been to exhibitions about the Vietnam War and many more.

Dark exhibitions are a good opportunity for tourists to learn about the dark histories or events of a destination in a respectful way.

Many destinations open their historical dungeons for public viewing. These may be in their original state or they may have been altered for tours. The London Dungeons, for example, have become rather ‘Disneyfied’, in the way that they encompass live actors, sensory activities and rides.

There are some really interesting cemeteries that I have visited throughout the world. Whilst visiting a graveyard might not be at the top of every tourists list, you might be surprised at just how busy these places can be! Some famous cemeteries that I have visited include the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, the Recoleta Cemetery in Argentina and Lenin’s Mausoleum in Moscow. Did you know the Taj Mahal is also a dark resting place? Yep, I’ve been there too.  

There are many shrines throughout the world which are popular tourist attractions, perhaps the most famous being the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Shrines are especially popular in Asian countries.

Sites of conflict often become dark tourism sites once peace has been restored and a reasonable period of time has passed. One of the most interesting conflict sites that I have visited was Vietnam, where I learned all about the Vietnam War. The D-Day Beaches in France were also very interesting.

There are several areas of genocide which are popular with tourists. Whilst this is obviously a sad history, many people choose to visit sites such as Auschwitz or Karaganda, Kazakhstan to learn more about the history.

I think that Stone has missed out a key type of dark tourism in his list- disaster sites- so I will add this in below.

Disaster sites, whether in the immediate aftermath or after some time has passed, are popular with dark tourists. A subset of dark tourism, disaster tourism has increased in popularity in recent years. The recent documentary on Chernobyl, which was ranked the most highly user rated TV series ever, has helped raise awareness of disaster tourism amongst the public and tourism to this area has since increased significantly. I have written a detailed post on this topic, you can click here to read it: Disaster tourism: What, why and where .

There are a variety of types of disaster tourism that falls under the pillar of dark tourism, which include:

• Holocaust tourism
• Disaster tourism
• Grave tourism
• Cold war tourism
• Nuclear tourism
• Prison and persecution site tourism

Whilst each of these concepts are a type of tourism in their own right, they do share many similarities and are therefore classified together under the umbrella term of dark tourism.

So, is it really ethical to visit sites of death and tragedy? Or to photograph those who continue to sorrow for all that is lost? Or to take a selfie in a site of sadness? Many people do indeed question the ethics of taking part in dark tourism.

Take the response to the recent influx of Instagram photos taken in Chernobyl, for instance. There has been outrage, as shown in this newspaper article , at so-called ‘influencers’ and their inappropriate photographs taken at the historical nuclear site, where people have dressed up as scientists or posed in their underwear.

Whilst I think that most of us would agree that this is not sustainable tourist behaviour , there are a range of views as to what is appropriate and what is not when taking part in dark tourism.

As a general guide, however, here is a list of some of the behaviours demonstrated by dark tourists, which have been deemed offensive or inappropriate:

• Photographing people in moments of sorrow
• Smiling and laughing around those experiencing hardship
• Treating people as if they are museum exhibits
• Making inappropriate remarks
• Wearing disrespectful clothes
• Using inappropriate language
• Committing to disaster tourism for personal gain (e.g. personal satisfaction, to enhance CV etc)
• Making money from others’ hardships
• Talking loudly about unrelated issues
• Showing general signs of disrespect

Dark tourism destinations

There are a wide range of disaster tourism destinations (more than one would have imagined!), many of which would be overlooked as a dark tourism destination.

Below I have listed a few examples of dark tourism destinations, all of which demonstrate the different types of dark tourism as listed above.

Following the largest and most deadly Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz was turned into a memorial after the end of WWII. Auschwitz has been deemed the very epitome of all dark tourism.

Today, the memorial site is estimated to have welcomed almost 50 million tourists over its time. The tourist numbers have, in fact, become so high in recent years that the government have limited how many tickets to the area can be sold to tourists each day. I was caught out by this on my trip there a couple of years ago so my tip is to book ahead!

Chernobyl has been regarded as one of the worst nuclear disasters in History and I learnt a lot about this when I watched the recent documentary that was shown on TV.

Chernobyl is a very popular destination for dark tourism, however unlike Auschwitz, this destination remains a hazard and is to date a dangerous site to visit due to the radiation levels still pertinent.

It is interesting to read in a recent article published this month that booking numbers have increased by 30% in the last 3 months following the recent tv series on the disaster.

Hiroshima preserves the memory of the worlds first nuclear attack. An atomic bomb at Hiroshima killed more people in one instant than any other killing in history.

Hiroshima continues to promote itself as a symbol of peace rather than that of a devastated city.

In 2016, the number of visitors reached over 12 million. Over 11 million were domestic tourists , 323,000 were students on school trips, and 1,176,000 were international visitors.

Following one of the worlds worst terrorist attacks, the 9/11 memorial site is one of the world’s top dark tourism attractions and is one of the most visited sites of any kind.

Within the first 2 years of the memorial opening, over 10 million visitors arrived and a couple years later the total figure rose to over 23 million.

The Killing Fields are a collection of (more than 300) sites in Cambodia where over a million people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime.

This is a popular tourism attractions and often considered a ‘right of passage’ when backpacking around South East Asia. It is an educational and sorrowful site, highlighting an important time in Cambodia’s history.

One recent article has expressed the issues faced with the high volume of tourists visiting the Killing Fields. This is due to the number of tourists ‘leaving their mark’ and graffiting on prison walls.

Bikini Atoll is associated mainly with the nuclear testing programme that the United States of America conducted.

Unlike natural disasters, tourists could not flock to Bikini Atoll immediately after, and even to this day, Bikini Atoll remains an extremely hazardous place to visit despite the US granting its safety in 1997.

It is argued that disaster tourists are putting themselves at risk by travelling to Bikini Atoll. There is still a significant level of radiation in the area and the extent of the damage caused below sea level has not been determined.

This particular disaster is categorised as nuclear tourism under the umbrella of dark tourism.

Berlin was the capital of the socialist single party regime of the former GDR. Now it is referred to the as ‘fall of the Berlin Wall’.

Berlin is home to a number of Holocaust and WW2 exhibitions and is popular with educational tourists. I took a student group there a few years ago and I would definitely recommend it for anybody studying tourism or history.

There are other countries that similar experiences too, including dark tourism in Vienna .

Robben Island can be observed as a form of Prison and persecution site tourism. In fact the prison has been recognised and preserved as a UNWTO World Heritage Site.

Prior to its conservation, the Island was a standing prison during the colonial wars, particularly dominante by successive colonial powers (Dutch and British).

Nowadays, the prison is a tourist site welcoming thousands of tourists each year. The tour guides are mostly ex-inmates, providing the tourist with an authentic account of what the prison was like when it was in operation as well as a much needed source of employment for the staff member.

We visited during our trip to South Africa and found it very interesting and educational. I learnt a lot about Nelson Mandela and the history of Apartheid.

Rwanda is a small country in Central Africa and the place where one of the most tragic and largest genocides took place in 1994.

This is now a dark tourism site which is visited by many tourists each year.

One of the most interesting and unusual dark tourism sites that I have visited is Oradur Sur Glane .

In 1944, 642 villagers were massacred in Oradur Sur Glane. Shortly after the war, General Charles de Gaulle declared Oradour should never be rebuilt and instead it should remain a stark memorial to Nazi cruelty. It is fascinating (and eerie) because everything remains untouched to this day.

Have you ever watched the film Pompeii’?, If so then you will know exactly the history behind the city and what happened.

Pompeii has received an enormous amount of visitors and this may be the result of its publicity following its recent film. Before the film was released, Pompeii was attracted on average 2 million visitors annually, a number that remained very steady from 2002 onwards. However, following the release of the film, tourist numbers staggered upwards reaching over 3.5 million.

Another place that I have visited that was particularly memorable was the bone church known as Sedlec Ossuary.

We took a day trip from Prague to visit this unusual attraction, which was eerie and fascinating at the same time!

You can find out a bit more about the bone church in this video.

South of Mexico City, Don Julian Santana begun to hang dolls from treess and buildings as a protection against evil spirits. Today, the Island is known as ‘Island of the Dolls’. Dubbed as the ‘scariest place in Mexico’, it has now become a popular attraction with thrill-seeking dark tourists.

However, it has come to recent attention that the Island has been duplicated to fool tourists into believing they are visiting the original Island.

Now that we know a bit more about the concept of dark tourism, lets summarise the key points:

• Dark tourism involves visiting places associated with death, tragedy, and suffering.
• Dark tourism is a controversial form of tourism that raises ethical concerns.

Dark tourism has been around for centuries, but the term “dark tourism” was only coined in the 1990s.

• Some of the most popular dark tourism destinations include Auschwitz, Ground Zero, and the Killing Fields in Cambodia.
• Dark tourism can be educational and help people understand and appreciate history.
• Dark tourism can also be seen as exploitative and disrespectful to the victims and their families.
• Responsible tourism practices should be followed when engaging in dark tourism.
• The motivations for engaging in dark tourism vary, including curiosity, historical interest, and a desire to pay respects to the victims.
• Dark tourism can have positive economic impacts on local communities.
• Overall, dark tourism is a complex and nuanced form of tourism that requires careful consideration and reflection.

Lastly, lets finish off this article by answering some of the most commonly asked questions on this topic.

Dark tourism refers to travel to places that are associated with death, tragedy, and suffering.

What are some examples of dark tourism destinations?

Examples of dark tourism destinations include Auschwitz, Ground Zero, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, and the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

Is dark tourism ethical?

The ethics of dark tourism are debated. Some people argue that it can be educational and help preserve historical memory, while others believe that it can be exploitative and disrespectful to the victims and their families.

What are some of the motivations for engaging in dark tourism?

Some people are motivated by curiosity, historical interest, a desire to pay respects to the victims, or a desire to challenge their own perceptions and beliefs.

Are there any risks associated with dark tourism?

Some dark tourism destinations may have physical or psychological risks, such as exposure to radiation or disturbing images.

How can I engage in responsible dark tourism?

Responsible dark tourism involves being respectful of the victims and their families, supporting local communities, and being aware of the impact of your visit.

Is dark tourism a new phenomenon?

Can dark tourism be beneficial for local economies?

Yes, dark tourism can bring economic benefits to local communities through increased tourism and job opportunities.

Can dark tourism be educational?

Yes, dark tourism can be educational and help people understand and appreciate history and its impact on society.

Should children be allowed to engage in dark tourism?

Whether children should be allowed to engage in dark tourism depends on the age of the child and the destination being visited. Parents should carefully consider the potential risks and impact on the child’s emotional well-being.

Dark tourism is an interesting concept that has reaped increased attention from both academics and the public in recent years. Whether you are visiting a cemetery, taking part in a zombie race or providing relief after a natural disaster, the opportunities to take part in dark tourism activities are far ranging.

It is fairly clear that there are a number of different types of tourism that all fall under the umbrella of dark tourism. And with the different types of dark tourism, comes a variety of different tourist motivations to visit.

However, despite the different motivations, there are still unresolved ethical concerns that need addressing. From inappropriate selfies to taking photos of people who are grieving, there are differing opinions on whether dark tourism is right or wrong.

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Beaches? Cruises? ‘Dark’ Tourists Prefer the Gloomy and Macabre

Travelers who use their off time to visit places like the Chernobyl nuclear plant or current conflict zones say they no longer want a sanitized version of a troubled world.

By Maria Cramer

North Korea. East Timor. Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous enclave that for decades has been a tinderbox for ethnic conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijanis.

They’re not your typical top tourist destinations.

But don’t tell that to Erik Faarlund, the editor of a photography website from Norway, who has visited all three. His next “dream” trip is to tour San Fernando in the Philippines around Easter , when people volunteer to be nailed to a cross to commemorate the suffering of Jesus Christ, a practice discouraged by the Catholic Church.

Mr. Faarlund, whose wife prefers sunning on Mediterranean beaches, said he often travels alone.

“She wonders why on earth I want to go to these places, and I wonder why on earth she goes to the places she goes to,” he said.

Mr. Faarlund, 52, has visited places that fall under a category of travel known as dark tourism , an all-encompassing term that boils down to visiting places associated with death, tragedy and the macabre.

As travel opens up, most people are using their vacation time for the typical goals: to escape reality, relax and recharge. Not so dark tourists, who use their vacation time to plunge deeper into the bleak, even violent corners of the world.

They say going to abandoned nuclear plants or countries where genocides took place is a way to understand the harsh realities of current political turmoil, climate calamities, war and the growing threat of authoritarianism.

“When the whole world is on fire and flooded and no one can afford their energy bills, lying on a beach at a five-star resort feels embarrassing,” said Jodie Joyce, who handles contracts for a genome sequencing company in England and has visited Chernobyl and North Korea .

Mr. Faarlund, who does not see his travels as dark tourism, said he wants to visit places “that function totally differently from the way things are run at home.”

Whatever their motivations, Mr. Faarlund and Ms. Joyce are hardly alone.

Eighty-two percent of American travelers said they have visited at least one dark tourism destination in their lifetime, according to a study published in September by Passport-photo.online, which surveyed more than 900 people. More than half of those surveyed said they preferred visiting “active” or former war zones. About 30 percent said that once the war in Ukraine ends, they wanted to visit the Azovstal steel plant, where Ukrainian soldiers resisted Russian forces for months .

The growing popularity of dark tourism suggests more and more people are resisting vacations that promise escapism, choosing instead to witness firsthand the sites of suffering they have only read about, said Gareth Johnson, a founder of Young Pioneer Tours , which organized trips for Ms. Joyce and Mr. Faarlund.

Tourists, he said, are tired of “getting a sanitized version of the world.”

A pastime that goes back to Gladiator Days

The term “dark tourism” was coined in 1996, by two academics from Scotland, J. John Lennon and Malcolm Foley, who wrote “Dark Tourism: The Attraction to Death and Disaster.”

But people have used their leisure time to witness horror for hundreds of years, said Craig Wight, associate professor of tourism management at Edinburgh Napier University.

“It goes back to the gladiator battles” of ancient Rome, he said. “People coming to watch public hangings. You had tourists sitting comfortably in carriages watching the Battle of Waterloo.”

Professor Wight said the modern dark tourist usually goes to a site defined by tragedy to make a connection to the place, a feeling that is difficult to achieve by just reading about it.

By that definition, anyone can be a dark tourist. A tourist who takes a weekend trip to New York City may visit Ground Zero. Visitors to Boston may drive north to Salem to learn more about the persecution of people accused of witchcraft in the 17th century. Travelers to Germany or Poland might visit a concentration camp. They might have any number of motivations, from honoring victims of genocide to getting a better understanding of history. But in general, a dark tourist is someone who makes a habit of seeking out places that are either tragic, morbid or even dangerous, whether the destinations are local or as far away as Chernobyl.

In recent years, as tour operators have sprung up worldwide promising deep dives into places known for recent tragedy, media attention has followed and so have questions about the intentions of visitors, said Dorina-Maria Buda, a professor of tourism studies at Nottingham Trent University .

Stories of people gawking at neighborhoods in New Orleans destroyed by Hurricane Katrina or posing for selfies at Dachau led to disgust and outrage .

Were people driven to visit these sites out of a “sense of voyeurism or is it a sense of sharing in the pain and showing support?” Professor Buda said.

Most dark tourists are not voyeurs who pose for photos at Auschwitz, said Sian Staudinger, who runs the Austria-based Dark Tourist Trips , which organizes itineraries in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe and instructs travelers to follow rules like “NO SELFIES!”

“Dark tourists in general ask meaningful questions,” Ms. Staudinger said. “They don’t talk too loud. They don’t laugh. They’re not taking photos at a concentration camp.”

‘Ethically murky territory’

David Farrier , a journalist from New Zealand, spent a year documenting travels to places like Aokigahara , the so-called suicide forest in Japan, the luxury prison Pablo Escobar built for himself in Colombia and McKamey Manor in Tennessee, a notorious haunted house tour where people sign up to be buried alive, submerged in cold water until they feel like they will drown and beaten.

The journey was turned into a show, “Dark Tourist,” that streamed on Netflix in 2018 and was derided by some critics as ghoulish and “sordid.”

Mr. Farrier, 39, said he often questioned the moral implications of his trips.

“It’s very ethically murky territory,” Mr. Farrier said.

But it felt worthwhile to “roll the cameras” on places and rituals that most people want to know about but will never experience, he said.

Visiting places where terrible events unfolded was humbling and helped him confront his fear of death.

He said he felt privileged to have visited most of the places he saw, except McKamey Manor.

“That was deranged,” Mr. Farrier said.

Professor Buda said dark tourists she has interviewed have described feelings of shock and fear at seeing armed soldiers on streets of countries where there is ongoing conflict or that are run by dictatorships.

“When you’re part of a society that is by and large stable and you’ve gotten into an established routine, travel to these places leads you to sort of feel alive,” she said.

But that travel can present real danger.

In 2015, Otto Warmbier , a 21-year-old student from Ohio who traveled with Young Pioneer Tours, was arrested in North Korea after he was accused of stealing a poster off a hotel wall. He was detained for 17 months and was comatose when he was released. He died in 2017, six days after he was brought back to the United States.

The North Korean government said Mr. Warmbier died of botulism but his family said his brain was damaged after he was tortured.

Americans can no longer travel to North Korea unless their passports are validated by the State Department.

A chance to reflect

Even ghost tours — the lighter side of dark tourism — can present dilemmas for tour operators, said Andrea Janes, the owner and founder of Boroughs of the Dead: Macabre New York City Walking Tours.

In 2021, she and her staff questioned whether to restart tours so soon after the pandemic in a city where refrigerated trucks serving as makeshift morgues sat in a marine terminal for months.

They reopened and were surprised when tours booked up fast. People were particularly eager to hear the ghost stories of Roosevelt Island, the site of a shuttered 19th-century hospital where smallpox patients were treated .

“We should have seen as historians that people would want to talk about death in a time of plague,” Ms. Janes said.

Kathy Biehl, who lives in Jefferson Township, N.J., and has gone on a dozen ghost tours with Ms. Janes’s company, recalled taking the tour “Ghosts of the Titanic” along the Hudson River. It was around 2017, when headlines were dominated by President Trump’s tough stance on refugees and immigrants coming into the United States.

Those stories seemed to dovetail with the 100-year-old tales of immigrants trying to make it to New York on a doomed ship, Ms. Biehl said.

It led to “a catharsis” for many on the tour, she said. “People were on the verge of tears over immigration.”

Part of the appeal of dark tourism is its ability to help people process what is happening “as the world gets darker and gloomier,” said Jeffrey S. Podoshen , a professor of marketing at Franklin and Marshall College, who specializes in dark tourism.

“People are trying to understand dark things, trying to understand things like the realities of death, dying and violence,” he said. “They look at this type of tourism as a way to prepare themselves.”

Mr. Faarlund, the photo editor, recalled one trip with his wife and twin sons: a private tour of Cambodia that included a visit to the Killing Fields , where between 1975 and 1979 more than 2 million Cambodians were killed or died of starvation and disease under the Khmer Rouge regime.

His boys, then 14, listened intently to unsparing and brutal stories of the torture center run by the Khmer Rouge. At one point, the boys had to go outside, where they sat quietly for a long time.

“They needed a break,” Mr. Faarlund said. “It was quite mature of them.”

Afterward, they met two of the survivors of the Khmer Rouge, fragile men in their 80s and 90s. The teenagers asked if they could hug them and the men obliged, Mr. Faarlund said.

It was a moving trip that also included visits to temples, among them Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, and meals of frog, oysters and squid at a roadside restaurant.

“They loved it,” Mr. Faarlund said of his family.

Still, he can’t see them coming with him to see people re-enact the crucifixion in the Philippines.

“I don’t think they want to go with me on that one,” Mr. Faarlund said.

52 Places for a Changed World

The 2022 list highlights places around the globe where travelers can be part of the solution.

Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram , Twitter and Facebook . And sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to receive expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places for a Changed World for 2022.

Maria Cramer is a reporter on the Travel desk. Please send her tips, questions and complaints about traveling, especially on cruises. More about Maria Cramer

Open Up Your World

Considering a trip, or just some armchair traveling here are some ideas..

52 Places:  Why do we travel? For food, culture, adventure, natural beauty? Our 2024 list has all those elements, and more .

Mumbai:  Spend 36 hours in this fast-changing Indian city  by exploring ancient caves, catching a concert in a former textile mill and feasting on mangoes.

Kyoto:  The Japanese city’s dry gardens offer spots for quiet contemplation  in an increasingly overtouristed destination.

Iceland:  The country markets itself as a destination to see the northern lights. But they can be elusive, as one writer recently found .

Texas:  Canoeing the Rio Grande near Big Bend National Park can be magical. But as the river dries, it’s getting harder to find where a boat will actually float .

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Dark tourism, explained

Why visitors flock to sites of tragedy.

Every year, millions of tourists around the world venture to some of the unhappiest places on Earth: sites of atrocities, accidents, natural disasters or infamous death. From Auschwitz to Chernobyl, Gettysburg, the site of the Kennedy assassination and the 9/11 Memorial in New York, visitors are making the worst parts of history a piece of their vacation, if not the entire point.

Experts call the phenomenon dark tourism, and they say it has a long tradition. Dark tourism refers to visiting places where some of the darkest events of human history have unfolded. That can include genocide, assassination, incarceration, ethnic cleansing, war or disaster — either natural or accidental. Some might associate the idea with ghost stories and scares, but those who study the practice say it’s unrelated to fear or supernatural elements.

“It’s not a new phenomenon,” says J. John Lennon, a professor of tourism at Glasgow Caledonian University, in Scotland, who coined the term with a colleague in 1996. “There’s evidence that dark tourism goes back to the Battle of Waterloo where people watched from their carriages the battle taking place.”

The hit US drama "Chernobyl" brought a new generation of tourists to the nuclear disaster zone. (Genya Savilov/AFP via Getty Images)

That was in 1815, but he cites an even longer-ago example: crowds gathering to watch public hangings in London in the 16th century. Those are relatively modern compared with the bloody spectacles that unfolded in the Colosseum in Rome.

There aren’t official statistics on how many people participate in dark tourism every year or whether that number is on the rise. An online travel guide run by an enthusiast, Dark-Tourism.com , includes almost 900 places in 112 countries.

But there’s no question the phenomenon is becoming more visible, in part thanks to the Netflix series “Dark Tourist” that was released last year. And popular culture is fueling more visitation to some well-known sites: After the HBO miniseries “Chernobyl,” about the 1986 power plant explosion, came out this spring, travel companies that bring people to the area said they saw a visitor increase of 30 to 40 percent. Ukraine’s government has since declared its intention to make the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone an official tourist spot, despite lingering radiation.

[How to navigate the etiquette of dark tourism]

Philip Stone, executive director of the Institute for Dark Tourism Research at the University of Central Lancashire, in England, says anecdotally that he sees the appetite for such destinations growing.

“I think, for political reasons or cultural reasons, we are turning to the visitor economy to remember aspects of death and dying, disaster,” he says. “There is a kind of memorial mania going on. You could call that growth in dark tourism.”

(Illustrations by Laura Perez for The Washington Post)

Why are tourists so enamored with places that are, as Lennon puts it, “synonymous with the darkest periods of human history?” Academics who study the practice say it’s human nature.

[Ukraine wants Chernobyl to be a tourist trap. But scientists warn: Don’t kick up dust.]

“We’ve just got this cultural fascination with the darker side of history; most history is dark,” Stone says. “I think when we go to these places, we see not strangers, but often we see ourselves and perhaps what we might do in those circumstances.”

“When we go to these places, we see not strangers, but often we see ourselves and perhaps what we might do in those circumstances.”

Philip Stone, executive director, Institute for Dark Tourism Research at the University of Central Lancashire

There is no one type of traveler who engages in dark tourism: It could be a history buff who takes the family on a road trip to Civil War battlefields, a backpacker who treks to the Colosseum in Rome, or a tourist who seeks out the near-abandoned areas near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster, in 2011, in Japan.

Visitors walk between barbed wire fences at the Auschwitz I memorial concentration camp site in Oswiecim, Poland. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Those who are most familiar with the phenomenon do not condemn it. In fact, they argue that the most meaningful dark-tourism sites can help visitors understand the present and be more thoughtful about the future.

“These are important sites that tell us a lot about what it is to be human,” says Lennon, the tourism professor. “I think they’re important places for us to reflect on and try to better understand the evil that we’re capable of.”

There are even efforts underway to research the way children experience dark tourism, a joint project between the Institute for Dark Tourism Research and the University of Pittsburgh.

Mary Margaret Kerr, a professor of education and psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, says the idea came about when the National Park Service asked her to help create a team to design children’s materials for families who visit the memorial to United Airlines Flight 93, which was hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001, and crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

Her research team now includes middle-school students who have studied how their peers interact with the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial, in Washington, or the site of the Johnstown flood, in Pennsylvania, which killed more than 2,200 in 1889.

(Illustration by Laura Perez for The Washington Post)

“We wouldn’t want families to stop traveling, and adults want to see these places for very good reasons,” Kerr says. “It’s not so much making the decision for parents whether you take the children or not, but what are the appropriate safeguards."

She said the goal is to provide appropriate safeguards and ways to experience a site, even for children too young to grasp the history, “so the family can be there together, but each member of the family can take meaning that works out for them at their age and stage.”

As more sites with dark histories become popular spots — even part of organized tour packages — experts say there is a risk that they could become exploited, used to sell tchotchkes or placed as backdrops for unseemly photos.

“It does kind of invite that passive behavior — let’s call it that touristy behavior — that might be out of place,” Stone says.

Visitors look at the bodies of eruption victims exposed in the ruins of ancient Pompeii. (Mario Laporta/AFP via Getty Images)

Bad conduct by tourists at sensitive sites — smiling selfies at concentration camps, for example — has been widely shunned on social media. The online Dark-Tourism.com travel guide cautions against such behavior, as well as the ethically questionable “voyeurism” of visiting an ongoing or very recent tragedy to gape.

“These are important sites that tell us a lot about what it is to be human. I think they’re important places for us to reflect on and try to better understand the evil that we’re capable of.”

J. John Lennon, tourism professor at Glasgow Caledonian University

“What IS endorsed here is respectful and enlightened touristic engagement with contemporary history, and its dark sites/sides, in a sober, educational and non-sensationalist manner,” the site says .

Lennon says he’s sometimes “dumbfounded” by some of the behavior that gets publicized, but he declines to say what the right or wrong way is for tourists to behave. Overall, he says, he still hopes that by visiting places with dark histories, people are becoming better informed about atrocities like racial and ethnic cleansing.

“I’m heartened by the fact that they choose to try to understand this difficult past,” Lennon says.

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Hannah Sampson is a staff writer at The Washington Post for By The Way, where she reports on travel news.

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Everything about Dark Tourism | Concept, Types, Examples

What is dark tourism.

Who are Dark Tourists? 

The term “dark tourist” refers to a person interested in visiting dark tourism sites and knowing about the dark past and a brighter future, where everything happened. This genre is getting increasingly popular among tourists from all over the world and might act as a factor influencing tourism . There is also an increase in searches for the term dark tourism and a few dedicated tourism management agencies, tour guides also exist. Guided tours help you to understand the very recent history, long traditions, exclusion zones etc.

Dark tourism destinations extend globally over 60 years, including places like Bogot, Colombia, Cusco, Peru, Bolivia, Togo, Chernobyl, Romania, Florence, Moscow, Camillo, and many more. All these sites focus on the strong links between history, disasters that they have incurred, have dark histories and are associated with death. A grief tourism destination for a dark tourist can advance and shape their travel experience when visiting a site. Therefore, a person’s identity comes into play when they visit these places. Dark tourism is often confused and considered similar to disaster tourism. Disaster tourism is the practice of visiting locations at which an environmental disaster, either natural or man-made, has occurred. The dark outcome makes it relevant when talking about dark tourism and discussing dark tourist attractions.

An essential quality of dark tourists is the desire to know tragic history and understand deeply twisted history. They have the perspective that the dark destination is a reflection of the past that needs more attention. That’s why they are attracted to these grief places. They have a natural attraction to sites or events related to disasters, war, or other natural calamities. More information is available in the video below if you prefer watching to reading!

Related Article: 6 Reasons Why People Pursue Dark Tourism

Types of Dark Tourism

Many objectives can drive the dark tourist’s motivation to visit any dark sites. Various types of tourism can be linked to dark places that are listed below. 

Holocaust Tourism

History is vast, which accounts for many intriguing stories. One such interesting and devastating time is World War II that is still remembered and studied. It holds a lot of death and destruction. Dark tourism mainly started in Nazi-ruled Germany. The dark sites of that period showcase the memorials, nature, politics, and the grief of children and citizens. 

The horrific stories prompted travelers from all across the globe to visit memorial parks and memorial museums, like Auschwitz, other Nazi concentration camps, or the Holocaust Memorial site. They highlight the remembrance of young and old Jews who lost their lives because of the execution by the government. The place also establishes a contrast between the past and the modern-day. The memorial site attracts a huge mass of events, and the photography becomes souvenirs for people. Movies such as pearl harbor also highlights some examples.

Two places in Poland that are worth mentioning in the context of Holocaust tourism are Warsaw and Oswiecim. Also, these places have served as a location for many big films to recreate authentic events of suffering. Warsaw is the capital city of Poland and one of the major dark tourism destinations. The people suffered the worst living conditions during the Nazi-led government, deportations during the Holocaust, infrastructure loss of almost all the old buildings, and inhuman treatment. 

Grave Tourism

Many people are drawn to visit cemeteries that represent a sad historical time frame. Some people might like to visit because it is a final resting place of a famous person. The burial sites give away interesting storylines that draw people towards them. These places tend to bridge the void between the present and the past, the living and the dead. Like Père Lachaise in Paris receives almost 3.5 million visitors per year. Other famous examples include Burma, Vandayasana, Weave, Cherub in Cambodia, and Garden Cemeteries of the Venerable Buddha. 

Heritage tourism:

Heritage tourism is not limited to travel, but it also gives an exposure to access and preserve the intangible cultural heritage. Any type of monument or heritage site that reminds people of a tragedy also gives knowledge about the context of events. The common ground of history combines heritage and dark tourism together. People travel there to discover the treasures of tragedy, war zones in the historic sites. For example, Auschwitz (Death Camp), or Vimy Ridge (war memorial) people get to know the history of a world war period and heritage through travel. Sedlec ossuary in the Czech Republic also can be viewed as an example. These areas are known to have long tradition and places historically important.

Heritage tourism boosts the local economy and enhances tourism development. All the hot spots of cultural heritage can become authentic potential destinations in nature. It also helps the tourist acquire knowledge about important cultural and historical places. It also gives a more profound sense of what can be preserved.

Communism Tourism

Even in the 21st era, a portion of the world is still under the control of communists. But it draws as an attraction for people to visit those areas and interact with the people, like North Korea. Also, it is impossible to know the natural history of communism in a country without seeing that place. 

Another example is Red Tourism, a subset of “tourism in the People’s Republic of China,” in which Chinese people visit locations that give a glimpse of Chinese Communism. It’s widely promoted to establish them as a cultural foundation for future generations. It is visited by many other people from Korean Peninsula and Chinese from eastern Europe. 

Battlefield Tourism:

The visiting of battlefields and war ruins, a dark tourism destination, is not new. There are World War One sites at the Somme, Verdun, or Ypres. Also, a recent example, the areas in the Falklands of the 1982 war are visited. There are also historical re-enactments in period costumes to give a real experience to the people. Mass graves and war zones are also popular examples of battlefield tourism.

Other Types

Other types and form of dark tourism include famous cemeteries, robben island, site of Vietnam war, site of cold war, bombing sites, dark fun factories and even London dungeon, morbid tourism, memorial park, nuclear tourism, slum tourism, macabre tourism etc. Tourists like to explore the darker side of such places and events.

Also Read: 5 Factors Influencing Tourist Destination and Tourism

Famous Dark Tourism Destinations:

Kigali genocide memorial, africa:.

The dark tourism sector is famous in Southeast Asia. Because of its fusion of rich heritage and tragedy. One such example was the Rwanda genocide in 1994. For about 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority and Hutu ethnic group were slaughtered by armed militias. It is estimated around 500,000 to 600,000 people were brutally killed. After these vulnerable stories came to light, people developed an attraction to the victims, which later generated tourism.

The Kigali Genocide Memorial has the remains of over 250,000 people. There is a visitor center for students and tourist who wants to gain more information about the events leading up to the genocide 1994. It is the principal entry point for foreign visitors and offers a few more sites that are worth exploring. Till now, this incident is a sensitive issue in Rwanda, and it is illegal to talk about ethnicity over there.

Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Poland:

People who were intrigued by the events of the World war will be familiar with the Auschwitz concentration camp. The German higher authorities established it in 1940 in the suburbs of Oświęcim. By 1942 it became one of the largest networks of Nazi death camps. The prisoners were pushed into forced labor, inhumane medical experiments, and mass killings. The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is a memorial and museum in the memory of the people killed in the camps. It is one of the major attractions of Holocaust Tourism. Also, Auschwitz is called the “epitome of all dark tourism.” 

Garden of the Fugitives, Italy:

Pompeii is a world-famous heritage site and attracts Italy’s tourist attention. Additionally, it is one of the most important archaeological sites on Earth for its Roman remains. The ancient town is famous for volcanic ash caused by the eruptions of Mount Vesuvius in the year 79 AD. Even after so many years, it is still well-preserved roman town in history. It was rediscovered in the 18th century with the excavation process going on since the 19th century. One-third of the site is still under the ash.

Many mosaics, cultural relics, and remains of human bodies have been found. The archaeologists poured liquid chalk into the hollow cavities left by the decaying bodies to showcase the look of petrified bodies. Some of the plaster casts show a facial expression of calm and falling asleep.

Chernobyl and Pripyat, Ukraine:

In 1986, Chernobyl witnessed the worst nuclear disaster. It resulted from a series of mistakes at the power plant that caused explosions releasing radioactive material into the atmosphere. The winds amplified the destruction by carrying the toxic air over Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, contaminating millions of acres of land that had to be permanently evacuated. Pripyat is also known as the ghost town where tourists worldwide flock to see the amusement park, a moss-covered Ferris wheel, and other examples that give evidence of how lively the town was before the unfortunate incident.

People visiting there get a natural feeling of erosion and disruption that could be seen in the atmosphere of a destination. Chernobyl has not yet reached the final stage of its development and introduction.  However, it is still gaining a  lot of attention from dark tourists worldwide, especially after the famous web series on this tragic event.  

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, Cambodia

The Cambodian genocide at the hands of the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot is considered one of the worst crimes against humanity. The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum recalls the genocide and the torture of the victims in prison. It is located in Phnom Penh. The site is a former secondary school used as Security Prison 21 from 1975 to 1979. Around 14,000 to 20,000 victims were captured in prison and tortured. Almost all of them were ended up in the killing fields of Choeung Ek.

Be more educated on Dark Tourism, if it fascinates you

If you think you cannot wait to visit Chernobyl, hike in an authentic mountain in South Africa, visit Mummified Corpse and Museum in Phnom Penh or even attend a Christmas party haunted forest in North Korea. In that case, you are a dark tourist! And, it’s fine to embrace it. Heritage studies also dedicate some part of the syllabus to this field now due to increased academic attention.

Dark Tourism as a field of study:

Dark tourism is a self-professed destination industry and has been defined by the principles of importance, prestige, and high-quality tourism. Tourism research aims to understand society’s problems. It is an application to research the world’s problems from the mistakes done in the past, such as war and terrorism. There are over a million people who are dark tourists which is an evidence that dark tourism is gaining interest.

Dark tourism is known as ‘thanatourism’ in academic literature. It is a broader sense to understand the tourist thinking, history, and re-learning of the events that led to the destruction and later attraction for people. It also understands the effect of the resources in the economy and the upcoming environment. Therefore, dark tourism research is related to the development of the tourism destination. 

Many types of research are going for Tourism development in the context of dark tourism. The Institute for Dark Tourism Research (iDTR) is a world-leading academic center for dark tourism scholarship, research, and teaching.  

Travel Blogs on Dark Tourism:

There are many blogs on Dark Tourism to increase the knowledge about captivating stories of these destinations. They also give an insight on how to behave and follow the protocols on these types of destinations. it is also depicted in museums, historical and spiritual sites, theatres, films, which can give a lot of information. 

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Anshita Kandhari

Dark Tourism

A brief look at the seedier side of extreme holidays..

Posted December 9, 2019 | Reviewed by Kaja Perina

In a previous article , I briefly examined ‘disaster tourism’, a form of ‘dark tourism’ and 'niche tourism'. Since writing that article I came across an interesting book chapter by the Slovenian researcher Dr. Lea Kuznik entitled ‘Fifty shades of dark stories’ examining the many motivations for engaging in the seedier side of tourism. Dark tourism is something that I have been guilty of myself. For instance, as a Beatles fanatic , when I first went to New York, I went to the Dakota apartments where John Lennon had been shot by Mark David Chapman . In her chapter, Dr. Kuznik notes that:

“Dark tourism is a special type of tourism, which involves visits to tourist attractions and destinations that are associated with death, suffering, disasters and tragedies venues. Visiting dark tourist destinations in the world is the phenomenon of the twenty-first century, but also has a very long heritage. Number of visitors of war areas, scenes of accidents, tragedies, disasters, places connected with ghosts, paranormal activities, witches and witchhunt trials, cursed places, is rising steeply”.

As I noted in my previous article, the motivations for such behaviour is varied. Those working in the print and broadcast media often live by the maxim that ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ (meaning that death and disaster sell). Clearly whenever anything hits the front of newspapers or is the lead story on radio and television, it gains notoriety and infamy. This applies to bad things as well as good things and is one of the reasons why dark tourism has become so popular. Kuznik notes that although dark tourism has a long history, it has only become a topic for academic study since the mid-1990s. Dr. Kuznik observes that:

“The term dark tourism was coined by Foley and Lennon (1996) to describe the attraction of visitors to tourism sites associated with death, disaster, and depravity. Other notable definitions of dark tourism include the act of travel to sites associated with death, suffering and the seemingly macabre (Stone, 2006), and as visitations to places where tragedies or historically noteworthy death has occurred and that continue to impact our lives (Tarlow, 2005). Scholars have further developed and applied alternative terminology in dealing with such travel and visitation, including thanatourism (Seaton, 1996), black spot tourism (Rojek, 1993), atrocity heritage tourism (Tunbridge & Ashworth, 1996), and morbid tourism (Blom, 2000). In a context similar to ‘dark tourism’, terms like ‘macabre tourism’, ‘tourism of mourning’ and ‘dark heritage tourism’ are also in use. Among these terms, dark tourism remains the most widely applied in academic research (Sharpley, 2009)”.

Kuznik also notes that dark tourism has been referred to as “place-specific tourism”. Consequently, some researchers began to classify dark tourism sites based upon their defining characteristics. As Kuznik notes:

“Miles (2002) proposed a darker-lighter tourism paradigm in which there remains a distinction between dark and darker tourism according to the greater or lesser extent of the macabre and the morose. In this way, the sites of the holocaust, for example, can be divided into dark and darker tourism when it comes to their authenticity and scope of interpretation…On the basis of the dark tourism paradigm of Miles (2002), Stone (2006) proposed a spectrum of dark tourism supply which classifies sites according to their perceived features, and from these, the degree or shade of darkness (darkest to lightest) with which they can be characterised. This spectrum has seven types of dark tourism suppliers, ranging from Dark Fun Factories as the lightest, to Dark Camps of Genocide as the darkest. A specific example of the lightest suppliers would be dungeon attractions, such as London Dungeon, or planned ventures such as Dracula Park in Romania. In contrast, examples of the darkest sites include genocide sites in Rwanda, Cambodia, or Kosovo, as well as holocaust sites such as Auschwitz-Birkenau”.

In relation to the reasons for visiting dark tourism sites, Kuznik came up with seven main motivations for why we as humans seek out such experiences (i.e., curiosity, education , survivor guilt , remembrance, nostalgia , empathy, and horror ) that are outlined below (please note that the descriptions are edited verbatim from Kuznik’s chapter)

Curiosity: “Many tourists are interested in the unusual and the unique, whether this be a natural phenomenon (e.g. Niagara Falls), an artistic or historical structure (e.g. the pyramids in Egypt), or spectacular events (e.g. a royal wedding). Importantly, the reasons why tourists are attracted to dark tourism sites derive, at least in part, from the same curiosity which motivates a visit to Niagara Falls. Visiting dark tourism sites is an out of the ordinary experience, and thus attractive for its uniqueness and as a means of satisfying human curiosity. So the main reason is the experience of the unusual”.

Empathy: “One of the reasons for visiting dark tourism sites may be empathy, which is an acceptable way of expressing a fascination with horror…In many respects, the interpretation of dark tourism sites can be difficult and sensitive, given the message of the site as forwarded by exhibition curators can at times conflict with the understandings of visitors”.

Horror: “Horror is regarded as one of the key reasons for visiting dark tourism sites, and in particular, sites of atrocity…Relating atrocity as heritage at a site is thus as entertaining as any media depiction of a story, and for precisely the same reasons and with the same moral overtones. Such tourism products or examples are: Ghost Walks around sites of execution or murder (Ghost Tour of Prague), Murder Trails found in many cities like Jack the Ripper in London”.

Education: “In much tourism literature it has been claimed that one of the main motivations for travel is the gaining of knowledge, and the quest for authentic experiences. One of the core missions of cultural and heritage tourism in particular is to provide educational opportunities to visitors through guided tours and interpretation. Similarly, individual visits to dark tourism sites to gain knowledge, understanding, and educational opportunities, continue to have intrinsic educational value…many dark tourism attractions or sites are considered important destinations for school educational field trips, achieving education through experiential learning”.

Nostalgia: “Nostalgia can be broadly described as yearning for the past…or as a wistful mood that an object, a scene, a smell or a strain of music evokes…In this respect Smith (1996) examined war tourism sites and concluded that old soldiers do go back to the battlefields, to revisit and remember the days of their youth”.

Remembrance: “Remembrance is a vital human activity connecting us to our past…Remembrance helps people formulate an identity , allowing them to learn from past mistakes, and to go forward with a clear vision of the future. In the context of dark tourism, remembrance and memory are considered key elements in the importance of sites”.

Survivor’s guilt : “One of the distinctive characteristics of dark tourism is the type of visitors such sites attract, which include survivors and victim‘s families returning to the scene of death or disaster. These types of visitors are particularly prevalent at sites associated with Second World War and the holocaust. For many survivors returning to the scene of death and atrocity can achieve a therapeutic effect by resolving grief , and can build understanding of how terrible things came to have happened. This can be very emotional experience”.

Dr. Kuznik also developed a new typology of “dark places in nature”. The typology comprised 17 types of dark places and are briefly outlined below.

* Disaster area tourism: Visiting places of natural disaster after hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanic destructions, etc.

* Grave tourism: Visiting famous cemeteries, or graves and mausoleums of famous individuals.

* War or battlefield tourism: Visiting places where wars and battles took place.

* Holocaust tourism: Visiting Nazi concentration camps, memorial sites, memorial museums, etc.

* Genocide tourism: Visiting places where genocide took place such as the killing fields in Cambodia.

* Prison tourism: Visiting former prisons such as Alcatraz.

* Communism tourism: Visiting places like North Korea.

* Cold war and iron curtain tourism: Visiting places and remains associated with the cold war such as the Berlin Wall.

* Nuclear tourism: Visiting sites where nuclear disasters took place (e.g. Chernobyl in the Ukraine) or where nuclear bombs were exploded (e.g., Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan).

* Murderers and murderous places tourism: Visiting sites where killers and serial killers murdered their victims (‘Jack the Ripper’ walks in London, where Lee Harvey Oswald killed J.F. Kennedy in Dallas)

* Slum tourism: Visiting impoverished and slum areas in countries such as India and Brazil, Kenya.

* Terrorist tourism: Visiting places such Ground Zero (where the Twin Towers used to be) in New York City

* Paranormal tourism: Visiting crop circle sites, places where UFO sightings took place, haunted houses (e.g., Amityville), etc.

* Witched tourism: Visiting towns or cities where witches congregated (e.g., Salem in Massachusetts).

* Accident tourism: Visiting places where infamous accidents took place (e.g. the Paris tunnel where Princess Diana died in a car accident).

* Icky medical tourism: Visiting medical museums and body exhibitions.

* Dark amusement tourism: Visiting themed walks and amusement parks that are based on ghosts and horror figures (e.g., Dracula).

Looking at these different types quickly I reached the conclusion that I would class myself as a ‘dark tourist’ as I have engaged in many of these and no doubt reflects my own interest in the more extreme aspects of the lived human experience.

Ashworth, G., & Hartmann, R. (2005). Introduction: managing atrocity for tourism. In G. Ashworth & R. Hartmann (Eds.), Horror and human tragedy revisited: the management of sites of atrocities for tourism (pp. 1–14). Sydney: Cognizant Communication Corporation.

Blom, T. (2000). Morbid tourism – a postmodern market niche with an example from Althorp. Norwegian Journal of Geography, 54( 1), 29–36.

Dann, G. M., & Seaton, A. V. (2001). Slavery, contested heritage and thanatourism. International Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Administration, 2 (3-4), 1-29.

Foley, M., & Lennon, J. (1996). JFK and dark tourism: A fascination with assassination.International Journal of Heritage Studies, 2 (4), 198–211.

Foley, M., & Lennon, J. (2000). Dark tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 19 (1), 68-78.

Kuznik, L. (2018). Fifty shades of dark stories. In Mehdi Khosrow-Pour, D.B.A. (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology (Fourth Edition). (pp.4077-4087). Pennsylvania: IGI Global.

Miles, W.F. (2002). Auschwitz: Museum interpretation and darker tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 29 (4), 1175-1178.

Podoshen, J. S. (2013). Dark tourism motivations: Simulation, emotional contagion and topographic comparison. Tourism Management, 35, 263-271.

Rojek, C. (1993). Ways of escape. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan.

Seaton, A. V. (1996). From thanatopsis to thanatourism: Guided by the dark. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 2 (4), 234–244.

Sharpley, R., & Stone, P. R. (Eds.). (2009). The darker side of travel: the theory and practice of dark tourism. Bristol: Channel View.

Smith, V. L. (1996). War and its tourist attractions. In A. Pizam & Y. Mansfeld (Eds.), Tourism, crime and international security issues (pp. 247–264). New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Stone, P. R. (2006). A dark tourism spectrum: Towards a typology of death and macabre related tourist sites, attractions and exhibitions. Tourism, 54 (2), 145–160.

Strange, C., & Kempa, M. (2003). Shades of dark tourism: Alcatraz and Robben Island. Annals of Tourism Research, 30 (2), 386-405.

Tarlow, P.E. (2005). Dark tourism: the appealing dark side of tourism and more. In M. Novelli (Ed.), Niche tourism – Contemporary issues, trends and cases (pp. 47–58). Oxford, UK: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Tunbridge, J.E., & Ashworth, G. (1996). Dissonant heritage: The management of the past as a resource in conflict. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Mark Griffiths, Ph.D., is a chartered psychologist and Director of the International Gaming Research Unit in the Psychology Division at Nottingham Trent University.

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30 Dark Tourism Destinations and How to Visit

By: Author Zachary Friedman

Posted on Last updated: March 1, 2024

Categories Travel Destinations

Home » Travel » Travel Destinations » 30 Dark Tourism Destinations and How to Visit

Many of us have a natural morbid curiosity. Death, disasters, atrocities, and destruction fascinate us. Every year, millions of people travel to some of the darkest and most tragic sites on earth to satisfy that curiosity as well as to gain a deeper understanding of the events that took place there. This is called dark tourism. In this guide, we’ll outline some of the most popular dark tourism destinations and explain how to visit them. We’ll also explain exactly what dark tourism is and talk a bit about the ethics, controversies, and motivations of dark tourism.

Personally, I’m a big fan of dark tourism. Over the years, I’ve visited many of the dark tourism sites on this list. In this guide, I’ll share my experience.

Table of Contents

• Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial, Poland
• Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Site, Ukraine
• Choeung Ek Killing Fields and S-21, Cambodia
• September 11 Memorial and Museum, New York
• Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and Museum, Japan
• Kigali Genocide Memorial, Rwanda
• Pompeii, Italy
• Slave Castles, Ghana
• Sedlec Ossuary, Czech Republic
• Alcatraz Island, San Francisco
• Suicide Forest (Aokigahar), Japan
• Fukushima, Japan
• Robben Island, South Africa
• Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
• The Colosseum, Rome
• Mount St. Helens, Washington
• Anne Frank House and Museum, Amsterdam
• Various Nuclear Test Sites
• The Catacombs of Paris
• Warsaw Ghetto, Poland
• Perm-36 Gulag, Russia
•   Cremations on the Ganges River in Varanasi, India
• WWII memorials and museums in Berlin, Germany
• Communist Leader Mausoleums
• Somme Battlefield, France
• Verdun Battlefield, France
• D-Day Beaches and Memorials in Normandy
• Antietam National Battlefield, Sharpsburg, Maryland
• Cu Chi Tunnels, Vietnam

What is Dark Tourism?

Dark tourism is a relatively new term for a form of tourism that involves travel to a site where death, tragedy, disaster, violence, atrocity, or suffering took place. This could include sites of genocide, assassination, natural disaster, war, terrorism, man-made disaster, etc. Usually, dark tourism sites have some kind of historical significance. They could also be the site of a recent or ongoing tragic event. Dark tourism is also called black tourism, morbid tourism, and grief tourism.

A few of the most well-known and popular dark tourism sites in the world include the ruins of Pompeii, Auschwitz concentration camp, the site of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster, the Paris Catacombs, Gettysburg, Ground Zero, and the 9/11 memorial in New York. In each of these sites, death, suffering, tragedy, or disaster took place.

Most people visit dark tourism sites for educational purposes. These sites usually have interesting histories. Some people visit because these sites pique a morbid curiosity. Others just want to witness large scale destruction and damage. Everyone has their own motivation.

There are different types of dark tourism as well. For example, dark tourism and heritage tourism are sometimes closely related. For example, someone may choose to visit Holocaust sites to learn about the events that their ancestors experienced. Descendants of slaves may choose to visit slavery heritage sites. Some consider this a form of dark tourism as well.

To consider someone a dark tourist, they must visit the site for dark tourism purposes. Some sites have a dark element but aren’t exclusively visited for dark tourism purposes. For example, if you visit Mount St. Helens to go for a hike, you’re not a dark tourist. If you visit to learn about the volcanic eruption and the damage it caused, you are a dark tourist.

Dark Tourism Destinations

1. auschwitz-birkenau memorial and museum, poland.

Located outside of Krakow, Poland, Auschwitz was the largest and most deadly of the Nazi concentration camps. Between 1.1 and 1.6 million men, women, and children were murdered here during the Holocaust. Auschwitz is one of the largest mass murder sites in the world.

Today, the site symbolizes genocide and the evil acts that humans inflict upon one another. It also acts as a valuable education tool to help prevent atrocities such as the Holocaust from happening again.

Auschwitz is actually a series of 40 concentration camps rather than one large camp. Auschwitz I is the older and smaller camp where political prisoners were held. Here, you’ll see a terrifying exhibition of some of the inmates’ possessions including piles of suitcases, shoes, and human hair.

Auschwitz-Birkenau, which is located a couple of miles down the road, is a much larger concentration camp and extermination camp. Here, you’ll find the ruins of the infamous gas chambers, barracks with wooden shelves where prisoners slept, and the train track which was used to haul thousands of people into the camp.

Auschwitz has become a mass tourist site seeing over 2 million visitors per year and over 60 million visitors since the site opened in 1947. This is probably the world’s biggest and most well known dark tourism site. The Auschwitz Memorial is free to enter but you should book in advance. Only a limited number of tickets are available per day because the site is so popular.

2. Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Site, Ukraine

On April 26, 1986, the world’s worst nuclear meltdown took place at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near Pripyat, Ukraine. This disaster caused the death of around 4,000 individuals from radiation-related illness as well as the displacement of over 300,000.

The area is still not safe for people to inhabit, even though some have moved back into their villages anyway. In fact, scientists believe it could take 20,000 years before the exclusion zone is completely safe. The radiation has dissipated enough for tourists to make short visits on guided tours.

Several tour companies offer day trips and multi-day trips to Chernobyl from the nearby city of Kyiv. During the tour, you’ll see the radiation-contaminated Red Forrest and eerie abandoned buildings including the famous Pripyat Amusement Park and a Kindergarten. You’ll also learn about the impact the disaster had on the region.

Keep in mind that there is still a risk of radiation poisoning when visiting the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Radiation levels are still hazardous in much of the zone. Your guide will explain the safety precautions you must take and guide you through the areas that are safe enough to visit.

Chernobyl is one of the world’s most famous and popular dark tourism sites. The recent HBO miniseries, Chernobyl, greatly increased the popularity of the area. Following the release of the show, tourism increased by 30%.

Note: Currently, it’s not possible to visit this site. Hopefully, it will be possible to visit again in the near future.

3. Choeung Ek Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (S-21), Cambodia

The Khmer Rouge regime came into power after the Cambodian civil war ended in 1975. The new government was called the Communist Party of Kampuchea. Their leader was prime minister Pol Pot.

Immediately following the end of the war, the Cambodian genocide began. From 1975 to 1979, between 1.7 and 2.5 million people were killed at 300 sites throughout the country. These sites are known as killing fields.

The most famous of these killing fields is Choeung Ek, which is located about 11 miles outside of Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. It is estimated that around 17,000 men, women, and children were killed at this site. Many were killed violently with knives, scythes, bats, and bayonets. This is the main memorial for the Cambodian genocide.

At this site, you’ll see a memorial Buddhist stupa made of glass. Inside the stupa, there are 5,000 human skulls. Many of the displayed skulls are catastrophically damaged, showing the brutal manner in which the victims were killed. The site also includes a mass grave that contains the remains of almost 9,000 people that were exhumed from the surrounding area. Human bones still litter the entire site. Occasionally fragments wash up after heavy rain.

Another famous Cambodian Genocide site is the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum or S-21. This museum is located in Phnom Penh. Originally, this site was built as a secondary school but was converted into a prison by the Khmer Rouge. Around 20,000 people were imprisoned here during Pol Pot’s reign. Many were tortured and killed. Here, you’ll see prison cells, photos of victims, as well as an exhibit that documents the events of the Cambodian genocide.

4. National September 11 Memorial and Museum, New York

This New York City memorial and museum was built to commemorate and honor the 2,977 people who died in the September 11, 2001 terror attacks as well as the six people who died in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. The memorial sits on the site where the twin towers once stood.

The main memorial, called Reflecting Absence, consists of two 1-acre pools that occupy the exact footprints where the Twin Towers stood. Each pool features a large waterfall. Bronze parapets with the name of each victim etched in surround the pools. The September 11 Museum, located underground, contains thousands of images, artifacts, recordings, and videos. The exhibit tells the complete story of the events of 9/11.

This site is fairly controversial. Partly for the high price of entry ($24) but mostly for the fact that the remains of over 1000 victims were placed in a tomb in the bedrock under the museum. Many people find this disrespectful. Even so, the 9/11 Memorial is one of the world’s most popular dark tourism sites. Over 6 million people visit this memorial per year.

5. Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and Museum

This memorial and museum commemorate and honor the city of Hiroshima and the 140,000 people who died when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city on August 6, 1945. It also memorializes the world’s first nuclear attack. The aim is to educate people about the danger of nuclear weapons as well as to promote peace.

The atom bomb, codenamed “Little Boy,” detonated 600 meters above the busiest part of downtown Hiroshima. The explosion essentially leveled the area except for a few ruins. This event marked the beginning of the end of WWII. Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945. The park was built on the site of the bombing. Today, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park contains a number of monuments as well as a museum and a lecture hall.

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum is the main feature of the park. The museum educates visitors about the events leading up to the bombing as well as the catastrophic effect the bomb had on the city. You’ll see photos and artifacts from the bombing. A major section of the museum is dedicated to the stories of the victims and survivors.

The A-Bomb Dome is the second most important site in the park. This is the ruins of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. Today, it’s just a shell of a building. This building is significant because it is one of the only buildings that survived the blast. Most structures in Hiroshima were built from wood and burned up in fires that the bomb started. This building was also just 150 meters from the hypocenter of the blast. It has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

A few more significant points of interest in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park include Children’s Peace Monument, Peace Flame, Peace Bells, Peace Pagoda, Gates of Peace, and Atomic Bomb Memorial Mount. You could easily spend half a day wandering around the park viewing the various monuments and memorials.

3 days after the bombing of Hiroshima on August 9, 1945, The United States bombed the city of Nagasaki in a second nuclear attack. Today, you’ll find a number of memorials and museums including the Atomic Bomb Museum, Peace Park, Oka Masaharu Memorial Peace Museum, and more.

6. Rwanda Genocide Sites (Kigali Genocide Memorial and Murambi Genocide Memorial)

In 1990, a rebel group of Tutsi refugees called the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) invaded Rwanda from Uganda. This started the Rwandan Civil War. President Juvénal Habyarimana signed peace accords in 1993. The following day, the president was assassinated. Genocidal killings of Tutsi people began soon after and the civil war resumed.

The Rwandan genocide lasted from April 7 to July 15, 1994. During that time 500,000-1,000,000 people were killed. This includes about 70% of Rwanda’s Tutsi population. The genocide ended when the RPF captured Kigali and gained control of the country. The government and genocidaires were forced into Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo).

Today, there are a number of genocide memorials located throughout the country. The largest and most visited is the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre. The remains of an astonishing 250,000 people are interred at this site. The attached museum includes three exhibits. The first documents the events of genocide from start to finish. The second exhibit is a memorial to the children who died. It includes photos and details about their lives, things they liked, and the way they died. The third exhibit covers genocide around the world.

The Murambi Genocide Memorial (Murambi Technical School), located in southern Rwanda is one of the darkest dark tourism destinations on the planet. Here, around 50,000 Tutsi men, women, and children were murdered by Hutu Interahamwe militiamen in April of 1994.

The Tutsis were told that they could safely shelter at the school and that the French military would protect them. This turned out to be a trap. After being starved for several days to weaken them, they were attacked and killed. Only 34 people survived the attack and escaped. At Murambi, the remains of 800 people are displayed partially decomposed and preserved by lime.

7. Pompeii, Italy

This ancient Roman city was wiped out when nearby Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. Historians estimate that about 2,000 people died in the disaster. The thick layer of ash and pumice that covered the city preserved this little slice of ancient Rome.

At the ruins, you can see beautifully preserved artwork, pottery, casts of people who died, houses, an amphitheater, and more. Pompeii is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is one of Italy’s most popular tourist destinations with over 2.5 million visitors per year.

Some people question whether or not Pompeii is actually a dark tourism site due to the age of the site. After all, the eruption occurred nearly 2000 years ago. In my opinion, Pompeii is absolutely a dark tourism site due to the large scale death and destruction that happened here. The age of the site is irrelevant.

8. Slave Castles, Ghana (Cape Coast Castle and Elmina Castle)

During the colonial period of West Africa, the British, Dutch, and Portuguese built around 40 castles or forts along the Gold Coast. The Europeans originally used these castles as trading posts for timber or gold.

During that time, African slaves were in high demand in the Americas. The European traders quickly found that the slave trade was more profitable.

They modified their forts to hold as many slaves as possible. Usually in an underground dungeon. African slavers would capture slaves inland then sell them to the Europeans who lived in the castles on the coast. The slaves stayed in the castles until they were shipped across the Atlantic to the Americas.

Living conditions for the slaves were horrible. Slavers shackled and packed the slaves into the castle’s dungeons. There was very little light or ventilation. There was no water or sanitation so the floors were covered in waste. Many became ill. The slaves lived in these conditions for up to three months before being shipped across the Atlantic.

Today, dark tourists visit these castles to learn about the horrors of the slave trade. Two of the most significant castles to visit include Elmina Castle and Cape Coast Castle. Both are located in Ghana. Guided tours are available.

Elmina Castle was the first European trading post and is the oldest European building in Sub Saharan Africa. The Portuguese built the castle in 1482. Today, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Here, you can see the famous ‘Door of No Return’ where slaves exited the castle before boarding ships to Brazil and other Portuguese colonies. You’ll also see the dungeon where the slaves were held as well as the living quarters for the European slavers, who lived on the upper floors of the castle.

Cape Coast Castle was built by Swedish traders in 1653. Over the years, the castle changed hands multiple times until it came into British possession. Here, you can see the dungeons where slaves were held and cannons that were used to defend the fort. In 2009, President Obama visited Cape Coast Castle during his visit to Ghana.

9. Sedlec Ossuary, Czech Republic

This small Roman Catholic chapel is located in a cemetery in a suburb of the city of Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic. Here, you’ll find the remains of 40,000-70,000 people. Initially, the remains were moved from the cemetery into the basement of the chapel to solve an overcrowding problem that was caused by the plague in the 14th century.

In 1870, a local artist named František Rint rearranged the piles of bones into artwork. The most impressive piece is a massive chandelier in the center of the chapel that is made entirely from human bones. Supposedly it contains at least one of every bone in the human body.

Another interesting piece is a large coat of arms made from bones. In the corners of the chapel, you’ll find large stacks of bones. There are cabinets filled with damaged skulls of those who were killed violently in war. The artist also signed his name in bones.

You can visit Selded Ossuary as a day trip from Prague. It’s easy to visit independently by train. Organized tours are available as well. The chapel is pretty small. It only takes 20 minutes or so to see the whole thing. The place gets pretty crowded as it receives over 200,000 visitors per year.

10. Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, San Francisco

Also known as The Rock, Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary was a maximum-security prison from 1934-1963. It is located on an island in the San Francisco Bay, 1.25 miles offshore. During the 29 years that the prison operated, some of the hardest criminals of the day served time here including the infamous Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly, Henri Young, and ‘the Birdman of Alcatraz’, Robert Stroud.

For punishment, prisoners were sent to solitary confinement, known as ‘the hole’ at Alcatraz. These inmates got one shower and one hour of exercise per week. Almost equally punishing for some, the prison sits close enough to the mainland that prisoners could see people going about their lives on the outside.

Today, Alcatraz is San Francisco’s most popular tourist attraction with up to 1.5 million visitors per year. The National Park Service manages the island. After arriving at the island by boat, you can take a tour of the prison. You’ll see the prison cells, learn about the dark history of the island, and hear stories of former inmates. Much of the prison remains the way it was while the prison was in operation.

11. Suicide Forest (Aokigahar), Japan

This forest, located to the Northwest of Mount Fuji, is famous for being one of the most popular suicide site in Japan. In 2003, a record was made when 105 bodies were found in the forest. In 2010, over 200 people attempted suicide here with 54 of those being successful.

The most common methods of suicide used are hanging and drug overdose. Because the suicide rate is so high here, Japanese officials installed a sign at the entry to the park which urges suicidal people to seek help.

Part of the reason for the popularity of this forest as a suicide site is that the area has long been associated with death in Japanese culture. The forest is said to be haunted by the yūrei, which are spirits that can’t leave our world.

Here, visitors can roam about the many trails that wind throughout the 30 square kilometer forest. This is an excellent place to enjoy the solitude of the dense forest. Tours are available as well.

Some visitors come here to see if they can spot a body. As you can imagine, this is a very controversial form of dark tourism. For example, YouTuber Logan Paul was criticized for filming a video of a man who had recently committed suicide here in 2018.

12. Fukushima, Japan

On March 11, 2011, an earthquake off the east coast of Japan triggered a tsunami that flooded the reactors at Fukushima nuclear power plant and caused an electrical grid failure. The reactors lost their cooling which led to three nuclear meltdowns at the plant. 154,000 people had to be evacuated. Many were never able to return to their homes.

Today, there is a 20 km exclusion zone surrounding the nuclear plant to protect people from radiation exposure. In 2018 tours to visit the exclusion area began. In 2020, The Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Disaster Memorial Museum opened. On the tour, you’ll see abandoned structures and witness the effects that the disaster had on the region.

13. Robben Island, South Africa

Robben Island, located in Table Bay, north of Cape Town, was used as a prison from the colonial times of the late 1600s until 1996. The prison gained notoriety during the apartheid era of South Africa. It held political prisoners between 1961 and 1991.

The most famous prisoner was political revolutionary, Nobel Peace Prize recipient, and president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. He served 18 of his 27-year imprisonment on Robben Island before his release in 1990. in 1994, South Africa elected Mandela as the first president. A total of three former inmates went on to become South African presidents including Kgalema Motlanthe and Jacob Zuma.

Conditions in the prison were incredibly harsh. Prisoners were held isolated from one another in small cells. The prison was segregated by race. Food rations were small and communication with the outside world was limited. Prisoners were also forced to do hard labor in a lime quarry located on the island.

Today, Robben Island is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a South African National Heritage Site. The only way to visit Robben Island is on a guided tour. The tour leaves from Cape Town and lasts for about 3.5 hours. The guides are all former prisoners. They take you around the prison and share their first-hand stories about their time there. You’ll see the lime quarry where the prisoners were forced to work as well as Nelson Mandela’s prison cell.

14. Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

On December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service surprise attacked the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The goal of the attack was to prevent the United States Navy fleet from interfering with the Japanese military plans to expand throughout Southeast Asia. If Japan crippled the United States fleet was crippled, they could invade and conquer US and British held territories such as the Philippines, Guam, Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong, as well as other small islands of the Pacific.

The Japanese launched a massive attack with 353 aircraft which took off from six aircraft carriers. They sank 4 of the 8 battleships stationed at Pearl Harbor. They seriously damaged the other four. 188 aircraft were also destroyed in the attack 159 were damaged. The attack killed 2,403 Americans and injured 1,178. The attack also damaged or destroyed a considerable amount of the base’s infrastructure including a power station, piers, various buildings, and more.

The most significant loss was the battleship USS Arizona. It suffered a direct hit to an ammunition magazine which exploded and caused the ship to sink almost instantly. 1,000 sailors sank with the ship.

The attack on Pearl Harbor dragged the United States into World War II. The day after the attack, Japan declared war on the United States. The next day, the United States declared war on Japan. Three days later, Germany and Italy both declared war on the United States.

Today, there are a number of museums and memorials at Pearl Harbor that commemorate the attack. The main site is the USS Arizona memorial. This memorial straddles the sunken ship and is accessible only by boat. Inside, you’ll see a number of exhibits including one of the ship’s anchors, a shrine with the names of all of those who died as well as some plaques with information about the attack. There is also an opening in the floor where you can view the deck of the ship underwater. Onshore, there is also a museum that outlines the events leading up to the attack and the attack itself.

Nearby, you can also view the USS Missouri Memorial, USS Utah Memorial, USS Oklahoma Memorial, Pacific Aviation Museum, and USS Bowfin Museum.

15. The Colosseum, Rome

Built in Ancient Rome between 72-80 AD, the Colosseum is one of the oldest and most recognizable dark tourism sites. At the time, it was the largest amphitheater ever built with a capacity of 50,000-80,000 spectators. The Colosseum, also known as the Flavian Amphitheatre, hosted a number of dark and violent events including gladiatorial events, executions, animal hunts, and battle re-enactments.

The most famous of these events were the gladiatorial contests. People and animals brutally battled to the death for the entertainment of thousands of spectators. Most gladiators were slaves, criminals, or prisoners of war but some volunteered to seek fame and fortune.

Exotic wild animals including lions, hippos, rhinos, elephants, bears, tigers, crocodiles, etc. were brought in from Africa and the Middle East. These animals were used for hunts or battles. In some cases, people were fed to lions.

Over the course of the 400 years that these gladiatorial events took place, historians estimate that around 400,000 people died in the Colosseum. Some people consider these events the earliest form of dark tourism.

Today, the Colosseum is one of the top tourist destinations in Rome and the world. Around 7 million people visit this site per year. There are a number of guided tours available. You’ll see the underground level where the gladiators prepared to fight, the arena floor where the gladiatorial fights took place, areas where the animals were kept, and artwork.

16. Mount St. Helens, Washington

The 1980 volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens killed 57 people and caused a great deal of destruction to the mountain and surrounding area including the largest landslide in recorded history. The eruption was so violent that the mountain’s elevation decreased by 1300 feet. The top completely blew off.

Many tourists come to visit the area each year. Today, you can see tree stumps and dead trees that still stand around the blast site. There is a visitor center with an exhibition about the eruption. In the visitor center, they also have a small movie theater that shows a short documentary about the event. The surrounding state park offers plenty of hiking, camping, climbing, and other recreational activities.

17. Montserrat

This volcanic island in the Caribbean is sometimes called a modern-day Pompeii. The Soufriere Hills Volcano became active in the mid-1990s and slowly covered the former capital of Plymouth in ash. The town was evacuated in 1997 just before a major eruption covered much of it.

The volcano is still very active today, periodically spewing ash, smoke, and gasses across 1/3 of the island. Occasionally pyroclastic flows cover more of the island’s land. Travelers can hike to a lookout point to view smoke spewing from the volcano and maybe get a glimpse of Plymouth. It is also possible to view the volcano and town by boat. It is unsafe to visit the town of Plymouth at this time.

16. Anne Frank House and Museum, Amsterdam

In this famous canal house Anne Frank, her family, and four others hid from Nazi persecution for 761 days. They quietly lived in a hidden part of the house called the Secret Annex. Anne Frank is famous for keeping a diary of her daily thoughts and experiences during her days in hiding during World War II.

Sadly, Anne Frank and the others hiding in the Secret Annex were betrayed by an unknown informant and discovered by the Nazis on August 4, 1944. The Nazis split them up and moved them to various concentration camps. Anne Frank died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in February of 1945 when she was just 15 years old. Anne’s father Otto, who survived the Holocaust, discovered his daughter’s diary after the war and published it in 1947.

The canal house where the two families hid is a now museum that attracts up to 1.2 million visitors per year. Here, you can walk through the Secret Annex where Anne Frank and her family hid. The original diary is on display in the attached museum. The museum also includes a permanent exhibit about the life of Anne Frank and her experience during the war.

19. Nuclear Test Sites

Since nuclear testing began in 1945, 8 countries have detonated around 2056 nuclear bombs at dozens of test sites around the world. A few nuclear test sites that you can visit include:

• Semipalatinsk Test Site (The Polygon)- Semipalatinsk was the Soviet Union’s primary nuclear test site from 1949-1991. It is located on the steppe of northeastern Kazakhstan. More nuclear weapons detonated here than anywhere else on the planet. Beginning in 2014 parts of the area have opened up for tourism. There isn’t all that much to see here outside of some massive craters and some concrete towers and bunkers that housed instruments to measure the blasts.
• Nevada Test Site- This site was the United States’ main nuclear testing site from the time it was established in 1951 until nuclear testing ended in 1992. The site is located about 65 miles to the northeast of Las Vegas. Here, you can see a number of large craters in the desert where nuclear weapons were detonated for testing purposes. Monthly public tours are offered but are often fully booked months in advance. This is a difficult place to visit.
• Bikini Atoll, Martial Islands- This was one of the United States’ main nuclear test sites. Between 1946 and 1958, 23 atomic bomb tests were performed here. The blasts turned out to be more destructive than anticipated and resulted in significant contamination to the surrounding area. Probably the biggest attraction for tourists here is Scuba diving the 10 ships that were sunk during nuclear tests. This is a risky area to visit due to the significant levels of radiation that still exist.

20. Catacombs of Paris, France

This network of underground ossuaries underneath the city of Pairs holds the remains of around 6 million people. The tunnels were originally mine tunnels. The Paris Catacombs were built to solve the problem of the city’s overflowing cemeteries. The dead were crowding the living. Starting in 1786, the city began transporting human remains from the city’s cemeteries into the underground tunnels by covered wagon during the night. The catacombs open to tourism in 1867.

Today, the Catacombs are one of the more popular tourist destinations in Paris. You can book a guided tour and wander through the labyrinth of bone filled tunnels and view the millions of bones stacked neatly throughout. Around 300,000 people visit this site per year. It is only accessible by tour.

21. Warsaw Ghetto, Poland

Ghettos were segregated neighborhoods where Jewish people were forced to live while under Nazi occupation during WWII. The largest of these was the Warsaw Ghetto. The area actually consists of two smaller ghettos with a footbridge between them. At its peak, approximately 460,000 people lived in Warsaw Ghetto.

During the Uprising the ghetto was almost completely destroyed. Today, you can visit the area and view a small number of streets and buildings that survived. The monument called ‘The Footbridge of Memory’ stands at the site of the original footbridge.

22. Perm-36 Gulag, Russia

Following the Bolshevik Revolution, the Soviet Union built a large system of forced labor camps to imprison ‘enemies of the state.’ These included government officials, military members, and regular citizens. Anyone who was anti-communist or anti-Stalin was imprisoned. These camps were known as gulags. Millions of people were held in these camps and forced to perform backbreaking work in extremely brutal conditions.

Perm-36 is the only remaining Soviet gulag. It is located about 60 miles from the Russian city of Perm in the Western Ural Mountains. The camp operated from 1946-1987. Perm-36 is unique because it was not closed after Stalin’s death in 1953. This is one of the only gulags that was not demolished after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

When Perm-36 opened, it was used as a forced labor camp for regular criminals. In later years, the camp housed political prisoners. The prisoners were forced to do logging work. Some political prisoners lived in 24 hour closed cells. Perm 36 was considered the harshest political camp in the Soviet Union.

Today’s site operates as a museum and memorial called The Museum of the History of Political Repression Perm-36. It opened to the public in 1995. Here, you’ll see the wooden barracks that the prisoners built, various prison buildings, and an exhibit about the gulag system and the prisoners. You’ll also learn about the economic benefit that the gulag system created for the Soviet Union.

23. Cremations on the Ganges River in Varanasi, India

Varanasi is a holy city located on the Ganges river in Uttar Pradesh, India. The city has become a popular dark tourism destination for its famous Hindu cremation ceremonies that take place on the banks of the river. In the Hindu religion, people believe that cremation on the banks of the Ganges river breaks the cycle of reincarnation so they can achieve salvation. Along the river, dozens of cremations take place out in the open every day.

The bodies are placed atop piles of wood and set on fire until they turn to ash. The ashes are then scattered in the Ganges River, which is considered a holy site in the Hindu religion. Poor families who cannot afford a cremation sometimes release the entire body of their loved one in the river to decompose naturally. Some terminally ill people travel to Varanasi so they can die and be cremated in the holy city.

Tourists are welcome to view and experience these cremation ceremonies. When you arrive at the famous ghats on the bank of the river in Varanasi, you’ll clearly see the cremation sites. Just look for the smoke. You’ll see open areas with large fires and piles of wood sitting around. The cremations take place here.

For a few dollars, you can hire a guide to walk you through the cremation site and explain how the process works. There are multiple cremations taking place simultaneously at all hours of the day. You can walk right up and see the cremation and feel the heat from the fire and smell the smoke.

As you can imagine, this is a fairly controversial form of dark tourism. After all, you are essentially attending a cremation for touristic purposes as the family grieves of the loss of their loved one. Some view this as voyeuristic. It’s up to you to decide whether or not this form of dark tourism is ethical.

24. Berlin, Germany

Berlin is one of the darkest cities on earth. It was the capital of Nazi Germany, one of the world’s most evil regimes. Next, it became the most significant city in the cold war. It was also the capital of the socialist single-party regime of the former GDR. As a result, Berlin is packed with dozens of dark tourism sites. A few of the most popular ones include:

• Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (the Holocaust Memorial)- This memorial is to the Jewish people murdered during the Holocaust. It contains 2,711 concrete slabs ranging in height from .2-4.7 meters. The slabs are arranged in a grid pattern over a 19,000 square meter site. Below the memorial is an information center that contains the names of 3 million Holocaust victims as well as photographs and letters. This memorial is quite controversial. Partly because it is so vague. There is no mention of Nazi Germany or the Holocaust on the memorial itself or in the official name of the memorial. People also use the site as a recreational area, sitting or standing on the pillars. Many consider this to be disrespectful. Due to its size and design, the memorial is difficult to defend from vandals.
• Berlin Wall- Between 1961 and 1989, this concrete barrier divided West Berlin from surrounding East Germany. The German Democratic Republic (East Germany) constructed the wall to prevent East Germans from defecting to the west. The four-meter tall wall extended 155km (96 miles) and cut through 55 streets. Today, you can see several small sections of the wall still standing in the city. The largest is is a 1.4 km section that is part of the Berlin Wall Memorial. Here, you can see the graffiti on the west side and learn about the historical significance of the wall.
• Checkpoint Charlie Museum- Checkpoint Charlie is the most well-known crossing between East and West Berlin. The original guardhouse was preserved and today is part of the Checkpoint Charlie museum. Here, you can see exhibits about the Berlin Wall, the Cold War, and some famous escape attempts.
• Jewish Museum- Designed by architect Daniel Libeskind, the Jewish Museum is one of Germany’s best and most popular museums as well as one of Berlin’s most striking landmarks. Here, you’ll find thousands of artifacts, photos, religious objects, and archives that document the struggle of the German Jewish people from the Middle Ages to the present time. The museum also houses a massive library and hosts various events throughout the year.
• Topography of Terror Museum- This museum is located on the site of the Gestapo secret police and SS headquarters. Allied bombings destroyed the original building in 1945. After many years of delay, the museum opened in 2010. The main exhibit focuses on policing under Nazi rule. You’ll see photos, documents, short films, and artifacts that show the crimes that the SS and Gestapo committed throughout Europe. The grounds of the museum also contain some historic artifacts including a large section of the Berlin Wall. You’ll also see an excavated trench that exposes the cellar wall, where political prisoners were kept, tortured, and ofttimes executed.
• DDR Museum- This newer museum outlines life in East Berlin under communist rule with a hands-on approach. Here, you’ll see a recreation of an interrogation room, prison cell, and an apartment. You can try on clothing and watch television from the era. The exhibit covers food, music, daily life, education, architecture, and more. You’ll also learn about the mass surveillance conducted during the time. This is a private museum and is one of Berlin’s most popular.

25. Communist Leader Mausoleums

For whatever reason, communists love to embalm their leaders after they die and put the bodies on public display. A few famous mausoleums you can visit include:

• Lenin Mausoleum- This mausoleum is located in the Red Square in the center of Moscow. Inside, you can view the embalmed corpse of the Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin. The body has been on public display since shortly after his death in 1924. The mausoleum is open to the public and free to enter. Stalin’s body was put on display here from 1953-1961 but was removed and buried near the mausoleum.
• Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum- This mausoleum is located in Ba Dinh Square in Hanoi, Vietnam. Inside, you can view the embalmed body of Vietnamese revolutionary and president Ho Chi Minh, who died in 1969. The body is kept in a dimly lit glass case which is heavily guarded by military honor guards. The mausoleum is open to the public.
• Mausoleum of Mao Zedong- This large mausoleum, also known as Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, is located in the center of Tienanmen Square in central Beijing. Here, you can view the embalmed remains of Mao Zedong, who served as the Chairman of the Communist Party of China from 1945-1976. Interestingly, Chairman Mao wanted to be cremated. The mausoleum is open to the public.
• Kumsusan Palace of the Sun (Kim Il Sung Mausoleum)- This absolutely massive palace is located in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. The building was intended to be the official residence of Kim Il Sung but was converted into a mausoleum when he died in 1994. Inside, you can view the embalmed remains of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung as well as his son and former leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Il. Both bodies lie inside of glass sarcophaguses. The mausoleum is open to the public. Foreigners can only enter the palace when they are on an official government tour.

26. Somme Battlefield, France

The Battle of the Somme was a WWI battle fought between the French Third Republic and British Empire against the German Empire. The battle took place between July 1 and November 18, 1916. Over three million men fought in the Battle of the Somme. One million were killed, injured, or went missing, making this the most bloody battle of WWI and possibly the most deadly battle in world history.

Several factors contributed to the massive amount of death in the battle. First, the battlefield was small. The Germans were also well prepared and trained for trench warfare. An incredible amount of heavy artillery was also used in this battle.

The Battle of the Somme ended when British Commander in Chief Sir Douglas Haig decided to stop the offensive near the Somme River. When the battle ended, the British and French armies had gained just six miles of land. Modern historians are not in agreement as to whether or not the battle was a success.

Today, there are a number of monuments, museums, cemeteries, and battle sites that you can visit in Somme. The Remembered Trail leads visitors through some of the most significant locations. It’s is a great place to start in the region. Guided tours of the area are also available.

27. Verdun Battlefield, France

The battle of Verdun lasted from February 21-December 18, 1916, making it the longest battles in World War One at 302 days. This battle was also one of the most costly with up to 1 million casualties between the French and German armies.

Today, you can view the battlefield complete with shell craters that are still visible over 100 years later. You’ll also find several memorials including an ossuary. The battlefield itself contains the remains of 100,000 soldiers. You can also visit the Verdun Memorial Museum which features artifacts from the battle as well as information about the time.

28. D-Day Beaches and Memorials in Normandy

On June 6, 1944, the Allied Forces invaded Nazi occupied France on the beaches of Normandy. This operation, known as Operation Overlord, was the largest amphibious invasion in world history. This event marked the beginning of the liberation of France and Western Europe and eventually led to the Allied victory over the Third Reich on the Western Front. The D-Day invasion of Normandy resulted in 4,000-9,000 German casualties and around 10,000 Allied casualties including 4,414 deaths.

Today, there are dozens of memorials, museums, and war cemeteries along the beaches of Normandy as well as further inland. A few of the most significant D-Day sites to visit include:

• Beach landing sites- The 50 miles stretch of Normandy beach was divided into 5 sections where the invasion took place. The beach landing sites include Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. Today, you can visit each of the 5 beaches. Probably the most popular beach to visit is Omaha. Here, you’ll see German bunkers and the sculpture Les Braves which commemorates the American soldiers who died on D-Day.
• Utah Beach Museum- This museum outlines the entire D-Day invasion from the planning phase until the end of the battle. Here, you’ll see vehicles, artifacts, and photographs from the massive invasion. The museum overlooks Utah Beach.
• Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial- This cemetery, overlooking Omaha Beach, contains 9,388 graves of American soldiers who died in WWII. Mostly on D-Day.
• Overlord Museum- This museum, located near Omaha Beach and the American cemetery, documents the time period between the Allied landing and the liberation of Paris. Here, you’ll see thousands of artifacts from the invasion including tanks and cannons as well as photos and reconstructed battle scenes.
• Pegasus Bridge- 6000 British paratroopers landed here with supplies and weapons just past midnight on June 6, 1944. Their job was to secure the bridge so German reinforcements couldn’t cross. The current bridge is a reconstruction of the original, which was destroyed.
• Memorial Museum of the Battle of Normandy- This museum, which is located in Bayeux, outlines the military operation in detail. Here, you’ll see military equipment, artifacts, photos, and a fantastic short film about the D-Day landings.
• Caen Memorial Center- This museum outlines the battle of Normandy from the end of WWI all the way to the beginning of the Cold War. This gives you a great overview of the historical events leading up to the war and their effects on Europe and the world. Here, you’ll see letters and personal belongings from soldiers, airplanes, and a short documentary film with footage of the D-Day invasion.
• Airborne Museum- This museum, located in Sainte-Mère-Église, focuses on the paratroopers who landed in Normandy the night before the attack. Here, you’ll see photos, artifacts, tanks, and airplanes including a WACO glider and C-47 that you can enter.

29. Antietam National Battlefield, Sharpsburg, Maryland

On September 17, 1862, Confederate General Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia battled Union General George B. McClellan and his Army of the Potomac in the Battle of Anteteitum near Sharpsburg, Maryland. This was the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War with 22,717 dead, injured, or missing. This massive loss of life took place over the course of just 12 hours.

The battle ended when Lee decided to withdraw back to Virginia. McClellan decided not to follow him. The Union claimed victory. After the battle, President Lincoln announced his Emancipation Proclamation which freed 3.5 million slaves.

Antietam is considered to be one of the most well-preserved American Civil War Battlefields. Probably because it was one of the first battlefields preserved in 1890. Today, visitors can take a self-guided tour of the battlefield or hire a tour guide. You’ll see landmarks of the battle such as the Cornfield, Dunker Church, and Burnside’s Bridge.

30. Cu Chi Tunnels, Vietnam

The Cu Chi Tunnels are a massive network of underground tunnels located outside of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. They were used by Viet Cong soldiers for a number of purposes including hiding spots, supply routes, living quarters, hospitals, and food and weapons caches. They were famously used as a base of operation for the North Vietnamese during the Tết Offensive in 1968.

Life in the Cu Chi Tunnels was difficult. Air quality was poor. The tunnels were cramped and claustrophobic. Food and water were limited. Rodents, ants, snakes, scorpions, and spiders infested the tunnels. Diseases including Malaria and intestinal parasites were common. During heavy bombing campaigns, soldiers had to stay in the tunnels for days at a time.

Today, the Cu Chi Tunnels are a war memorial operated by the Vietnamese government. They are also a popular tourist dark tourist attraction. You can visit the tunnels on a day trip from Ho Chi Minh City. Here, you can crawl through a safe section of the tunnels, watch a short film about the war, and view some different booby traps and trap doors as well as an entrance into the tunnels. There is also a firing range where you can shoot Vietnam War era weapons including an M60 machine gun.

My Experience: Why I Enjoy Dark Tourism

My main motivation to visit dark tourism sites is education. For whatever reason, I wasn’t interested in history when I was in school. I just found it boring. Now, I love history. By visiting dark tourist sites, I have gained a deeper understanding of some of the most significant events in world history. It’s so much more real and engaging when you are standing where an event took place and exploring the landscape and looking at actual artifacts.

It’s also amazing to see how human civilization evolves over the years. For example, 2000 years ago, gladiator games were an acceptable form of entertainment. Most people would not be okay with that today. It is also interesting to see how technology, weapons, clothing, politics, and more have changed throughout the years. The world was a completely different place just 20 years ago. Times change quickly.

I also have a pretty strong morbid curiosity. Dark things simply interest me. I find it fascinating to imagine the horrors that humans have endured and overcome.

Final Thoughts About Dark Tourism

Dark tourism often gets a bad rap in the media. People get the idea that it is disrespectful, voyeuristic, sick, or even unethical. Some country’s tourism departments also try to hide their dark tourism sites because they fear a bad reputation. They may not want people to associate the country with its dark past.

The truth is that most dark tourism is simply educational. People like to visit these sites to learn about their history. They also satisfy our natural morbid fascination. There is nothing wrong with visiting dark tourist places, as long as you do so respectfully.

One important thing to remember is that dark tourism is not a new form of tourism. People have been visiting dark sites for as long as tourism has existed. For example, tourists began visiting Pompeii in the 1800s. The gladiatorial games could be considered one of the earliest forms of dark tourism. Those began when the Colosseum opened in 80 AD. People are naturally interested in these types of destinations and will continue to be.

Dark tourism is also a very broad term. Many of the world’s most visited tourism sites can be considered dark tourism sites. There is also a lot of overlap with mass tourism. Most people don’t travel exclusively to visit dark sites. Instead, they pair dark tourism with regular tourist attractions. For example, if someone is in Hawaii, they may spend a day visiting Pearl Harbor and the various memorials then go to the beach the next day. If someone visits Kyiv, they’ll probably take a day trip to Chornobyl because it’s one of the biggest tourist attractions in the region. It’s common to pair dark tourist sites with other types of sites.

Hopefully, this guide helps you in planning your visit to some of the world’s best dark tourism sites.

If you’re on the fence about dark tourism, check out my guide to the ethics and criticisms of dark tourism.

Are you a dark tourist? Share your favorite dark tourism destination in the comments below!

Pin it for later!

More from Where The Road Forks

• 35 Types of Tourism
• How to Plan a Round the World Trip
• 30 Free Things to do While Traveling
• The Best Solo Travel Destinations
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Zachary Friedman is an accomplished travel writer and professional blogger. Since 2011, he has traveled to 66 countries and 6 continents. He founded ‘Where The Road Forks’ in 2017 to provide readers with information and insights based on his travel and outdoor recreation experience and expertise. Zachary is also an avid cyclist and hiker. Living as a digital nomad, Zachary balances his professional life with his passions for hiking, camping, cycling, and worldwide exploration. For a deeper dive into his journey and background, visit the About page. For inquiries and collaborations, please reach out through the Contact page. You can also follow him on Facebook.

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• Death And Dying

What's Dark Tourism? And Why Is It So Popular?

Updated 05/3/2022

Published 05/8/2020

Sam Tetrault, BA in English

Contributing writer

Cake values integrity and transparency. We follow a strict editorial process to provide you with the best content possible. We also may earn commission from purchases made through affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Learn more in our affiliate disclosure .

When most people think of travel, they think of posing in front of the world’s most stunning sights or relaxing on a tropical island. They probably don’t think about visiting places where some of the world’s biggest tragedies and horrors took place—unless you’re talking about dark tourism. 

Jump ahead to these sections: 

What is dark tourism , why is dark tourism popular, criticisms of dark tourism, dark tourism etiquette, where can you find dark tourism in popular culture and media, what books can you read to learn more about dark tourism.

Dark tourism isn’t a new concept, though it recently gained popularity after the launch of the Netflix series with the same name. In the documentary series, journalist David Farrier visits some of the most unusual and macabre tourism places around the globe. From a nuclear blast site in Kazakhstan to JFK’s assassination site, nothing is off-limits.

With all of this excitement both for and against dark tourism, what is it exactly? Is it a shining example of death positive or yet another way to commercialize human suffering? In this guide, we’re pulling back the curtain on dark tourism to understand why it’s so alluring. 

In simple terms, dark tourism is the opposite of “traditional” tourism . Instead of visiting inspiring, classic sites, travelers take great care to visit places where some of the darkest events in human history took place. This includes anything from natural disasters to war and assassination. 

While most people have only just familiarized themselves with the term “dark tourism,” this is no way a new phenomenon. The term was coined in 1996 at Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland. Researchers have found evidence of dark tourism going back throughout history.

For example, during the Battle of Waterloo in the 19th century, regular civilians lined up along the sides of the battle with their carriages to watch everything taking place. While this sounds particularly grotesque, it doesn’t end there. Researchers also compare today’s modern fascination with dark tourism to public executions and hangings in the Middle Ages. Crowds would form to watch those put to death take their final breaths. 

In ancient Rome , spectators came from all over to watch gladiators fight to the death. Bloody sports and spectacles of human mortality were very common up until modern times. Today, as a society, people still have an urge to peak into these dark curiosities. 

Popular dark tourism sites

You might be surprised at some of the most popular dark tourism sites . Many of them are classic destinations, though they harbor a dark past. Some, on the other hand, might send even the most experienced traveler running for the hills (or the airport). 

• Colosseum (Italy): The Colosseum was a gory battlefield for hundreds of years. While it’s an architectural wonder, it also has a deadly history. 
• Auschwitz (Poland): Visiting any concentration camp from the Nazi era is a humbling experience, but especially the notorious Auschwitz. 
• Ground Zero (USA): Ground Zero is the site where the Twin Towers fell on 9/11. While there is a memorial and museum in place now, this is an undeniably eerie location. 
• Killing Fields (Cambodia): The Killing Fields in Cambodia were where some of the worst genocides in human history took place, and you can still see the remnants of blood today. 
• Chernobyl (Ukraine) : Possibly one of the most well-known dark tourism sites, Chernobyl is where the 1986 nuclear reactor accident took place. The grounds are still dangerously radioactive, but you can still take a guided tour. 
• Hiroshima Museum (Japan): Travelers and locals alike visit the site of the Hiroshima bombings to see artifacts from the explosion that killed so many. 
• Murambi Memorial (Rwanda): Visitors can see the original clothing of the Murambi Genocide victims hanging in this countryside memorial. 
• Alcatraz Penitentiary (USA): Possibly one of the most well-known prisons in the world, Alcatraz allows visitors to glimpse into the hard life of inmates incarcerated on this island. 
• Pompeii (Italy): When Mount Vesuvius erupted, it wiped out the entire Roman city of Pompeii. This was in 79 AD, and the archaeological site is still a popular place for people to visit. 

Does this list surprise you? Dark tourism is very much intertwined with mainstream travel, though some are willing to go farther off the beaten path. 

In many ways, dark tourism is not much different from watching a horror film or going through a haunted house. Humans are naturally curious creatures, and death is the great unknown. These close encounters with some of the worst tragedies offer a rush of adrenaline from a “safe” distance. It’s a way to walk in the footsteps of history, even when that history isn’t pretty. 

Humans are naturally interested in death. We will all die at some point, and death all over the world has come to mean different things. Most people visit these sites not to poke fun or take Instagram photos. They want to encounter death up close, to peer into what it might have been like for the victims of these places and events. 

There is a lot of philosophy behind this phenomenon. Coming to terms with something so grim as genocide or tragedy isn’t easy. By visiting these dark tourism destinations, visitors have an opportunity to learn from this experience and pay their respects. 

While many have argued for the advantages of dark tourism (they see them as educational, intriguing, and so on), others have a lot of criticisms. There is no clear answer. 

The main question is whether this is an opportunity to learn something about death, tragedies, and real-life examples of rituals from around the world? Or is this a way for privileged Westerners to explore some of the biggest catastrophes of the world so they can feel better about themselves?

Dark tourism often doesn’t account for other cultures and belief systems. It can either intentionally or unintentionally paint things as “sinister” that might otherwise just be a cultural misunderstanding. For instance, finding a grave in another part of the world might cause a dark tourist to draw untrue conclusions. 

Ultimately, there’s something unappealing about the commercialization of tragedy. The Netflix series does a fair job of exploring some of these money-fueled tourist “attractions.” Things like war reenactments, assassination narratives, and actors pretending to be a part of drug cartels are just a bit too close to reality for comfort.

It’s left up to the individual traveler to determine their own boundaries between thrill-seeking, education, and being respectful of cultures and tragedies. There will never be a clear answer for what’s “right” or “wrong” in the debate around dark tourism. For some, boundaries will be overstepped. For others, it might be an enriching educational experience. 

If you do plan to take on some dark tourism of your own, it’s important to consider the proper etiquette. Much of the debate around whether this is a worthwhile practice stems from those who pay little attention to the consequences of their actions, no matter how small they may seem. 

Because travel should always be about respecting other cultures and ideas, here are the most important things to remember about dark tourism etiquette:

• Respect graves : Most dark tourism sites have some form of memorial or grave. This is something that should always be treated with respect. Never touch graves, sit against tombstones, or otherwise disrupt the monuments.
• Avoid cliches : A lot of cultures around the world have been warped by Hollywood portrayals. Always familiarize yourself with the history of the places you visit and don’t buy into stereotypes of false beliefs. 
• Put the camera away : When visiting heritage sites, treat them with respect. Don’t take unnecessary photos or selfies. Though these tragedies might have happened long ago, remember to honor those who died by being mindful of your photography. 
• Follow the rules : While some dark tourism sites are open to the general public, always read any posted rules. There might be things that are off-limits or not allowed, and you don’t want to overstep these boundaries. 
• Emotions: A lot of people have strong emotional reactions to visiting these dark tourism places. This is very understandable, but it might be a reason to rethink your trip. If you’re worried you’ll be upset or challenged by visiting something, it’s best to stay away. 
• Tourism companies : A lot of tourism companies offer guided tours to some dangerous sites, but that doesn’t mean you should go. Always do your research to make sure these companies operate safely and ethically.
• Intent : Finally, remember your intent behind your visit. Are you hoping to learn from these events and gain deeper respect, or is it just something to check off your travel list?

There are no stopping people from visiting some of the darkest places on the planet, and there is a strong argument for why dark tourism is important. However, it’s always essential that you’re mindful of your behavior, so you treat these places with the respect they deserve.  

Since the rise of the internet and social media, dark tourism has become a greater part of mainstream media and pop culture. While these places were largely hidden and distant in the past, the internet makes them closer than ever before. Dark tourism has also encouraged people from across the globe to venture to these destinations as part of their bucket list . 

Thanks to the accessibility and availability of travel, dark tourism is more popular than ever. Far off sites of destruction used to be something only seen on the big screen or read about in newspapers. Today, visitors from across the globe can flock to these places for themselves. Here’s where you can find dark tourism in today’s pop culture and media. 

Social media

It should come as no surprise that social media is a huge source of the excitement around dark tourism. As more everyday people travel to these places, it’s becoming common to share these experiences on social media platforms. When seen on a news feed, they feel even more accessible. Some popular profiles that explore dark tourism are:

• Chernobyl_guide : This TikTok account has over 1.5 million followers, and its narrator shares the many sites you can visit if you book your own Chernobyl tour through the nuclear disaster site. 
• URBEX : This YouTube channel explores abandoned and dangerous spaces to share an inside, never-before-seen look for over 300k subscribers. 
• The Proper People : With over 1.25 million subscribers on YouTube, the Proper People is one of the leading dark tourists pages on social media. These travelers explore abandoned hospitals, power plants, and more to share the lesser-seen side of dark tourism. 
• Exploring with Josh : Josh is an amature videographer and explorer who isn’t afraid to highlight some of the world’s most surprising destinations on his YouTube channel. With over 4 million subscribers, he is one of the pioneers in this digital space. 

Film and TV

Movies and TV shows also explore the world of dark tourism, especially in recent years. From docuseries to dramatic reenactments, all of these things lead to a rise in dark tourism across the globe. 

• Dark Tourist : This 2018 Netflix documentary series shows a New Zealand reporter traveling to some of the world’s most notorious destinations. 
• Chernobyl : The HBO historical drama Chernobyl reenacts the catastrophic nuclear disaster from the town of Chernobyl, Ukraine in the 1980s. 
• Inside North Korea’s Dynasty : National Geographic shares an in-depth documentary series about the lives and actions of the Kim family in North Korea from WWII until the present day. 
• Lost Cities : Featuring American scientist and explorer Albert Lin, this National Geographic docuseries examines ancient cities with high-tech imagery and 3D technology. 
• Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown : Lastly, the late Anthony Bordain’s CNN show Parts Unknown explores often unseen destinations, not shying away from the darker aspects of travel. 

Finally, there are many books that explore the idea of dark tourism in more detail. From uncovering the realities behind these destinations to delving deep into the motivations of dark tourists, these books are far from light reading. Whether you’re a traveler yourself or simply open minded, it’s important to take a critical look at your motivations and perspectives when seeing more of the world. 

• Imagine Wanting Only This (Kristen Radtke): Named one of the best books of 2017 by Forbes and Lit Hub, this is a graphic memoir written about Radtke’s experience coming to terms with the grief of losing an uncle. She discovers a fascination with ruins, people, and the places left behind. 
• Dark Tourist (Dom Joly): After spending his childhood in war-torn Lebanon, Joly wished to push beyond the sanitized experiences of modern day travel. In this memoir, this comedian isn’t afraid to tread off the beaten path. 
• I Am the Dark Tourist (H. E. Sawyer): Sawyer becomes a self-aware dark tourist in this memoir. This is more than a travel story. It’s an examination of why people wish to visit sites touched by death in the first place. 
• Dark Lands (Tony Wheeler): Lonely Planet’s Tony Wheeler goes deeper into the world’s darkest corners to explore troubled nations. His well-traveled perspective gives these places rarely seen in popular media a dose of reality and openness. 
• Memorial Museums (Paul Williams): What has led to the world’s rush to commemorate atrocities? William researches this phenomenon, and he visits many of these memorial museums himself to see whether they fit within cultural history. 
• A Nuclear Family Vacation (Nathan Hodge): Two Washington D.C. defense reporters paint a portrait of nuclear weaponry around the world. 

The Darker Side of Travel

Travel isn’t always about relaxation and getting away from the hustle and bustle. Sometimes it’s a way to challenge yourself and broaden your mind. For many, this includes an element of dark tourism. Not only does visiting these macabre sites give visitors a thrill, but they’re also a way to pay respects to a darker past. 

That being said, dark tourism requires travelers to tread carefully. This is not a simple issue, and it requires a lot of consideration. Before you head off on your next travel venture, give some thought to the history of the place and what your visit might mean. 

• “Did gladiators always fight to the death?” History Stories. 1 September 2018. History.com . 
• Madden, Duncan. “Dark Tourism: Are These The World’s Most Macabre Tourist Attractions?” Forbes . 25 September 2019. Forbes.com . 
• Sampson, Hannah. “Dark tourism, explained.” Washington Post. 13 November 2019. WashingtonPost.com .

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Dark tourism: motivations and visit intentions of tourists

International Hospitality Review

ISSN : 2516-8142

Article publication date: 8 July 2021

Issue publication date: 14 June 2022

The overall purpose of this study is to utilize the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) in combination with four dark tourism constructs (dark experience, engaging entertainment, unique learning experience, and casual interest) to gain a better understanding of behaviors and intentions of tourists who have visited or plan to visit a dark tourism location.

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 1,068 useable questionnaires was collected via Qualtrics Panels for analysis purposes. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used to verify satisfactory reliability and validity regarding the measurement of model fit. With adequate model fit, structural equation modeling was employed to determine positive and negative relationships between TPB and dark tourism constructs. In all, 11 hypotheses statements were tested within this study.

Results of this study indicate that tourists are curious, interested, and intrigued by dark experiences with paranormal activity, resulting in travel choices made for themselves based on personal beliefs and preferences, with minimal outside influence from others. It was determined that dark experience was the most influential of the dark tourism constructs tested in relationship to attitudes and subjective norm.

Research limitations/implications

The data collected for this study were collected using Qualtrics Panels with self-reporting participants. The actual destination visited by survey participants was also not factored into the results of this research study.

Originality/value

This study provides a new theoretical research model that merges TPB and dark tourism constructs and established that there is a relationship between TPB constructs and dark tourism.

Dark tourism

• Thanatourism
• Motivations
• Theory of planned behaviour

Lewis, H. , Schrier, T. and Xu, S. (2022), "Dark tourism: motivations and visit intentions of tourists", International Hospitality Review , Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 107-123. https://doi.org/10.1108/IHR-01-2021-0004

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Heather Lewis, Thomas Schrier and Shuangyu Xu

Published in International Hospitality Review . Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

Introduction

Dark tourism is defined as the act of tourists traveling to sites of death, tragedy, and suffering ( Foley and Lennon, 1996 ). This past decade marks a significant growth of dark tourism with increasing number of dark tourists ( Lennon and Foley, 2000 ; Martini and Buda, 2018 ). More than 2.1 million tourists visited Auschwitz Memorial in 2018 (visitor numbers, 2019), and 3.2 million tourists visited the Ground Zero 9/11 Memorial annually (a year in review, 2017). Despite of the increasing popularity, there is still limited understanding of dark tourism as a multi-faceted phenomenon ( Biran et al. , 2011 ) . Some research has looked into the motivations and experience of dark tourists ( Poria et al. , 2004 ; Poria et al. , 2006 ). However, most were based on conceptual frameworks and arguments with little empirical data, even less have examined tourist visit intentions to dark tourism sites ( Zhang et al. , 2016 ), let alone the association between dark tourists' motivations and visit intentions. Many scholars suggested the pressing needs for empirical research into dark tourism from tourist perspectives to understand their motivations and experiences ( Seaton and Lennon, 2004 ; Sharpley and Stone, 2009 ; Zhang et al. , 2016 ). Of the limited empirical dark tourism studies, most were case studies with historical battlefields and concentration camps being the hot spots ( Le and Pearce, 2011 ; Lennon and Foley, 1999 ; Miles, 2002 ). Still, a comprehensive understanding of dark tourists' motivations and their intentions to visit is lacking.

As such, this study was conducted to understand both the motivations and visit intentions of tourists to dark tourism destinations. Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) constructs ( attitudes, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control) and the four dark tourism dimensions (i.e. dark experience, engaging entertainment, unique learning experience, and casual interest ) were utilized to address the following objectives: (1) examine the motivations of dark tourists; (2) investigate the intentions of the dark tourists to visit a dark tourism destination in the next 12 months; and (3) explore the association between the motivations and visit intentions of dark tourists. The dark tourism dimensions utilized for this study were adapted supported by previous dark tourism studies ( Biran et al. , 2014 ; Bissell, 2009 ; Lam and Hsu, 2006 ; Molle and Bader, 2014 ). While many studies have utilized TPB in the past, this study will utilize the TPB to focus attention on why travelers are motivated to visit dark tourism locations specifically.

Literature review

Travels associated with death dates back for centuries ( Dale and Robinson, 2011 ). Early examples of dark tourism include Roman gladiator games, guided tours to watch hangings in England, and pilgrimages to medieval executions ( Stone, 2006 ). Even today, many tourists are fascinated with and thus visited sites of death and tragedy such as the John F. Kennedy's death site in Dallas, Texas, and the Ground Zero 9/11 Memorial in New York ( Foley and Lennon, 1996 ; Strange and Kempa, 2003 ). Abandoned prisons and sites of punishment and incarcerations are also popular attractions among dark tourists (e.g., Pentridge in Melbourne, Australia; Foley and Lennon, 1996 ). However, the term dark tourism did not get introduced to the research community until 1996 which ignited many later research efforts on this topic ( Light, 2017 ).

Dark tourism is defined as the act of tourists traveling to sites of death, tragedy, and suffering ( Foley and Lennon, 1996 ). Many scholars also came up with other terms and labels to describe such phenomenon including thanatourism ( Seaton, 1996 ), disaster tourism ( Rojek, 1993 ), black spot tourism ( Rojek, 1993 ), morbid tourism ( Blom, 2000 ) and even phoenix tourism ( Powell et al. , 2018 ). Mowatt and Chancellor (2011) suggested that despite of different names, at the heart of the concept is travel to places of death that are often linked to violence ( Robb, 2009 ). Many researchers use the term dark tourism and thanatourism interchangeably, while more tend to use dark tourism as an umbrella term for any form of tourism that is somehow related to death, suffering, atrocity, tragedy or crime ( Light, 2017 ). Given the standard use of the term dark tourism in the practice and scholarship of tourism, such a term will be used throughout this manuscript.

Dark tourism research in this past two decades mainly covers six themes including the discussion on definition, concepts, and typologies; the associated ethical issues; the political and ideological dimensions; the nature of demand for dark tourism locations; site management; and the methods used for research ( Light, 2017 ). The area of terminology and definitions undoubtedly dominates in the dark tourism literature ( Zhang et al. , 2016 ). While in the area of exploring the nature of demand for dark tourism locations, the relatively limited research concentrated in four aspects – both the motivations and experiences of dark tourists, the relationship between visiting and sense of identity, and new approaches to theorizing the consumption of dark tourism ( Light, 2017 ).

Research addressing dark tourists' motivations were relatively slow. Many early studies simply postulate and propose tourists' motivations to visit dark tourism sites, with a lack of empirical research to support ( Light, 2017 ). As such, many studies in the past decade examined dark tourists' motivations through different case studies, with concentration camps or historical battlefields being the hot spots ( Lennon and Foley, 1999 ; Miles, 2002 ). Research reveals that tourists visit dark tourism destinations for a wide variety of reasons, such as curiosity ( Biran et al. , 2014 ; Isaac and Cakmak, 2014 ), desire for education and learning about what happened at the site ( Kamber et al. , 2016 ; Yan et al. , 2016 ), interest in history or death ( Yankholmes and McKercher, 2015 ; Raine, 2013 ), connecting with one's personal or family heritage ( Mowatt and Chancellor, 2011 ; Le and Pearce, 2011 ). Drawing from literature, four common themes (i.e. dark experience, engaging entertainment, unique learning experience, casual interest) emerged, served as the foundational pillars for this study, and were discussed below.

The motivation construct

Dark experience.

Raine's (2013) dark tourist spectrum study of tourists visiting burial grounds and graveyards concluded that mourners and pilgrims had personal and spiritual connections to the different sites being studied. Mourners visited specific gravesites and usually would perform meditations for the dead. Pilgrims had a personal connection to specific burial sites in some way, whether it is a religious connection to the individual or they served as a personal hero ( Raine, 2013 ). Death rites are often performed as a ritual not necessarily to mark the passing of the deceased but rather to heal the wounds of families, communities, societies, and/or nations by the deceased's passing ( Bowman and Pezzullo, 2009 ).

Additionally, Raine's (2013) study discovered another subset of tourists—the morbidly curious and thrill seekers. Those classified as morbidly curious or thrill seekers were visiting burial sites to confront and experience death. Whether a mourner or pilgrim or the morbidly curious thrill seeker, the tourists had a strong connection to the dead they were there to visit which could categorize them as seeking a dark experience.

To take dark tourism to the extreme, Miller and Gonzalez (2013) completed a study on death tourism. Death tourism occurs when individuals travel to a location to end their lives, often through a means of assisted medical suicide. It was determined that this is still a taboo topic for some countries where it is not legalized, however it is gaining more publicity. It was determined that death tourism is typically the result of one of four reasons; the primary reason death tourism is planned is because of assisted suicide being illegal in the traveler's home country ( Miller and Gonzalez, 2013 ). While death tourism does not directly apply to this particular study, it is an offspring of dark tourism and is a tourist activity that is related to dark experience.

Dark Experience will have a positive relationship with Attitudes

Dark Experience will have a positive relationship with Subjective Norm

Engaging Entertainment

Engaging Entertainment will have a positive relationship with Attitudes

Engaging Entertainment will have a positive relationship with Subjective Norm

Unique learning experience

Unique Learning Experience will have a positive relationship with Attitudes

Unique Learning Experience will have a positive relationship with Subjective Norm

Casual interest

Casual Interest will have a positive relationship with Attitudes

Casual Interest will have a positive relationship with Subjective Norm

The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB)

Behavioral intention, defined as an individual's anticipated or planned future behavior ( Swan, 1981 ), has been suggested as a central factor that correlates strongly with observed behavior ( Baloglu, 2000 ). Many believed that intentions serve as an immediate antecedent to actual behavior ( Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975 ; Konu and Laukkanen, 2010 ). Fishbein and Ajzen developed the Theory of planned behavior (TPB) base on three constructs: attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) has been widely used in tourism research ( Ajzen and Driver, 1992 ; Han et al. , 2010 ; Han and Kim, 2010 ; Lam and Hsu, 2004 , 2006 ). TPB suggests that individuals are more likely to engage in behaviors that are believed to be achievable ( Armitage and Conner, 2001 ). Ajzen (1991) suggested that attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control are important to predict intention. Perceived behavioral control is what influences the tourists' intentions and their perception of their ability to perform a specific behavior.

Lam and Hsu (2004) utilized the TPB to examine motivations of travelers from mainland China to Hong Kong and found that attitude, perceived behavioral control, and past behaviors were directly related to travel intentions. In another study examining the visit intentions of Taiwanese travelers to Hong Kong, Lam and Hsu (2006) found that a positive association between visit frequency and re-visit intention.

Cheng et al. (2006) used the TPB to examine the negative word-of-mouth communication on visit intentions of Chinese consumers to high-class Chinese restaurants. It was determined from their study that the TPB constructs were positively impacted by negative word-of-mouth indicating that the TPB effectively measured consumer communication intention. Similarly, Han and Kim (2010) modified the TPB in the investigation of customers' intention to revisit environmentally friendly hotels and found that past behavior was a significant predictor of intention–the more customers stay at a green hotel, the more likely they intend to revisit. It can be concluded from previous research efforts that the TPB can be utilized to effectively measure behavioral intentions of tourists successfully.

Motivation and intentions

Attitudes will have a positive relationship with Intention

Subjective Norm will have a negative relationship with Intention

Perceived Behavioral Control will have a positive relationship with Intention

Methodology

Survey instrument.

A survey questionnaire was developed to collect information on the socio-demographic background, motivation construct, and planned behavior construct from tourists. Socio-demographic data queried were age in years (continuous), gender (3 categories, male, female and prefer not to answer), level of education (9 categories, from less than high school degree to doctoral degree), marital status (5 categories, from single to widow/widower), personal annual income (12 categories, from less than $20,000 to more than $200,000). Tourists' home residence state and country were also collected.

A dark tourism motivation construct was developed based on previous studies ( Biran et al. , 2014 ; Bissell, 2009 ; Lam and Hsu, 2006 ; Molle and Bader, 2014 ), and used to query previous visit and potential visit separately using a five-point Likert scale (“1 = extremely unimportant”; “5 = extremely important”). This motivation construct consists of 33 item statements from four dimensions ( Table 1 ) which include engaging entertainment, dark experience , unique learning experience , and casual interest . Dark experience consisted of nine statements, related to death, fascination with abnormal and/or bizarre events and destinations, and emotional experiences with a connection to death (e.g., “to travel”, “to have some entertainment”). Engaging entertainment was measured using ten statements that inquire about the personal or emotional connection to the destination they have visited or wish to visit in the future (e.g., “to witness the act of death and dying”, “to experience paranormal activity”). Unique learning experience focused on learning about the history of the destination being visited or trying something that is different and out of the ordinary (eight items, e.g., “to try something new”, “to increase knowledge”). Casual interest focuses on individuals who want to visit a dark tourism destination for the entertainment value but want to have a relaxing time while doing so (six items, “special tour promotions”, “natural scenery”).

The planned behavior construct queried on four dimensions (i.e., attitudes , subjective norms , perceived behavioral control , and behavioral intentions ) associated with visiting dark tourism destinations, with a total of 16 item statements ( Table 2 ). Five item statements were used to measure dark tourists' attitudes (e.g., “visiting a dark tourism destination is enjoyable”, “visiting a dark tourism destination is pleasant”) and behavioral intentions (e.g., “I will visit a dark tourism destination in the next 12 months”, “I would revisit the most recent dark tourism destination I visited again in the future”) respectively, using a five-point Likert scale (“1 = Strongly disagree”; “5 = Strongly agree”). Dark tourists' perceived behavioral control was measured by three item statements (e.g., “I am in control of whether or not I visit a dark tourism destination”, “If wanted, I could easily afford to visit a dark tourism destination”), using the same five-point Likert scale (“1 = Strongly disagree”; “5 = Strongly agree”). For subjective norms dimension, each of the three item statements was measured by a different five-point Likert scale. The statement that “most people I know would choose a dark tourism destination for vacation purposes” uses the scale in which “1 = strongly disagree”, “5 = strongly agree”. One item statement asks individuals to rate on whether “people who are important to me think I ____ choose a dark tourism destination to visit” “1 = definitely should not”, “5 = definitely should”). Another statement asks individuals to rate whether “people who are important to me would ___ of my visit to a dark tourism destination” “1 = definitely disapprove”, “5 = definitely approve”).

Sampling and procedure

To increase the reliability and validity of the survey, a pilot study was conducted. A small group of industry professionals from all over the country currently working at dark tourism destinations and other academic researchers were invited to critique the initial draft of the survey. Forty-one individuals took the survey instrument and provided feedback (e.g., some wording issues). After revisions from the pilot study were completed, the survey was launched, and data was collected.

Qualtrics, a web-based survey software company with access to an electronic database of survey candidates, was used to administer this questionnaire to participants. A total of 44,270 invitations were randomly sent to Qualtrics panel participants requesting participation in this study. Qualification of participants was completed by requesting all survey recipients answer the following questions: (1) Have you visited a dark tourism location within the past 24 months? and (2) Do you plan to visit a dark tourism location within the next 12 months? A statement was provided to all participants explaining what consisted of a dark tourism location to ensure participants were not taking the survey based on experiences of activities like haunted houses or haunted hayrides. Only 3,907 individuals were eligible to complete the survey, and a total of 1,068 participants did complete the survey, which yields a response rate of 27.3%. Altogether 651 out of 1,068 individuals had previously visited a dark tourism destination within the last 24 months while the remaining 417 individuals plan to visit a dark tourism destination within the next 12 months.

Data analysis included descriptive statistics, reliability tests, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and structural equation modeling (SEM). Descriptive statistics were used to outline respondents' characteristics (e.g., demographic composition). CFA was utilized to evaluate the measurement model, demonstrate adequate model fit, and ensure satisfactory levels of reliability and validity of underlying variables and their respective factors. Factor loadings greater than 0.70 indicated that the constructs are appropriately represented and considered acceptable ( Hair et al. , 2010 ). Cronbach's alphas were computed to test the internal reliability of items comprising each dimension of the dark tourism motivation construct ( dark experience , engaging entertainment , unique learning experience , casual interest ) and the planned behavior construct ( attitudes , subjective norm , perceived behavioral control ), respectively. A cutoff value of 0.7 was utilized to determine “good” reliability ( Peterson, 1994 , p. 381).

To confirm measurement model validity, the chi-squared ( x 2 ) statistic, Root-Mean-Square-Error of Approximation (RMSEA), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), and the Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) values were reviewed. Cutoff criteria used to determine “good fit” were RMSEA score < 0.08 ( Byrne, 1998 ), CFI scores > 0.90 ( Kline, 2005 ), SRMR < 0.08 to indicate a good fit ( Hu and Bentler, 1999 ).

Overwhelmingly, many tourists who had either visited a dark tourism location or plan to visit a dark tourism destination were female (65.4%). Additionally, the majority of participants were 25–34 years of age (44.2%) with the next largest age groups being 35–44 years (21%) and 18–24 years (20.9%). Most had either a 4-years Bachelor's degree from college (30.5%) or at least some college education but did not finish their degree (25.3%). 54.5% of the survey participants were married and 37.6% were single. As for income, the largest percentage (19.5%) had an individual annual income ranging from $20,001-$40,000. A full table of demographic characteristics of the participants can be seen in Table 3 .

Partial disaggregation of measurement model

SEM was utilized to investigate the relationships among dark tourism construct, the planned behavior construct and behavioral intentions. Like the CFA testing, the SEM also uses the chi-squared ( x 2 ) , RMSEA, SRMR, and CFI to determine overall model fit and relationships for this study. After further testing for convergent and discriminant validity, it was determined that all constructs met the composite reliability 0.70 or greater standard regarding the 3-parcel hypothesized model ( Table 4 ) ( Hair et al. , 2010 ).

There are several ways to parcel variables into groupings. For purposes of this study, the variables were parceled using the item-to-construct method since the SEM model was large in size and the goal was to have parcels balanced in terms of difficulty and discrimination ( Little et al. , 2002 ). To develop the parcels, standardized regression weights were evaluated, and the three highest scores served as anchors to each of the three parcels with the highest values associated to parcel 1, next highest to parcel 2, and then the next highest to parcel 3. The remainder of variables were placed into the parcels continuing with the 4th highest value placed into the 3rd parcel and repeating the process in inverted order until all variables were assigned into parcels. Once the variables for each construct were placed into appropriate parcel groupings, averages of the questions associated to the new parceled variables were calculated prior to the CFA and SEM analysis. The attitude and behavioral intention constructs had five variable questions, while subjective norm and perceived behavioral control only had three questions. In those situations, one individual variable question served as the parcel item. Table 2 shows the variables and the parcels in which they were grouped.

Additionally, the average variance extracted was calculated and proved to be less than the composite reliability for each construct indicating convergent reliability of the constructs. The average variance extracted was greater than the 0.50 standard for Dark Experience, Engaging Entertainment, Unique Learning Experience, Attitude, and Subjective Norm constructs. Behavioral Intention (0.49) and Casual Interest (0.48) had values that were borderline acceptable regarding convergent validity. The only construct that did not meet the standards of convergent validity testing was Perceived Behavioral Control (0.23). When testing for divergent validity, all square-root of average variance extracted calculations were greater than the inter-construct correlations indicating divergent validity was present in this study. Partial disaggregation of the variables resulted in a much stronger overall model fit. The RMSEA value was 0.08 indicating a strong model fit and the CFI (0.891) value was acceptable indicating a good model fit. The SRMR value (0.06, Table 4 ) also showed a strong model fit.

Hypothesis testing

Overall, most of the relationships between the dark tourism construct and the TPB constructs were significant. Results show that dark experience has a positive significant relationship with both attitudes (0.434) regarding tourists visiting a dark tourism destination and subjective norms (0.242, Table 5 ). Casual interest has a positive significant relationship with both attitudes (0.404) and subjective norm (0.330). Both engaging entertainment (−0.080; −0.217) and unique learning experience (0.152; −0.247) are not significantly associated with neither attitudes nor subjective norms . Results show that both attitudes (0.396) and perceived behavioral control (0.716) have a significant positive relationship with behavioral intention .

SEM testing was completed on the data. In addition to the significant and insignificant relationships indicated by the SEM testing, to answer some of the specific research questions asked by this study one must review the distinct question factor loadings to get those answers. A full set of the factor loadings of survey questions asked regarding dark tourism and TPB constructs are in Table 1 . A visualization of all hypothesis testing results is in Table 5 as well as on Figure 1 .

It can be concluded from the findings of this research that dark experience has a positive relationship with attitudes regarding tourists visiting a dark tourism location, indicating that Hypothesis 1 was fully supported. Tourists seek specific characteristics when choosing to visit a dark tourism destination. Akin to findings from Bissell (2009) , the reasons for visiting: I want to try something new and out of the ordinary as well as I am fascinated with abnormal and bizarre events were strong. Alone these two variables do not constitute wanting to experience dark tourism but suggest a curiosity about dark tourism and a desire for new experiences ( Seaton and Lennon, 2004 ). Individuals answered favorably to all questions related to interest in experiencing paranormal activity. Although Sharpley (2005) suggested “fascination with death” as a potential motive for tourists to visit dark tourism destinations, questions specifically related to death (i.e., to witness the act of death and dying , to satisfy personal curiosity about how the victims died ) , reveal that fascination with death and dying was not a strong motivating factor for the tourists' who participated in this research study. The positive relationships of dark experience with attitudes ( H1 ) and subjective norm ( H2 ) , respectively, implies that tourists are seeking experiences that satisfy curiosity or they are seeking interaction with the paranormal. Tourists seek a fun and enjoyable tourist experience by visiting dark tourism destinations, and do not feel pressured by societal norms of their friends and family, which may prevent them from visiting dark tourism destinations.

The engaging entertainment dimension regarding both attitude ( H3 ) and subjective ( H4 ) was not supported in this study, which is interesting considering the questions in this dimension were developed to determine the importance of the tourists connecting with the information presented at the destination while still having an enjoyable experience.

Like Raine (2013) , this study considered the unique learning experience dimension to include individuals who are hobbyists and are typically visiting these destinations solely for educational purposes and to not engage with the destination as a dark tourism site. To present an alternative consideration to the construct of unique learning experience, Seaton (1996) determined that the more attached a person was to a destination, the less likely they would be fascinated with death, resulting in the tourists not viewing the dark tourism destination as being “dark”. This thought process may be a possibility of explanation for why the relationships were negative between unique learning experience and the TPB constructs, resulting in both Hypothesis 5 and 6 not being supported. Farmaki (2013) strengthens this argument by determining that many tourists visit museums for the purpose of education, but museums will incorporate the concept of death to enhance the tourist experience.

Results from this study also indicate that participants of this study were not traveling to dark tourism destinations for educational purposes. Additionally, results indicate that individuals who were perhaps traveling for the purposes of unique learning experience had negative feelings or experiences with subjective norms, lending to the belief that their family and friends were not supportive of their choice to visit a dark tourism destination.

Raine (2013) discovered a group of tourists she classified as sightseers and passive recreationalists. These tourists can be themed as “incidental” as they were likely not seeking a dark tourism destination related to death and burials, but instead were looking for a destination to escape from everyday life. These statements can easily be supported by this research study as Hypotheses 7 and 8 were both positively supported in relationship to casual interest and attitudes ( H7 ) and subjective norm ( H8 ). The questions asked in this study specifically relate to value of tours, special promotions, and enjoying time with friends and family.

Individuals were seeking attitudinal experiences through their visits to dark tourism destinations, supporting Hypothesis 9 . Unlike the results from Lam and Hsu (2004) , subjective norms do play a role in behavioral intentions. This study found that the influence of societal norms and pressures do influence tourists' intention to visit dark tourism destinations, lending to Hypothesis 10 not being supported as expected. Regarding perceived behavioral control, when tourists feel capable and in control of their tourism choices, it will positively impact their behavioral intention or likelihood of visiting a dark tourism destination, supporting Hypothesis 11 .

Practical implications

Practitioners working in tourism industries and communities of dark tourism destinations can greatly benefit from the results of this study. Managers of dark tourism destinations must realize that visitors are attracted to these locations for many different reasons ( Bissell, 2009 ) and not just for fascination of death or paranormal activity. While this research does not focus specifically on individual motivating factors that influence behavior to visit, overarching attributes were determined to influence behavioral intentions more than others. The significant positive relationships found in this study between dark experience, unique learning experience, and casual interest suggest dark tourism destination managers offer a variety of tours and services to visitors and should be sensitive in how they display or present information so it does not come across as being offensive to tourists in the event they have strong emotional ties to the destination or individual(s) who may have been a victim at the destination.

Due to the broad nature of this study and its data collection efforts, the dark tourism locations visited by participants varied greatly. It can be concluded from the data that the use of television and contemporary media featuring dark tourism locations does positively influence tourists' behavioral intention to visit. Variables related to dark tourism destinations featured on television shows were more strongly favored in relationship to the dark experience construct than engaging entertainment. This indicates that tourists are curious about what they have seen on television or mass media and want to experience similar. Managers of dark tourism destinations featured on television shows should effectively market their locations as such to increase interest and tourism traffic to their destination. If paranormal tours are not currently being offered this would be a recommendation (if applicable) to generate more tourism interest.

Additionally, due to the increased popularity and reliance on websites and social media platforms for information, practitioners should register their location on dark tourism websites and registries so more curious travelers can easily locate them. Utilizing TripAdvisor.com and other similar travel websites is another option for practitioners to generate tourism interest to their destination. Making information readily available and easy to locate for tourists will continue to strengthen the relationship between perceived behavioral control and behavioral intention. Additionally, considering societal norms had a positive relationship with dark tourism constructs within this study, practitioners could market their destination as being taboo to tourists wanting to satisfy their rebellious curiosity.

Limitations and future research

This study has several limitations. Since the data was collected using Qualtrics Panels, potential participants are asked to self-report and assess whether they are eligible dark tourists for this study, based on given definition of dark tourism. Such self-assessment may not always be precise. If adopting this survey method, future research may consider asking participations to provide the specific dark tourism destination type that they have visited in the past 24 months, to help further confirm their eligibility for study participation. It is also recommended that if time and resources permit, future research consider collecting data on-site at dark tourism destinations. Also, this research study did not take into consideration the type of dark tourism destination visited by the respondents. Dark tourism destinations vary in the levels of violence and death that are associated with them ( Seaton, 1996 ; Stone, 2006 ). Future research can investigate additional motivational factors of tourists to visit dark tourism destinations with varying levels of darkness associated to them.

Most of the previous studies are case studies with historical battlefields and concentration camps being the hot spot for tourist activity. It is important and yet lacking to explore the general pattern of the association between motivations and visit intentions to dark tourism sites in general. Ryan and Kohli (2006) suggested there are differences between dark tourism destinations created by natural disasters (e.g., earthquakes in Sichuan, China; Biran et al. , 2014 ) and those that were sites of death at the hand of man (e.g., Auschwitz concentration camp). Moreover, Zhang et al. (2016) were among the few that explored the associated between motivation and association, but only on college students at one specific site. Although this study is inclusive of different dark tourist groups and dark tourism sites, future research may consider factoring in such difference in dark tourism destinations while exploring dark tourist motivations and visit intensions.

Conclusions

This study serves as exploratory research examining the association between tourist motivations and visit intentions and paves the way for future research in dark tourism. This study contributes to the dark tourism literature by proposing a new theoretical framework linking and extending dark tourism motivation construct with the Planned Behavior Construct. Study results can also benefit practitioners in dark tourism sector.

Graphic representation of theoretical framework and hypothesis testing results

Factor loadings for dark tourism variables

Partial disaggregation parcel groupings of TPB variables

Demographic characteristics of survey participants

CFAs of nested models

Full-data set hypothesis testing results

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Further reading

Krisjanous , J. ( 2016 ), “ An exploratory multimodal discourse analysis of dark tourism websites: communicating issues around contested sites ”, Journal of Destination Marketing and Management , Vol. 5 No. 4 , pp. 341 - 350 , doi: 10.1016/j.jdmm.2016.07.005 .

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Dark Tourists: Profile, Practices, Motivations and Wellbeing

José magano.

1 Research Center in Business and Economics (CICEE), Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa, Rua Sta. Marta 47, 5.º Andar, 1150-293 Lisboa, Portugal

2 ISCET-Higher Institute of Business Sciences and Tourism, Rua de Cedofeita, 285, 4050-180 Porto, Portugal

José A. Fraiz-Brea

3 Department of Business Organization, Business Administration and Tourism Faculty, University of Vigo, 32004 Ourense, Spain

Ângela Leite

4 Center for Philosophical and Humanistic Studies, Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Portuguese Catholic University, Rua de Camões 60, 4710-362 Braga, Portugal

Associated Data

Datasets are available upon request to the authors.

This work aims to address whether knowing what dark tourism is (or not) impacts rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, psychological vulnerability, and tourist wellbeing, as well as practices and motivations for dark tourism. A quantitative approach, based on a survey of 993 respondents, reveals that women and more educated participants know more about dark tourism; people who know what dark tourism is have visited more Holocaust museums, sites of human tragedy and natural disasters, concentration camps, and prisons; show more curiosity, need to learn and understand, and need to see morbid things. A model was found showing that gender, age, know/do not know dark tourism, and motivations (curiosity, the need to learn, the need to understand, and pleasure) explained 38.1% of a dark tourism practice index. Most findings also indicate that rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, and psychological vulnerability are associated with darker practices. Greater wellbeing was not found in participants who knew in advance what dark tourism was. Interestingly, participants who visit tragic human sites present higher values in hostility and tourist wellbeing than those who do not. In summary, people who visit more dark places and score higher on negative personality characteristics have higher values of tourist wellbeing.

1. Introduction

Many people are increasingly looking for new and unique touristic experiences to satisfy a wide range of motivations. That has driven the segmentation and the emergence of increasingly specific typologies, such as dark tourism, that, in contrast with mass tourism, are characterized by a high degree of diversification and individualization. Dark tourism comprises visiting real or recreated places related with death, suffering, disgrace, or the macabre [ 1 , 2 ]. From the perspective of dark tourism places, it is important to understand what drives people to visit them to design satisfying experiences. We may think of death as an obvious motivation, often part of the site’s history, but it is not always the primary or explicitly recognized motivation for a visit. Sharpley and Stone [ 3 ] admitted that the field of motivation to visit dark tourism destinations remains an understudied area, although recent literature has provided an increasing number of empirical studies about the reasons for visiting those sites [ 4 , 5 ].

This research intends to contribute to the dark tourism literature by seeking to understand whether people know what dark tourism is and identify a differentiated sociodemographic, motivational, and tourist practice profile between people who know and do not know what dark tourism is. In addition, it aims to understand if dark tourists’ motivations for visiting dark tourism destinations explain their practices. The research approach relies on empirically exploring the motivations, practices, and sociodemographic characteristics of a sample of 933 people that participated in a survey held in Portugal.

The remainder of the text is organized as follows: firstly, a brief theoretical background is put forward, focused on the dark tourism concept and dark tourists’ motivations and practices; then, the quantitative study’s applied methods and obtained results are described; finally, the results are discussed, and conclusions and implications are drawn.

2. Theoretical Background

Despite the fact that some authors consider it one of the older forms of tourism, it has gained great popularity amongst academics from the 1990s onwards [ 3 ], confirmed by the significant volume of literature published ever since [ 4 , 5 , 6 ]. However, understanding the demand for this type of tourism persists as poorly defined and theoretically fragile [ 3 , 4 , 7 , 8 ]. For a long time, places that have been the scene of wars, disasters, deaths, and atrocities have always fascinated people, motivating them to travel [ 3 , 9 ]. Sharpley and Stone [ 3 ] often use the term dark tourism as the type of tourism that encompasses traveling to sites related to death, suffering, and macabre—a globally accepted definition. However, Tarlow [ 10 ] implies the phenomenon is complex by describing it as “visits to places where noteworthy historical tragedies or deaths have occurred that continue to impact our lives”, which raises the question about the inherent motives to consume dark tourism.

2.1. Dark Tourists and Their Motivation to Dark Tourism Consumption

Stone’s (2006) idea of dark tourism goes far beyond related attractions. From this standpoint, diverse well-visited tourist sites may become places of dark tourism due to their history linked with death—e.g., suicides in the Eiffel Tower, tombs in the pyramids of Egypt, the Valley of the Kings, and the Taj Mahal, funeral art at the Cairo Museum, and terrorist attacks in Ground Zero [ 11 ]. Ashworth and Isaac [ 12 ] also suggest that all tourist places have a greater or lesser potential of being perceived as “dark.” Accordingly, the same dark tourism place can evoke different experiences in different visitors (i.e., a site one visitor sees as “dark” may not be for another); thus, the authors argue that no site is intrinsically, automatically, and universally “dark,” as, even they may be labeled as dark, they are not always perceived as such by all visitors.

Walter [ 13 ] states that most dark tourism is not specifically motivated, comprising only parallel visits inserted in a trip of a wider reach. Nonetheless, the literature indicates that tourists who visit dark places are not a homogeneous group, and neither the factors inherent to the visitation are the same. Moreover, the “darker” motivation can undertake distinctive levels of intensity. Consequently, in addition to the fascination and interest in death [ 12 , 14 , 15 ], the visit to this type of place is also motivated by personal, cultural, and psychological reasons [ 4 ] or driven by entertainment purposes [ 7 , 16 ].

The literature indicates numerous reasons to visit dark tourism sites: educational experience, desire to learn and understand past events, and historical interest [ 7 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ], as self-discovery purposes [ 17 ], identity [ 7 ], memory, remembrance, celebration, nostalgia, empathy, contemplation, and homage [ 10 , 17 , 20 ], curiosity [ 17 , 19 , 20 , 21 ], the search for novelty, authenticity, and adventure [ 2 , 20 ], convenience when visiting other places [ 19 ], and also status, prestige, affirmation, and recognition that these visits provide [ 22 ]. To a lesser extent, the literature also mentions religious and pilgrimage reasons, feelings of guilt, a search for social responsibility, or heritage experience.

The desire to learn and understand stands out as a motive associated with sites of death and/or heritage. Whereas some visitors exhibit a considerable need for emotional experience and connection to their heritage, engaging, as Slade puts it [ 23 ], in a “profound heritage experience”, and emotionally to the “dark” space influence [ 24 ], other visitors may be knowledge-seekers, who are more interested in a knowledge-enriching experience [ 25 ] than an emotional one and look for gaining a deeper understanding. Isaac et al. [ 20 ] found that memory, gaining knowledge and awareness, and exclusivity were important motivations for dark tourists; also, “(…), consuming dark tourism may allow the individual a sense of meaning and understanding of past disaster and macabre events that have perturbed life projects” [ 2 ]. Tourists’ interest in places associated with death and tragedy may also be related to educational goals [ 9 ].

Curiosity and the need to learn and understand are entwined. Dark tourism develops curiosity and satisfies the desire for knowledge of past suffering and pain [ 26 ]. Ashworth (2004) and Ashworth and Hartmann [ 27 ] suggested three main reasons for visiting dark sites: curiosity about the unusual, attraction to horror, and a desire for empathy or identification with the victims of atrocity. Yan, Zhang, Zhang, Lu and Guo [ 24 ] refer to the curious type of dark tourist who engages cognitively by learning about the issue. From another perspective, dark tourists may feel motivated by morbid tourism [ 28 ] and show interest in specific macabre exhibitions and museums [ 29 ] and fascination with evil [ 30 ], given the morbid nature of dark tourism [ 31 ]. Other authors present yet other motives: secular pilgrimage; a desire for inner purification; schadenfreude or malicious joy; “ghoulish titillation”; a search for the otherness of death; an interest in personal genealogy and family history; a search for “authentic” places in a commodified world; and a desire to encounter the pure/impure sacred [ 18 ]. Iliev [ 4 ] concludes that although tourists visit places related to death, they may not necessarily be considered dark tourists; as already acknowledged, those sites may not be experienced as “dark” by each visitor. It is, therefore, imperative that the so-called dark tourists are considered as such based on their experience.

2.2. Dark Tourist Personality

Some authors who study dark tourism have tried to relate dark tourist practice with personality characteristics, namely with the dark triad—psychoticism, narcissism, and Machiavellianism [ 16 , 32 , 33 , 34 ]. However, the nature of dark tourism, especially that related to the Holocaust, can be so complex that the personality characteristics that motivate it may be less central, so we decided to study the following characteristics: rumination in sadness, self-hatred, hostility, and psychological vulnerability.

Rumination about sadness includes “repetitive thoughts concerning one’s present distress and the circumstances surrounding the sadness” [ 35 ]. These thoughts are related to the nature of one’s negative affect, are not goal-directed nor lead to plans for solutional action [ 36 ], and are not socially shared while the rumination occurs. Thus, rumination on sadness presents a negative content, “does not facilitate problem resolution, is a solitary activity, and is intrusive if the person is pursuing either self-or situationally imposed task-oriented goals” [ 35 ].

Nolen-Hoeksema and Morrow’s [ 36 ] measure of rumination focuses on ideation, contrary to expression or disclosure, but it also includes disclosing feelings to others and emotional expressiveness as components of rumination. According to Nolen-Hoeksema and Morrow [ 36 ], ruminative responses are different from structured problem-solving because people only think or talk about how “unmotivated, sad, and lethargic they feel” (p. 569). Despite that, Nolen-Hoeksema and Morrow’s [ 36 ] stated that ruminative responses include telling others how badly one feels. Although rumination has negative consequences, disclosure may have positive effects [ 37 ]; also, some forms of emotional expressiveness, a component of disclosure, seem beneficial [ 38 ].

Self-hatred is an “enduring dysfunctional and destructive self-evaluation, characterized by attributions of undesirable and defective qualities, and failure to meet perceived standards and values leading to feelings of inadequacy, incompetency, and worthlessness” [ 39 ]. High self-hatred is related to low self-esteem, shame, self-blame or guilt, and a mental state of agitation, raising an experience of psychological and emotional turmoil [ 39 ].

According to Derogatis and Melisaratos [ 40 ], hostility captures thoughts, feelings, and actions associated with hostile behavior. Although the hostility scale measures perceived levels of expressed hostility rather than actual levels of outwardly expressed hostility, the hostility scale is significantly associated with anger [ 41 ], and high anger is related to outward, uncontrolled, and negative expressions of anger [ 42 ].

Psychological vulnerability is the “individual’s capacity to deal with mechanisms of maintaining emotional strength, in case of a pessimistic point of view, due to the lack of social support” [ 43 ]. Psychological vulnerability is a pattern of cognitive beliefs translating to “a dependence on achievement or external sources of affirmation for one’s sense of self-worth” [ 44 ]. Psychological vulnerability is negatively associated with positive affect, self-efficacy, and social support and positively associated with negative affect, perceived powerlessness, and maladaptive coping behavior [ 43 , 44 ]. Dark tourists are subjects situated in emotionally sensitive spaces [ 45 ] that can trigger their psychological vulnerability.

2.3. Research Questions

Although research on dark tourism has increased in recent years, there are not enough studies exploring if people’s knowledge of this phenomenon and their personality traits lead to distinctive dark tourists’ motivations and behaviors. Taking into account the aforementioned motivations to visit dark tourism places, the present study intends to empirically explore if dark tourists’ personality characteristics and sociodemographic variables impact such motivations and dark tourists’ practices and wellbeing (the latter, measured as a dark tourism practice index, given the diversity of known dark tourism practices). Specifically, our research questions are: Do rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, and psychological vulnerability explain the practices and motivations for dark tourism and thus explain tourist wellbeing? Does knowing what dark tourism is (or not) impact rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, and psychological vulnerability, as well as practices and motivations for dark tourism and tourist wellbeing?

3. Materials and Methods

Given the research questions, the aims of the present study are as follows: (1) to find the sociodemographic differences in touristic practices and motivations for dark tourism according to two groups (those who knew what dark tourism is and those who did not know); (2) to assess the fit of the rumination on the sadness scale, self-hatred scale, hostility scale, psychological vulnerability scale, and tourism wellbeing scale; (3) to determine the differences in rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, psychological vulnerability, and tourism wellbeing according to two groups (those who knew what dark tourism is and those who didn’t know); (4) to find the differences in rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, psychological vulnerability, and tourism wellbeing according to practices and motivations for dark tourism; and (5) to determine variables that contribute to the dark tourism practice index. Accordingly, we hypothesize:

Participants who know what dark tourism is are younger and have more education than those who do not.

Participants who know what dark tourism is are more motivated and visit more places associated with dark tourism than those who do not.

All measures show a good fit for the sample.

Differences in rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, psychological vulnerability, and tourism wellbeing according to two groups (those who knew what dark tourism is and those who did not know) will be found.

Differences in rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, psychological vulnerability, and tourism wellbeing according to practices and motivations for dark tourism will be found.

Gender, age, to know/know not dark tourism, and the motivations of curiosity, need to learn, need to understand, and pleasure will contribute to explaining dark tourism practice.

3.1. Procedures

All procedures followed the Declaration of Helsinki and later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The investigation protocol included informed consent, and confidentiality and anonymity of the data were guaranteed. The research protocol was applied in person to a random sample of participants between 18 October and 17 December 2021. The participants were informed about the study’s purpose and were ensured confidentiality and anonymity of the data; they also signed informed consent. The inclusion criteria consisted of being over 18 years old, Portuguese, and having touristic experiences. The respondents were approached by two researchers and five MSc students on the University’s campuses and within their informal networks, with the questionnaire being self-administered.

3.2. Instruments

The instruments that were not validated for the Portuguese population—the Rumination on Sadness Scale (RSS) and the Self-Hatred Scale (SHS)—were first translated from English to Portuguese by two bilingual translators, one from and another not from the field of psychology. Then, a third bilingual translator from the field of psychology provided a reconciliation of the two translations. Next, a native English speaker not from the psychology field independently performed the reconciled version’s back-translation. Finally, the first translator reviewed the back-translated version of the scale and compared it with the original English version to ensure linguistic and cultural equivalence consistency.

• Sociodemographic questionnaire

The sociodemographic questionnaire included questions related to gender (feminine—0; masculine—1), age, education (no education–0; primary education—1; secondary education—2; higher education—3), marital status (no relationship-single, divorced, separated, widowed–0; in a relationship-boyfriends, married, de facto union—1), and employment status (inactive—unemployed, retired, on sick leave–0; active-student, employee, housewife, caregivers—1).

• Questionnaire about dark tourism’s practices

The questionnaire on dark tourism practices includes a question about knowledge of dark tourism (or not). In addition, it also asked participants about their tourist practices related to dark tourism (Have you ever visited…? cemeteries; holocaust museums; sites of human tragedy; concentration camps; prisons; sites of war; sites of natural disasters; stop to see accidents). All these questions are answered dichotomously (no—0; yes—1).

• Questionnaire about dark tourism´s motivations

This questionnaire includes the presentation of several reasons to visit a dark place: curiosity, the need to learn, the need to see, the need to understand, pleasure, and the need to see morbid things. All these questions are answered dichotomously (no—0; yes—1).

• Rumination on Sadness Scale (RSS)

The Rumination on Sadness Scale, an individual-difference measure of rumination on sadness, was developed by Conway et al. [ 35 ] as an alternative to the Ruminative Responses Scale of the Response Styles Questionnaire (RRRSQ; [ 36 ]). It is a unifactorial scale with 13 items. Higher ratings indicate higher levels of rumination on sadness. Cronbach’s alpha, the internal reliability coefficient, was 0.91 in the original version. Since there is no Portuguese version of this scale, it will be validated in this study.

• Self-Hatred Scale (SHS)

The Self-Hatred Scale was developed by Turnell et al. [ 39 ] to assess individuals’ levels of self-hatred. Since self-hatred is a significant predictor of suicidal ideation, this scale has the potential to be helpful in suicide risk assessment. Higher ratings indicate higher levels of self-hatred. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.95 in the original version. There is no Portuguese version of this scale, so it will also be validated in this study.

• BSI Hostility Scale (HSS)

BSI Hostility Scale (HS) is a subscale of the Brief Symptoms Inventory [BSI; [ 40 ]], whose Portuguese version is from Canavarro [ 46 ]. BSI is a 53-item measure to identify self-reported clinically relevant psychological symptoms in adolescents and adults. The BSI covers nine symptom dimensions: Somatization, Obsession-Compulsion, Interpersonal Sensitivity, Depression, Anxiety, Hostility, Phobic Anxiety, Paranoid Ideation, and Psychoticism; and three global indices of distress: Global Severity Index, Positive Symptom Distress Index, and Positive Symptom Total. The Hostility subscale includes five items, and higher ratings indicate higher levels of hostility. In the original version, the alpha coefficients for the nine dimensions of the scale ranged from 0.64 in the Psychoticism dimension to 0.81 in the Somatization dimension. In the Portuguese version, the alpha coefficients ranged from 0.71 in the Psychoticism dimension to 0.85 in the Depression dimension.

• Psychological Vulnerability Scale (PVS)

The Psychological Vulnerability Scale (PVS) was designed to obtain information about maladaptive cognitive patterns, such as dependence, perfectionism, need for external sources of approval, and generalized negative attributions. The PVS is a six-item scale with higher scores indicating greater psychological vulnerability. In the original version [ 44 ], Cronbach’s α coefficient ranged from 0.71 to 0.87 for different samples; in the Portuguese version [ 47 ], Cronbach’s α coefficient was 0.73.

• Tourism Wellbeing Scale (TWS)

The Tourism Wellbeing Scale (TWS) was developed by [ 48 ] Garcês et al. (2018 [ 49 ]); it aims to evaluate tourism wellbeing in each destination, having been built from positive psychology variables, namely, wellbeing, creativity, optimism, and spirituality. It is a unifactorial scale with eight items. Higher ratings indicate higher levels of tourism wellbeing. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.97 in the original version.

3.3. Data Analysis

Prior to analysis, the normality of items was examined by skewness (SI) and kurtosis (KI) indexes; absolute values of SI less than 3 and KI less than 10 indicate a normal distribution of the data. [ 50 ]. All the instruments were subject to a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) procedure with maximum likelihood estimation (MLE). The model fit evaluation was based on test statistics and approximate fit indexes, following the thresholds presented in Kline [ 50 ]. Thus, a non-significant model chi-square statistic, χ 2 , states that the model fits the data acceptably in the population; the higher the probability related to χ 2 , the closer the fit to the perfect fit. A value of the parsimony-corrected index Steiger–Lind root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) close to 0 represents a good fit; RMSEA ≤ 0.05 may indicate a good fit, but the upper bound of the 90% confidence interval exceeding 0.10 may indicate poor fit; also, this test should be non-significant at the 0.05 level. Values of incremental fit index (IFI), Tucker–Lewis index (TLI), and the Bentler incremental comparative fit index (CFI), close to 1 (0.95 or better), are indicators of best fit; also, the standardized root mean square residual (SRMR), a statistic related to the correlation residuals (SRMR over 0.10 suggests fit problems) was used; the smallest the values, the most parsimonious is the model.

Besides goodness-of-fit index evaluation, model re-specification involved analyzing path estimates, standardized residuals of items, and modification indices for all non-estimated parameters. The modifications indices (MI) provide information about potential cross-loadings and error term correlations not specified in the model and the expected change in the chi-square value for each fixed parameter if it were to be freed. Only modifications theoretically meaningful and MI > 11 were considered. Finally, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were calculated to ascertain the model’s reliability.

Group differences were analyzed. The independent t-test was applied to compare the means of the two groups. In addition, chi-squared was used to compare distributions’ differences and Mann–Whitney test to compare ordinal data. Three measures of the effect size, Cohen’s d, the eta squared, phi, and rank biserial correlation were used according to the variables’ measurement level; interpretation followed Cohen’s [ 51 ] guidelines; the statistical significance level was set at 0.05. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 28 and AMOS version 28.

The sample includes 993 participants, mainly female, in a romantic relationship, with secondary or university education, and active; the mean age is around 31 years. Statistically significant differences were found concerning age and education between the sample that had already heard about dark tourism and knew what it was and the sample that had not yet heard about it. Participants who had heard about dark tourism were significantly younger and more educated than those who had not ( Table 1 ).

Sample sociodemographic characteristics.

Notes: N = frequencies; % = percentage; M = mean; SD = standard deviation; χ 2 = qui-squared test; Φ = Phi size effect; t = t -test; Cohen’s d = size effect; p = p -value. In bold: statistically significant values.

Concerning the total sample and dark tourism practices, most people have visited cemeteries, and about a third of the sample stopped to see accidents. On the other hand, about a quarter of the sample already had other practices, except for a visit to concentration camps, which was only carried out by about 14% of the total sample. The same trend remains in the sample that has not yet heard about dark tourism and the sample that has. However, there are statistically significant differences between these two samples regarding practices related to dark tourism, being that the sample that has already heard about dark tourism visits many more Holocaust museums, sites of human tragedy, concentration camps, prisons, and sites of natural disasters than the sample that has not yet heard about dark tourism ( Table 2 ).

Dark tourism practices.

Notes: N = frequencies; % = percentage; χ 2 = qui-squared test; Φ = Phi size effect; p = p -value. In bold: statistically significant values.

As for the reasons behind the desire to visit dark places, curiosity stands out in the total sample, with the least chosen reason being the need to see morbid things. The same trend can be seen in the two subsamples. However, there are statistically significant differences between these two samples regarding motives to visit dark places, being that the sample that has already heard about dark tourism presents higher values in the motives related to curiosity, the need to learn and understand, and the need to see morbid things than the sample that has not yet heard about dark tourism ( Table 3 ).

Dark tourism motives.

Table 4 shows the descriptive statistics related to the items of the instruments used in this study: the rumination on sadness, tourism wellbeing, self-hatred, hostility, and psychological vulnerability. The skewness and kurtosis values are all within the normative values, ensuring the normality of the distribution, except for item SHS3 whose values are slightly above the recommended one.

Items’ frequencies.

A confirmatory factorial analysis of the rumination on sadness scale was carried out to confirm the authors’ model [χ 2 (46) = 4.121; CFI = 0.977; TLI = 0.961; IFI = 0.977; RMSEA = 0.056; PCLOSE = 0.107: SMRM = 0.028]; however, to achieve this model fit, some correlations between errors were established ( Figure 1 ).

Model fit of Rumination on Sadness Scale.

Confirmatory factorial analysis of the self-hatred scale [χ 2 (11) = 5.118; CFI = 0.992; TLI = 0.984; IFI = 0.992; RMSEA = 0.064; PCLOSE = 0.069: SMRM = 0.015] ( Figure 2 ), hostility scale [χ 2 (2) = 4.216; CFI = 0.995; TLI = 0.976; IFI = 0.995; RMSEA = 0.057; PCLOSE = 0.317: SMRM = 0.012] ( Figure 3 ), psychological vulnerability scale [χ 2 (7) = 2.886; CFI = 0.992; TLI = 0.983; IFI = 0.992; RMSEA = 0.044; PCLOSE = 0.644; SMRM = 0.018] ( Figure 4 ), and tourism wellbeing scale [χ 2 (16) = 3.787; CFI = 0.979; TLI = 0.964; IFI = 0.980; RMSEA = 0.053; PCLOSE = 0.339: SMRM = 0.029] ( Figure 5 ) were carried out to assess the models’ adjustments. Despite finding good fits for all models, some correlations between errors were established to achieve such fits. Thus, hypothesis H3 is confirmed.

Model fit of Self-hatred Scale.

Model fit of Hostility Scale.

Model fit of Psychological Vulnerability Scale.

Model fit of Tourism Wellbeing Scale.

There are no differences in the values of rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, psychological vulnerability, and tourism wellbeing concerning knowing what dark tourism is or not ( Table 5 ).

Rumination on sadness (RSS), self-hatred (SHS), hostility (HSS), psychological vulnerability (PVS), and tourism wellbeing (TWBS) frequencies and differences between those who know dark tourism and those who do not.

Notes: α = Cronbach’s alpha; M = mean; SD = standard deviation; MR–mean rank; U = Mann–Whitney test; p = p -value; r = rank-biserial correlation.

Differences were assessed regarding the values of rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, psychological vulnerability, and tourism wellbeing according to dark tourism practices. Being that only statistically significant results are presented, it was found that participants who visit cemeteries have significantly lower values of self-hatred and psychological vulnerability than participants who report not visiting cemeteries ( Table 6 ). Furthermore, those who visit tragic human sites present higher values in hostility and tourism wellbeing than those who do not. Those who visit sites of war present higher values in self-hatred than those who did not. Those who visit site of natural tragedies also present higher values in hostility and tourism wellbeing. Lastly, those who stop to see accidents present higher values in rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, psychological vulnerability, and tourism wellbeing than those who do not stop ( Table 6 ).

Rumination on sadness (RSS), self-hatred (SHS), hostility (HSS), psychological vulnerability (PVS) and tourism wellbeing (TWBS) frequencies and differences according to dark tourism practices.

Notes: α = Cronbach’s alpha; M = mean; SD = standard deviation; MR–mean rank; U = Mann–Whitney test; p = p -value; r = rank-biserial correlation. In bold: statistically significant values.

Differences were also assessed concerning the values of rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, psychological vulnerability, and tourism wellbeing according to dark tourism motives. Those participants who identified curiosity, need to see, and need to understand as reasons to visit dark places in the context of tourism presented higher values in rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, psychological vulnerability, and tourism wellbeing than those who did not identify curiosity as a motive ( Table 7 ). Concerning the motive “need to learn”, it was found to be a statistically significant difference in tourism wellbeing, being that those who identified the need to learn as a motive to visit dark places in the context of tourism present higher values in tourism wellbeing and self-hatred than those who did not. Those participants who identified the need to see as a reason to visit dark places in the context of tourism presented higher values in rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, and psychological vulnerability than those who did not identify the need to see as a motive ( Table 7 ). Those participants who recognized the need to understand as a reason to visit dark places in the context of tourism present higher values in rumination on sadness, hostility, psychological vulnerability, and tourism wellbeing than those who did not identify the need to understand as a motive ( Table 7 ). Concerning the motive “pleasure”, it was found a statistically significant difference in tourism wellbeing; those who recognized pleasure as a motive to visit dark places presented higher values in tourism wellbeing than those who did not. Lastly, those participants who identified the need to see morbid things as a reason to visit dark places presented higher values in rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, and psychological vulnerability than those who did not identify the need to see morbid things as a motive ( Table 7 ).

Rumination on sadness (RSS), self-hatred (SHS), hostility (HSS), psychological vulnerability (PVS), and tourism wellbeing (TWBS) frequencies and differences according to dark tourism motives.

After creating a new variable, an index about practices related to dark tourism, based on the individual items, we carried out a multiple linear regression in which the dependent variable is the index, and the independent variables are the motivations, with the intent to find the variables that explain the touristic practice. It was found that gender, age, know/know not dark tourism, and motives (curiosity, need to learn, need to understand, and pleasure) explain 38% of the touristic practice ( Table 8 ).

Variables that contribute to the dark tourism practice index.

Notes: R 2 = R squared; R 2 Adj. = R squared adjusted; B = unstandardized regression coefficients; EP B = unstandardized error of B; β = standardized regression coefficients; ** p < 0.001.

5. Discussion

The aims of the present study were to find the sociodemographic differences in touristic practices and motivations for dark tourism according to two groups (those who knew what dark tourism is and those who did not know); to determine the differences in rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, psychological vulnerability, and tourism wellbeing according to two groups; to find the differences in rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, psychological vulnerability, and tourism wellbeing according to practices and motivations for dark tourism; and, at last, to determine variables that contribute to a dark tourism practice index. To this end, we carried out a cross-sectional study that included questionnaires related to sociodemographic aspects, motivations to visit dark tourism places, practices of dark tourism, the rumination on the sadness scale, the self-hatred scale, the hostility scale, the psychological vulnerability scale, and the tourism wellbeing scale.

Concerning the participants’ profiles, those who had heard about dark tourism were significantly younger and more educated than those who had not. These results confirm hypothesis H1. These results corroborate those of Millán, et al. [ 52 ] who found a profile of dark tourists in Cordoba between 26 and 40 years old and having university studies. Dark tourism is a niche market [ 53 ] and also is itself a trend [ 54 ], and young people are more available and attentive to new trends [ 55 ]. In addition, more educated people seek more information and have superior technological skills [ 56 ]. Significant differences between the two samples regarding practices related to dark tourism were found, being that the sample that has already heard about dark tourism visits much more Holocaust museums, sites of human tragedy, concentration camps, prisons, and sites of natural disasters than the sample that has not yet heard about dark tourism. These results confirm hypothesis H2. According to Iliev [ 4 ], “if tourists do not experience a site as dark, then they cannot be called dark tourists”, so the author proposed a more apparent distinction of the “dark tourists” based on experience. Ashworth and Isaac (2015) also stated that any tourist site has a greater or lesser potential of being perceived as “dark.” Besides, “darkness cannot be viewed as an objective fact because it is subjectively and socially constructed since (different) people in various (cultural or social) contexts understand and experience dark tourism in different ways” [ 57 ]. In fact, we may ask “who makes the association of ‘darkness’ to a place? Is the label ‘dark tourism’ applied by those offering (and commoditizing) the visitor experience? Alternatively, is any “dark” significance to be evaluated and decided upon by the tourists themselves?” [ 58 ]. “Dark tourism consumption can no longer be derived as an ordinary activity where humans might engage in for “fun”, but rather as part of a quest for a deeper experience, especially in our inherent fear of death” [ 4 ].

The subsample that has already heard about dark tourism presents higher values in the curiosity, the need to learn and understand, and the need to see morbid things motives than the sample that has not yet heard about dark tourism. These results also confirm hypothesis H2. In fact, dark tourists are very interested in understanding historical events; they are psychologically moved by the need to be in contact with authentic experiences by looking at the other’s death as if it were their own death [ 59 ]. One of the motivations that drive dark tourists is the possibility of re-creating the same emotions victims experienced, followed by the authenticity issue [ 60 ]. “Many dark tourists are motivated by the desire and interest in cultural heritage, learning, education, understanding about what happened at the dark site” [ 4 ].

There are no differences in the values of rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, psychological vulnerability, and tourism wellbeing concerning knowing what dark tourism is or not. Therefore, hypothesis H4 cannot be confirmed. These results apparently seem to contradict the relationship between the dark triad of the personality (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) and the practice of dark tourism [ 16 , 32 , 33 , 34 ]. That relationship, studied by those authors, reflects the practice of dark tourism and not the knowledge about it (which is the subject of our study), although there is hardly any knowledge without practice. Concerning tourism wellbeing, these results may question Kidron [ 61 ] who said that dark tourism generates wellbeing and thus assume that dark tourists show wellbeing despite dark practices. However, our results do not show greater wellbeing in the participants who knew in advance what dark tourism was in relation to the others.

Participants who visit cemeteries have significantly lower values of self-hatred and psychological vulnerability than participants who report not visiting cemeteries. Visiting a cemetery can fulfill different functions, such as visiting a dark place or the social and cultural function of honoring the dead. Probably, our results reflect this last function to the detriment of the first and this conformity to cultural and social practices is in accordance with lower values of psychopathology [ 62 ], namely rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, and psychological vulnerability. This result partially confirms hypothesis 5.

Those who visit sites of war present higher levels of self-hatred than those who did not. Furthermore, those who visit natural tragedies sites present higher values in hostility and tourism wellbeing than those who do not. This result reflects the relationship of this tourist practice with the above-mentioned dark triad [ 16 , 32 , 33 , 34 ] and is in line with Kidron [ 61 ], who suggested wellbeing in dark tourists. At last, those who stop to see accidents present higher values in rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, psychological vulnerability, and tourism wellbeing than those who do not stop. Again, this result reveals the relationship between psychopathology and tourist wellbeing that needs to be further explained, although some authors suggest that psychopathology leads to less tourism wellbeing [ 63 ]. This result partially confirms hypothesis 5.

Participants who identified curiosity as a reason to visit dark places in the context of tourism presented higher values in rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, psychological vulnerability, and tourism wellbeing than those who did not identify curiosity as a motive. Curiosity has been a central reason pointed out in the literature for tourism in general [ 64 ] and, specifically, for dark tourism [ 15 , 17 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 65 , 66 ]. Curiosity is a complex construct, which can be seen as something positive, but it can also contain darker aspects of the personality, namely morbid curiosity, and this fact explains its relationship with, on the one hand, wellbeing, and, on the other hand, with rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, and psychological vulnerability. This result partially confirms hypothesis 5.

The participants who identified the need to learn, the need to understand as motives to visit dark places in the context of tourism present higher values in tourism wellbeing and self-hatred than those who did not. The need to learn and understand are also central reasons for tourism in general and their relationship with wellbeing does not seem specific to dark tourism [ 67 ]. This result partially confirms hypothesis 5.

The participants who identified the need to see as a reason to visit dark places in the context of tourism presented higher values in rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, psychological vulnerability, and tourism wellbeing. This result partially confirms hypothesis 5. Similarly to the need to learn, the need to see correlates with wellbeing but with psychopathology. Perhaps this need to learn motivation is correlated with the touristic practice of seeing morbid things [ 68 ].

The participants who recognized pleasure as a motive to visit dark places presented higher values in tourism wellbeing than those who did not. This result partially confirms hypothesis 5. Dark tourism conforms with the pleasure of tourism in general (Yanjun et al., 2015); wellbeing derives from the emotional experience of dark tourism as a motor for transforming the self [ 69 ].

The participants who identified the need to see morbid things as a drive to visit dark places presented higher values in rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, and psychological vulnerability. The need to see morbid things may be a specific motivation for dark tourism [ 1 , 70 ] and not tourism in general. To that extent, the relationship between this motivation and rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, and psychological vulnerability is justified. This result partially confirms Hypothesis 5.

The reasons to visit dark places-curiosity, the need to see, the need to understand, and pleasure are positively and significantly correlated with all places associated with dark tourism. Gender, age, know/know not dark tourism, and motives (curiosity, the need to learn, the need to understand, and pleasure) explained 38.1% of the practice index variance, thus confirming H6. These results mean that motivations to visit dark places are associated with the touristic activity itself and may contradict those of Buda [ 71 ], that claims more emotional and psychoanalytical explorations through the concepts of the death drive [ 71 ], desire [ 72 ], and unconsciousness and voyeurism [ 73 ]. In fact, dark tourists are not altruistic persons [ 14 , 60 ]. Moreover, Jovanovic, Mijatov, and Šuligoj [ 32 ] found that Machiavellianism was related to the preference for dark exhibitions, psychopathy to the preference for visiting conflict/battle sites, and sadism was negatively related to the preference for fun factories and dark tourism sites. However, the “darker” motivation may present different levels of intensity; besides the fascination and interest in death [ 15 ], these visits are also motivated by personal, cultural, and psychological reasons [ 4 ] and/or by entertainment purposes such as entertainment-based museums of torture [ 7 , 16 ]. One of the most curious outcomes of this study is the association of motivations to visit dark tourist sites and self-hatred; the fact that the authors have not found any study that could explain such a result suggests this association exists in the context of dark tourism and not of tourism in general. The dark nature of this type of tourism can be attractive to tourists with less positive personality traits such as self-hatred.

6. Conclusions

The results of this study add new knowledge to this area of expertise as it allows us to understand the association between motivations and practices related to dark tourism. This study also identified the main motivations to visit dark places-curiosity, the need to see, the need to understand, and pleasure, being, interestingly, all internal motivations and, thus, contradicting the literature that, in addition to these motivations, also identifies external motivations. Most findings also indicate that the rumination on sadness, self-hatred, hostility, and psychological vulnerability personality dimensions are associated with dark practices (e.g., the need to see morbid things). Lastly, people who visit more dark places and score higher on negative personality characteristics have higher values of tourism wellbeing. These findings are in line with the literature, which suggests that dark tourism generates negative and positive wellbeing (or even ambivalence). As such, dark tourists, even presenting negative personality characteristics, and also because of them, show tourism wellbeing in their practices and motivations.

The fact that this study was held in a specific sample in Portugal may be considered a limitation; future lines of research could extend it to other countries and age segments.

Funding Statement

This research received no external funding.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, J.M., J.A.F.-B. and Â.L.; methodology, J.M.; formal analysis, J.M. and Â.L.; writing—original draft preparation, J.M.; writing—review and editing, J.M., J.A.F.-B. and Â.L. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Ethical review and approval were waived for this study, as no medical research involving human subjects has been carried out, including research on identifiable human material and data, as indicated by the terms of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

Conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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Dark Tourism as History: Dark Tourism in History

MacAnally Professor of Tourism Behaviour and Travel History, University of Limerick

• Published: 19 December 2022
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Dark tourism or, thanatourism, a term used as an encyclopaedic alternative (Jafari 1996, 578) 1 , only emerged as a collective area of named study in the last decade of the twentieth century. Both terms had their origins in the recognition of the long history and widespread occurrence of traveling encounters with different kinds of engineered and orchestrated remembrance of the dead. Many may have originally been an accidental or incidental by-product of travel, but increasingly they became deliberate goals of different kinds of pilgrimage, the most important being religious, but others being more secular (e.g. visiting the graves of writers, historic battlefields). In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries these occasional, sepulchral encounters were increasingly transformed into purposeful, mass tourism practices, induced by new ideologies of an evolving, European modernity, among them: antiquarianism, Romanticism, the gothic and patriotic displays of national pageantry and imperial display. Dark tourism’s identifying activity, visitation to commemorative sites, inherently makes it a travel form likely to feature more frequently in debates around “the politics of remembrance,” an expanding multi-cultural domain about the continuing status of historical events and figures. The chapter finishes with an illustrative, case history exemplifying some of the main issues in remembrance and remembrancing, in the context of a recent addition to dark tourism repertoires—the visitation of flooded villages as industrial disaster sites.

Dark Tourism is a concept relatively new to the world of tourism studied by social scientists, and even more so in the “real world” of travel and tourism experienced by many millions of global travelers. Yet “dark” encounters are among the oldest of travel encounters, and ones that can be widely recognized in contemporary life once the ideas behind what may seem an odd linguistic conjunction (“dark” plus “tourism”) are recognized.

This chapter is in two parts and addresses two main, historical questions, one of which is academic; the other one of praxis . The first is about the origins of dark tourism as a named entity in the academic study of recreational choice. The second is about its main experiential features in historical travel patterns. The two parts are inextricably linked since academic discussion about what dark tourism is affects what past practices are recognized as its history, and even the extent to which it has a history. The inquiry appraises dark tourism’s defining forms, the similarities and dissimilarities within them, and their significance in social and societal terms.

The chapter ends with a case study of an environmental and community disaster, the flooding and submersion of a village, induced 150 years ago as collateral damage in industrial development that was to be widely repeated around the world later. It has emerged as a new kind of dark tourism attraction. Its trajectory from disaster site to visitor attraction marks a central theme in this chapter about the nature of dark tourism, as remembrance of fatality and mortality that is inherently susceptible to revision, as ways of remembering people, and to remember as events change in society. The case also demonstrates the impact of visual images, particularly photography and film, in effecting and affecting remembrance.

The Academic Discovery of Dark Tourism

Dark tourism first entered academic inquiry in 1996 in a collection of articles in a special issue of the International Journal of Heritage ( IJHS ), edited by John Lennon, and later in a book cowritten with Malcolm Foley. 2 The name suggested a striking paradox: that tourism, the recreational form often satirized as the “have-a-nice-day” industry, might not always be the pursuit of light, life, and happiness, but a taste for commercial encounters with death exemplified, for example, in visiting celebrity memorials, genocide sites, and war cemeteries. The notion was one that was to provoke modest, moral panic in the media about commercialization of death, 3 reminiscent of public anxieties about “resurrection men” who sold corpses—murdered or snatched from city graveyards—to medical institutions in the 1830s. 4 In fact, “resurrection men” would not fit Lennon and Foley’s vision of what dark tourism was. They argued that it was a postmodern eruption, “an interest in recent death, disaster and atrocity … in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries … a product of circumstances of the late modern world and a significant influence upon these circumstances.” 5 Though recognizing that earlier kinds of travel encounters with death might resemble dark tourism, they were excluded because there was no evidence of intentional visitation, and they had not happened “within living memory.” The view bore similarities to the hypothesis of postmodern “black spots” by the sociologist Chris Rojek for sites where traumatic events had taken place that were visited as touristic “escape attempts” from the world of everyday life. 6 There was the suggestion that the new tourism was suspect in consumer terms (“a fascination with assassination” was the title of one article on the Kennedy assassination), a commodification of death as spectacle for paying visitors. 7 Since all three hailed dark tourism as postmodern, it logically had no significant history. It was the unprecedented shape of things coming and to come. Research case studies in Lennon and Foley’s book Dark Tourism exemplified this neophiliac premise with the inclusion of four chapters on the Jewish Holocaust, and individual ones on the John F. Kennedy assassination, the war sites of the two world wars, and tourism developments in partitioned North Cyprus. An alternative approach to dark tourism appeared in the same issue of IJHS and a later one. 8 It treated the subject under a different name, thanatourism, defined as: “travel to a location wholly, or partially, motivated by the desire for actual or symbolic encounters with death, particularly, but not exclusively, violent death.” 9 This perspective extended the history of dark tourism and the travel experiences within it from a few major atrocity sites in the present to many more going back into the distant past. Thanatourism, it was argued, was not just travel to view atrocities and disasters that had “happened in living memory.” It derived from older, Judeo-Christian traditions of pilgrimage and thanatopsis, prescribing reflection on mortality to their followers. Such thoughts were induced and aided by devotional texts and artifacts which carried memento mori –messages to the living that one day they must die, and ars moriendi counseling on how to do it well. 10 Thanatourism could thus be seen as travel that brought death to the mind, and pilgrimage a way of paying homage to others who had gone before. “Thanatourism” was a more neutral term than “dark tourism” because it lessened the transgressive associations of the word “dark” in recognition that not all traveling encounters with death held sinister undertones. Though Holocaust and genocide memorials evoked unspeakable crimes, paying homage to fallen soldiers and visiting graves of poets and other revered groups and individuals did not. Moreover, the name thanatourism located it more explicitly as a subset of thanatology. 11 The paper offered a constitutive typology of five thanatouristic and dark tourism travel categories:

travel to witness public enactments of death, a form largely proscribed in modern Western societies, though once common in gladiatorial contests in ancient Rome, and in public executions in Britain until 1868;

travel to see the sites of multiple fatality (e.g. Holocaust sites, the battlefield of Waterloo, the town of Lockerbie, Scotland, where a Pan-Am jet was brought down by a terrorist bomb in 1988), and sites of individual deaths ranging from roadside memorials for accident victims, to “blue plaque” domestic sites where cultural celebrities had died;

travel to internment sites and memorials to the dead in graveyards, catacombs, and war cemeteries;

travel to view material evidence or symbolic representations of death, in locations unconnected with their occurrence including, police and military museums, and many kinds of exhibition, including the “Chamber of Horrors” in Madame Tussaud’s which displayed artifacts of murder (weapons, victims’ clothing) alongside wax effigies of the serial killers responsible; and

travel for reenactments of historic carnage, particularly battlefield simulations, staged by members of societies dedicated to particular wars, e.g., Civil War Societies in Britain and America, and Napoleonic battle societies in Europe.

A Historiography of Dark Tourism

Whatever the differences in periodizing and characterizing it, the notion of tourism as “dark” acted as a “refresh” button for researchers who had previously never made a link between the two. For students it was, and has remained, a popular option for undergraduate and postgraduate studies in leisure and tourism. Whether called “dark tourism” or “thanatourism,” the effect was to detonate a developing literature of journal articles, book chapters and conference papers over the next two decades, as well as journalistic attention. 12

The first decade (1996 to 2005) was dominated by ad hoc case studies of individual sites and events that fell into three of the five, dark tourism categories: travel to death sites; travel to internment sites; and travel to view exhibited evidence and symbolic representations. Research subjects included Holocaust sites, 13 historic battlefields, 14 slavery sites in the United Kingdom and the United States, 15 criminal museums and prisons, 16 cemeteries as visitor attractions, 17 and celebrity death sites. 18

The first phase of dark tourism research also included alternative conceptual typologies to the five-attribute category initially proposed. The late Graham Dann produced a site typology of four alliterative thanatourism categories: “houses of horror, “fields of fatality,” “tours of torment,” and “themed thanatos.” Within each were subsumed eleven constitutive subcategories, also alliteratively named (“Morbid museums,” “the Hell of Holocaust,” “Cemeteries for Celebrities,” etc.), followed by a discussion of eight motivations that included “fear of phantoms,” “chasing change,” and “yearning for yesteryear.” 19 Other typologies included those of Richard Sharpley and Philip R. Stone, 20 who adapted a spectrum model of dark tourism, as originally suggested by Tony Seaton, 21 but using different and more numerous criteria for grading sites and experiences that scored them on a darkest/lightest scale, a line of development later pursued by Rachael Raine. 22

Case study work also included investigations into key questions of motivation for dark travel, and that of whether dark tourists were an identifiable segment whose behavior varied sui generis from that of other kinds of tourist (e.g. cultural tourists, golf tourists etc.), or whether the notion of dark tourism was a concept that concealed several kinds of distinctive behavior, each with its own clients and motivations (e.g., Holocaust visitors, battlefield walkers, churchyard, and graveyard visitors). One attempt to identify an overarching motivation behind all dark tourism was the sequestration thesis, first put by Geoffrey Gorer in 1964, 23 revisited briefly by Seaton, 24 and more extensively by Stone. 25 The thesis proposed that death was a taboo subject, suppressed or, in Stone’s terms, made “absent” in modern living, thus depriving people of opportunities for thanatopsis which had been normal in the past. Dark tourism, it was claimed, restored mediated links between the living and the dead, by allowing tourists an existential space to reflect, through gazing on the death sites of “significant others,” on their own mortality. Problems with the thesis later focused on the meaning of “sequestration” and “death … made absent,” since the notion was capable of three different meanings and interpretations: the silencing of thanatopsis (i.e., social suppression of reflection and discussion of death); the exclusion of cultural representations of death (e.g., in art, literature, and the mass media); and the ways in which modern funerary practices removed custody of the body from home and family, and consigned its storage, treatment, and disposal to industry professionals. Gorer had most in mind the latter effect, one which dark tourism could hardly address since, unlike bodysnatching, 26 it was never an intervention in the physical treatment and disposal of bodies by the funeral industry or anyone else. There were also problems with accepting assertions that modern society sequesters or makes “absent” representations of death, given the volume of coverage of war, violence, and murder which routinely colonize media news and entertainment, in print, broadcasting, and increasingly in the privately supplied and leaked photo exposures of social media. It is only if “absence” is treated as the normative silencing of reflection and discussion of death in society, that dark tourism could appear as a restorative experience, precipitating discussions of mortality which would not otherwise take place. Stone, in his work on responses to a body parts exhibition mounted internationally by Gunter Von Hagen, found it did provoke some ontological discussions of life and death among visitors. 27 Similarly, an exhibition of skeletons from different periods, recovered during building excavations in London, generated involvement and reflections on death among secondary school children, when exhibited at the Welcome Library in the capital in 2008. They were, however, primarily in response to questions asked in a self-completion survey administered as part of the visit. 28

No common, general motivation emerged from any of the many, separate surveys of specific “dark” activities. Indeed, some research respondents, when asked, denied interest in, “encounters with death” as a reason for visits, and named different ones, including, interests in history, heritage, education, and, for Australian and New Zealand tourists traveling to Gallipoli, national pride in viewing the site of Anzac, military coming-of-age during World War I. 29 Except in the case of Holocaust visits and battlefield tours, dark encounters were not always discrete, premeditated choices, but made as part of a multistop, package tour schedules. Thus, after a decade or more, research was no nearer to isolating generic motivations for dark travel, or producing a plausible profile of those who could be definitively hailed as, “the real Dark Tourists revealed.” 30 Dark tourism, it seemed, could not be segmentally profiled like other kinds of niche tourism. Moreover, some suppliers of dark tourism, including battlefield tour operators and cemetery managers, did not accept that the business they were in should be characterized as “dark.” Dark tourism thus appeared to be a transaction involving two groups of missing persons: the consumers and the suppliers. This was a problem that had never existed historically when dark encounters were incidental, and had yet to be viewed and named as a transactional market between consumers and suppliers.

Another problem in dark tourism’s discursive evolution was one from within its own academic ranks. This was about its “theoretical fragility,” a phrase that briefly became something of a mantra. 31 Was it anything but a magpie, a hybrid of ideas derived from other disciplinary areas and applied to an endless case of samples? Questions of disciplinary coherence and overlap were most directed at dark tourism’s relations to heritage studies, and its subaltern forms, “dissonant heritage” and “contested heritage,” first explored by John E. Tunbridge and Gregory J. Ashworth. 32 Tazim Jamal and Linda Lelo commented on its crossover features; “a dark tourist,” they noted, might equally be called a “heritage tourist” or a “secular pilgrim.” 33 Duncan Light appraised dark tourism’s relationship with heritage, calling it a “troubled” field. 34 A year later, a reference text, the Handbook of Dark Tourism Studies made explicit the links between the two in an edited section called, “Tourism and Heritage Landscapes” with coverage of atrocity sites, memorial sites, battlefields, and museums as common areas of interest. 35 In the same year, Glenn Hooper explored the dark tourism/heritage interface in an edited collection of international cases with an introductory chapter by heritage veterans Tunbridge and Ashworth. 36

There was no resolution to these internal debates. In retrospect they look like “turf wars” among academics arguing over disciplinary ownership and proprietary rights to comment on issues raised in dark tourism debate. The most pertinent observation, perhaps, about its existence as a distinct and legitimate field of inquiry was that within a decade work in the new field problematized issues and generated inquiries about the relationship between tourism, travel, and death that had never previously been recognized or addressed in any discipline.

And it went on doing so. Work in dark tourism expanded in the second decade of the twenty-first century in conferences, journals, and books which included four edited collections. 37 The subject also expanded in undergraduate and postgraduate programs internationally. Holocaust studies, the best funded in research terms, dominated the field in number of outputs in disciplinary publications. Other disasters and atrocities appeared in research agendas: the Chernobyl nuclear accident, 38 Rwanda genocide, 39 and Dallen Timothy produced a wide-ranging overview of dark tourism in the USA. 40 The novelty of its name and the focus on modern, mega-instances implicitly made dark tourism seem an ultracontemporary phenomenon; it is difficult to open any guidebook or travel memoir of the last two centuries that does not include the “dark” practices of grave visiting, memorial trips, battlefield tourism, and so forth.

Dark Tourism and the Politics of Remembrance

In the new millennium a number of geopolitical events and trends began to affect the status of dark tourism. The events included continuing conflicts following the break-up of Eastern Europe, particularly in the Crimea and the Ukraine; conflicts and instability in the Middle East; a second, Western invasion of Iraq; the aftermath of the “9/11 attacks” in America and the growth of world terrorism; and unprecedented movements of people as political refugees and economic migrants. The decade also coincided with several historical anniversaries: the start and finish of World War I and II and specific phases within them (the Battle of Britain, Stalingrad, Pearl Harbor, D-Day landings, etc.); the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917 ; and the 1916 uprising in Ireland. All of them were issues that came with historical baggage that stirred up feelings about the past, and triggered public debate, among groups inside and outside the countries involved, on what past events had been and how they should be commemorated, if at all. Conflicting versions of historical blame and praise multiplied and, owing to the growth of social media, minority views gained currency that might have gone unheard in predigital times.

The results were rising protests against narratives that were once unchallenged, and direct action at sites where they were commemorated. Monuments, statues, and memorials were vandalized or removed. In Iraq the pulling down of Saddam Hussein’s statue was orchestrated and filmed for international TV news to valorize the triumphant closure of a Western invasion that later created anarchy. Statues of former communist leaders were removed from public spaces in ex-Soviet bloc countries, but provoked protests in Lithuania, when bought by an entrepreneur to exhibit as theme park attractions. At Corpus Christi College, Oxford, students demanded the removal of a statue commemorating Cecil Rhodes, which for nearly a century had celebrated a British imperialist whose legacies funded scholarships at Oxford. In 2019 a Sino-Western war of words broke out at the removal and standardization of Muslim graves in Uyghur cemeteries in Xinjiang Province of China, criticized by Western observers as cultural erasure, and even genocide of a religious minority, which had inhabited the area for centuries.

In academia historians and social scientists had, for a decade, become increasingly interested in forms of ethnic, national, and sectional narratives of the past. The 1990s saw a spate of book-length studies on remembrance and the writing of history, 41 including a Companion to Historiography of almost 1,000 pages. 42 In the social sciences there was exponential growth, following Edward Said’s work on “Orientalism,” of postcolonial studies into the ways Western cultures had historically represented non-Western cultures as inferior, and not infrequently as transgressive kinds of “other.” 43 These developments, which have since become known issues in “the politics of identity and remembrance,” had direct implications for those working in heritage and dark tourism. Heritage discourse and management had previously been a rather genteel world where specialist curators in museums or galleries made aesthetic choices and professional judgments about what was installed and remembered. It increasingly became one fraught with political perils, which were increasingly discussed. 44 Remembrance had traditionally been a semisacred concept, meaning a state of private reflection on loss and bereavement; or, as metonymy for memorials and rituals commemorating national tragedies, as in, “Ceremonies of Remembrance” and “Gardens of Remembrance.” In the 2000s remembrance became a more contentious notion, weaponized by critics for interrogating the legitimacy of some commemorative displays, and the power structures authorizing them.

For dark tourism the questions provoked were fundamental. The protests and direct action at sites of remembrance called into question what dark tourism was or, to borrow Wittgenstein’s interrogative phrase, what “state of affairs” it represented; 45 and particularly whether it was about encounters with death. None of the protests at commemorative sites were encounters with death—which has and always will be an unknown abstraction—but physical tilts directed at physical installations: headstones, statues, monuments, memorial tablets, and ritual ceremonies. Was this not also true of dark tourism encounters? The praxis in dark tourism had, it transpired, never been encounters with death but with visits to sites created or marked as remembrance. Bringing it more in line with what was the real “state of affairs” surely meant abandoning “death” as the focal encounter, and accommodating material remembrance as the experiential goal. A revised definition, aimed to reflect these realities, was proposed that frames dark tourism as “encounters with the engineering and orchestration of remembrance of mortality or fatality” (where mortality was death from natural causes, while fatality was premature decease, in violent, nefarious, or spectacular circumstances). 46 The revised focus revealed a number of “states of affairs” that had not previously been obvious. There were four principal ones: First, that it is the living , not the dead , who have both the first and the last word in remembrance in the control they exert over the engineered choice, siting and orchestration of commemorative measures; and second, they also retain the power to change the nature of remembrance in the future. This power may be limited for family memorials with restricted audiences which are typically extant for only a few generations. Where commemoration is targeted at mass audiences for longer, indefinite periods by national bodies and great public or private corporations, it becomes significant social engineering. In democracies this is likely to involve the active or passive consent of several, or many, stakeholders likely to be exposed to, or affected by, what commemoration is being engineered, and how the orchestration is accomplished. Engineers of public remembrance may thus be called to account before, during, and after commemorative measures are put in place. Third, that the remembrance perspective affects the way the history of dark tourism is viewed. It makes it difficult to imagine it as a latter-day innovation concerned only with atrocity and disasters in modern times. It makes it coeval with the history of human communities on earth, since most known societies have engineered and orchestrated remembrance of the dead in big and small ways. The Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans all erected public monuments and left inscriptions for remembering and honoring religious figures, and inculcating homage to emperors, kings, and other potentates. They were installed in public places for exposure to local and regional populations as they went about their business and, to a lesser extent, to impress foreign visitors. Many people would have had encounters with them, but they would have mainly been incidental and unplanned, except in special circumstances where the memorial itself became the message, rather than the subject it celebrated, and attracted curious visitors in its own right. This was the case, according to enduring myth, with the Seven Wonders of the World. 47 Fourth, crucially, in academic terms, conceptualizing dark tourism as travel encounters with engineered remembrance, makes it a quintessential study area in the wider study of the “politics of remembrance.”

Dark Tourism as Praxis in History

Dark tourism, as travel tastes for visiting sites and spaces commemorating different kinds and intensities of mortality and fatality, only grew to be a generic tourism preoccupation in Britain and Europe in the late-eighteenth century and early nineteenth centuries. Before that for around 200 years, the dominant tourism form had been the Grand Tour, which accorded no particular importance to representations of death sui generis (see Verhoeven , this volume). 48 It was a European ritual tour, routed mainly through France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland for young aristocrats and the gentry. Lasting up to three years, its manifest purpose was as a crash course in classical antiquity, Christian history, and art viewed in galleries, churches, cathedrals and other public buildings. It was also often a form of social bonding and hedonistic indulgence among European elites ( Seaton 2019 ) 49

Representations of mortality and fatality were, in fact, abundant among Christian paintings, sculptures, and buildings viewed by Grand Tourists, but were viewed primarily as religious and artistic exhibits, rather than with any of the cultural relativism that underpins inspection through the prism of the “politics of remembrance.” The default stance of grand tourists was to regard their own cultural assumptions, religious and nationalistic, as normative and universalistic ones. The only sepulchral encounters they had with sites that were coded with less prescriptive cultural meanings were campo santo sites in Rome, Naples, and Pisa, which were mass burial sites for the poor, and ossuaries where the bones of the dead were displayed in catacomb as curiosities rather than homilies. 50 In Rome even catacombs could be viewed as religious shrines rather than macabre spectacles, since they had been early Christian meeting places, and some of their walls bore graffiti that could pass as sacred art. By contrast, dark tourism, as a widespread travel preoccupation with representations of death, was a product of changing material and ideological factors at work in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. Some involved reinvention and repurposing. Some were new.

Pilgrimage Renewed and Reinvented

Pilgrimage had been a long-standing tradition in Christendom of visiting sites at home and abroad associated with sacred figures (see Craig , this volume). Abroad meant Palestine, Jerusalem and the Holy Land, and for Catholics, it included Rome. There was also a network of British shrines to lesser Christian saints and martyrs, the most important being that of Thomas Becket (1120–1170) at Canterbury. During the Reformation, Protestant countries abolished pilgrimage as a Catholic superstition that was denounced by religious leaders and humanists, the most notable being Erasmus. It made a “dark” comeback in several ways. The first was during and after the Napoleonic Wars, when English visitors to France began to make excursions to Catholic churches and monasteries—previously seen as the devil’s abodes—to witness the mob destruction or vandalism of ecclesiastical property during the French Revolution. The prime site was Saint Denis, the Cathedral where French kings and queens had been buried. There artifacts and monuments, torn from churches and monasteries were put on display for visitors as a makeshift “museum.” The result appalled English tourists so that after nearly 300 years of demonization, Catholic clergy came to be seen as Christian comrades-in-arms, and victims of an anti-Christ who was no longer the Pope, but Napoleon. My enemy’s enemy had become my friend. Thomas Cook and Son revived pilgrimage to pre-Reformation destinations with tours to Rome, the Vatican, Palestine, and the Holy Land (see Barton , this volume). 51

In addition to these revivals, a new kind of secular pilgrimage grew up during the nineteenth century to places commemorating celebrities of nation and empire. In Britain the graves, memorial monuments and death sites of literary and artistic figures, particularly poets, 52 became shrines that coexisted alongside those for more official figures. In Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s, poets and novelists shared monuments and memorials with royal and ecclesiastical notables. Elsewhere in Britain, the last whereabouts and resting places of celebrities formed a growing dark tourism circuit which were widely publicized in travel memoirs, illustrated guidebooks, and magazine features by writers, some of whom specialized as paparazzi of the posthumous. One was William Howitt whose “Homes and Haunts of the British Poets” comprised essays on the geographical origins and deaths of thirty-six writers. 53 A dozen editions were sold over the next sixty years. He had previously published another much-reprinted book of dark tours in the North that included: celebrity memorials and burial places (St. Bede and Thomas Bewick, the celebrated wood engraver), battlefields (Culloden and Flodden), mining disasters, murders, executions, and apparitions. 54 A work that drew more explicit analogies between “pilgrimage” and dark tourism was by Mrs. Samuel Carter Hall, wife of the editor of the Art Journal who in 1850 published “Pilgrimages to English Shrines.” It was successful enough for her to bring out a sequel two years later which included an authorial aside, hinting at the pleasurable schadenfreude that lurks in certain kinds of dark tourism encounter: “Pilgrimages! what is life but a pilgrimage over graves! The older we grow, the better we comprehend the force of this sad truth; life is indeed a ‘pilgrimage over graves;’ but how different are the ideas and emotions they suggest or excite.” 55 The two volumes included chapters on tombs, death sites and memorials to writers and artists, among them: Christopher Wren, Thomas Flaxman, Thomas Gray, and William Hogarth, with additional chapters on the execution of Lady Jane Grey, and the plague village of Eyam whose residents quarantined themselves to likely death in order not to spread the disease.

A related influence on dark tourism was antiquarianism. Like pilgrimage, this was nothing new. It was a legacy of the Renaissance revival of interest in classical antiquity among educated European elites in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in part politically and patriotically generated by the growth of new nation-states and dynasties such as the Tudors, when rulers and ruled joined forces in discovering evidence of ancient, cultural traditions. This involved enthusiastic searches for written texts, artifacts, and sites of architectural and archaeological significance involving quests to libraries, burial grounds, ruins, and ancient ecclesiastical foundations where they pored over old documents, memorial tablets, tomb inscriptions, and other sepulchral survivals.

Antiquarians increased throughout the seventeenth century, leading to the foundation of the Society of Antiquaries in 1717–1718. 56 Its members were periodically satirized as eccentric old men, shut off from real life by their fixation with musty books, moldering remains, and fragments of broken artifacts. Nonetheless, the antiquarian mindset increased among educated travelers across Europe, particularly after the discovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum in the 1740s, where excavations captivated generations of tourists in Italy. 57 In Britain, antiquarianism became a gentlemanly hobby, often among clerics discovering local history in their parish travels. It resulted in the publication of substantial town and county histories, as well as briefer guidebook information for visitors to individual churches. Antiquarianism, in conjunction with archaeology, led to a desire for take-home mementos, which tempted visitors to chip off fragments from sites at home and abroad. 58

The Dark Appeals of Romanticism

More powerful than pilgrimage or antiquarianism in its impact on dark tourism was that of romanticism, a complex cultural phenomenon characterized as, “a heterogeneous mixture of philosophic, aesthetic, religious and emotional concepts.” 59 It colonized middle-class aesthetic tastes throughout the nineteenth century, providing escapes from the prosaic or oppressive realities of industrialization and urbanization at home, to the imagined worlds of other places and other times in literature, music, and art. Tourism gave physical reality to some of these longed-for romantic contrasts: in landscape tastes (picturesque scenery in Italy, the Lake District, and Wales); among traditional, rural populations (peasant communities in regional dress in Brittany and Scotland); through exposure to traditional myths and folklore in books with titles such as Legends of the Rhine and Border Ballads of Scotland; 60 in attending regional festivals of song and dance; and in brief retreats from the modernity of railway conveyance to retro-travel forms (jaunting-carts in Ireland, camel rides during Holy Land tours, and pony trekking through Iceland, a land with few roads and no railways). 61

Dark tourism offered two of the most powerful forms of escape into romantic otherness. The first was the world of the past and the second was vicarious experience of death, the most feared and mysterious of all “others.” The past was where the dead had lived and died, and there were special places where their presence lingered. Reflections on death, once devotional practices at home, became recreational trips further afield: in visiting celebrity memorials, battle fields, and in enjoying the more frivolous pleasures of ghost trains, haunted houses, and other fairground attractions.

These dark tastes and recreations were critically affected by sociological factors arising from population change and revolutionary developments in the production and consumption of printed words and images from the late-eighteenth century onwards. Printing moved from being a hand-powered craft that had hardly changed in the 300 years since Caxton, to a modern, machine production technology, capable of producing thousands, rather than hundreds, of copies per day of newspapers, magazines, and cheap books. Costs fell, allowing more people to buy them, and literacy grew. The result was an expanding audience for reading of all kinds. It was most potent among the middle classes, but it was also observable among sections of laboring populations where the growing take-up of cheap reading was satirized in the 1830s as the “March of Intellect.” 62 The net effect was that new ideas circulated more quickly than ever before. Without the printed word the concepts and activities, later recognized as romantic, including those that primed dark tourism, would never have taken hold.

Two key ideas that permeated the landscapes and dreamscapes of romanticism were the Gothic and sublime. The Gothic was an aesthetic categorization, variously applied in judgments of architecture, ecclesiastical decoration, and literature from c. 1740 and throughout the nineteenth century, that implicitly drew a binary contrast between the rule-governed styles of classical cultures and the more unruly, plenitude of vernacular ones. In architecture and art the Gothic Revival meant a crusading preference for indigenous Anglo-Saxon styles found, it was claimed, in medieval, Christian church buildings of England, France, and Germany, with their soaring heights, pointed arches, and abundant decorative effects, in opposition to the geometric restraint and laws of classical and Palladian styles from Greece and Italy. Its proponents included Augustus Pugin, John Ruskin, Walter Scott, and less well-known, but important opinion-formers in publishing and graphic reproduction. One was the prolific engraver, John Britton, who published many, finely illustrated viewbooks depicting Gothic buildings at home and abroad; and John Parker, the Oxford religious publisher who specialized in gothic ecclesiastical design. 63 All extended the province of dark tourism.

Of equal impact to dark tourism was Gothic literature, which first emerged in the mid-eighteenth century in the sepulchral travelogues of a literary group who became known as “graveyard” writers. Three of the most successful were Edward Young, with his poem “Night Thoughts” (1749); Robert Blair with his poem, “The Grave” (1743); and in 1746, James Hervey, with a prose work called “Meditations among the Tombs.” The themes they explored—the brevity of life, the inevitability of death, the need to reflect and prepare for eternity—were conventional, thanatoptic ones, common in memento mori and ars moriendi texts going back to the Middle Ages. The difference was that previously “the grave” had been symbolic shorthand for death; in the work of Young, Blair, and Hervey it was also physical location, described at length or imagined in visceral detail as a visitor attraction. Hervey’s book had been inspired by a tour of Cornwall when he had stopped off at a village church in Kilkhampton, Devon, to read epitaphs in the churchyard and memorial tablets within the church. None of these works, however, came close to the crowning achievement of graveyard travelogues by Thomas Gray with his Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard. 64 Published in the 1750, it remains the best-known poem of the eighteenth century and one which has given country churchyards an iconic place in English culture and dark tourism. 65 The precincts of Stoke Poges Church in Buckinghamshire, which is believed to have inspired it, has a large, stone memorial to Gray and his work, and his grave is close to the church entrance. All four works were forerunners of what has been described as, “the therapeutically melancholic side of Romanticism.” 66 William Blake, the most Gothic of all English artists, later illustrated editions of all three works, and William Wordsworth took time off from poetry for writing prose essays on epitaphs and memorials. 67

An even more influential form than graveyard travelogues in dark tourism creation was the Gothic novel. It was a genre of horror and sensation that has been called “literary terrorism,” which was first introduced in Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764) and followed by Anna Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) , and then by a torrent of works that were to fill a bibliography by Montague Summers that was over five hundred pages long. 68 Their plots were characteristically set abroad in Catholic countries, especially Italy, where superstition and transgression reigned in castles, monasteries, and haunted houses, freely equipped with locked rooms, secret cabinets, dungeons, and supernatural apparitions. The villains were evil monks, depraved noblemen and wicked guardians, who preyed on innocent orphans and helpless women relatives. Gothic novels enjoyed a runaway success between 1760 and the 1830s, particularly among women readers, a trend satirized in Jane Austen’s novel, Northanger Abbey published in 1818. It then declined, but morphed into mystery novels with more domestic, contemporary settings by Sheridan Le Fanu, Edgar Alan Poe, and Wilkie Collins. The Gothic played an important part in influencing the perceptions of place that tourists took with them on their travels at home and abroad. It can be found in the attraction of visiting ancient castles, ruined monasteries, haunted houses, and locations with pronounced—which means “promoted”—atmospherics of gloom, decay, and the uncanny. 69 Historians too affected Gothic travel perceptions in offering a Lapsarian view of the world which emphasized the destructive effects of time and change on places and people. In England Edward Gibbon’s work, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–1787), became a bestselling sensation. Inspiration for it came when he wandered as a tourist among the ruins of ancient Rome, and then spent more than ten years writing a six-volume work trying to account for how they were all that was left of an empire that had ruled Europe for 600 years. In France, almost coincidentally, Constantin Volney published The Ruins of Empire , 70 a philosophical work which also made the ravages of time, change, and death an underlying leitmotif. Both works were translated and inculcated a mindset among educated, European tourists who made it de rigeur to view landscapes that evoked melancholic reflections on death and oblivion, while enjoying the pleasant, recreational Schadenfreude of knowing that they had not yet become victims, and would soon be returning safe from their excursions to hotel or pensione for a well-earned meal. The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley encapsulated this dark tourism mindset in his sonnet, “Ozymandias,” which describes the metaphorical tears he shed in stumbling upon the bust and remains of a once-great monarch of all that he surveyed, abandoned and half-hidden in the sand. 71

Romanticism and the Gothic incorporated a related ideology that became inscribed in dark tourism praxis. It was that of the sublime, a classical concept given new life by Edmund Burke in a slim volume first printed in 1757. 72 It was a treatise on aesthetics that proposed a simple idea—that aesthetic pleasure was not necessarily tranquil contemplation of beauty in art or life; it could also be found in disturbing natural or man-made phenomena that provoked fear, particularly if they were indistinct or partly obscured (e.g., in mist, semidarkness, or storm clouds). Sublime thrills became desiderata of the dark tourist gaze, in which delight competed with shock and awe in exposure to violence in nature (volcanoes, great waterfalls, storms at sea, etc.); displays of massed human power (scenes of destruction, and orchestrated, military parades); and supernatural narratives. All these ideas account for a long-standing paradox: that what is apparently “seen” with the eye is actually the preconditioned mind encountering and recognizing the cultural coding invested in sights and sites. It is antecedent conditioning which turns spaces into places, and “stuff happening” into significant form and occasion.

Cemeteries and the Transformations of Internment

Dark tourism tastes were not just down to new ideas processed by imagination. There were more visceral factors which affected the repertoires of dark tourism which resonated physically in Britain and Europe. A macabre one in rapidly growing cities was how and where to bury the dead—and keep them buried. Until the mid-eighteenth-century graveyards were plain affairs with burial sites marked, if at all, with a simple, wooden memorial board, featuring a name and, occasionally, an emblematic sign: a cross or a death’s head carving. Only the gentry had more durable memorials, on brass or marble tablets inside churches on walls or floors, and in full body effigies and head-and-shoulder busts arranged around the sides. Church yards and public burial grounds were less sacrosanct and more plebeian and were sometimes used for mundane, or even profane, activities. Booksellers and market stalls flourished round St Paul’s Cathedral in London. Hogarth depicted gambling taking place in a London church yard; and the artist, Thomas Rowlandson, drew burlesque cartoons of sexual activity on “table-top” tombs.

As populations in towns and cities increased, the situation changed. Spaces for burying the dead began to run out. To cope public authorities stacked bodies closer and higher together, in multiplying tiers, under thinner and thinner coverings of soil, so that burials per acre increased exponentially. The result was that in populous areas graveyards became a health hazard for those living near, as the earth gave up its dead and bodies decomposed near the surface of graves, or actually floated free of them in wet weather. The dangers were revealed in a sensational book by a London surgeon in 1839, 73 and a government report which detailed the “dangerous and fatal results produced by the unwise and revolting custom of inhuming the dead in the midst of the living.” 74 It showed that in some parts of London, the density of corpse distribution was over a thousand per acre. It was followed by a supplementary Parliamentary Report, written by Edwin Chadwick, which statistically analyzed the scale of the health hazards between 1830 and 1840, and looked at practices in Europe for dealing with them. 75

The solution was the garden cemetery, located out-of-town, away from populations and, ideally, in elevated settings swept by fresh, clean air. First adopted in Sweden, they spread through other European countries, including Père Lachaise in Paris in 1804, and in Liverpool and Glasgow in the late 1820s and 1830s. 76 By the time Chadwick’s survey was published the cemetery movement was underway in London with cemeteries opening in Highgate, Nunhead, Brompton, West Norwood, Tower Hamlets, Kensal Green, and Abney Park. They followed functional and aesthetic features proposed by George Alfred Walker and Chadwick. They were also influenced J. C. Loudon’s pioneering work “On the Laying Out, Planting, and Managing of Cemeteries and on the Improvement of Churchyards,” which became a classic work on sepulchral design. 77

James Curl has written extensively on the architecture and aesthetics of cemeteries and internment nationally 78 and regionally in the United Kingdom (Curl 1977, 1980 , 1981 , 2001 ). 79 The look and character of cemeteries was also improved by the coming of the railways which made easier and cheaper the transportation of monumental stone, thus putting memorials and headstones within the reach and budgets of people previously restricted to local materials or none at all. Rail also shaped the most macabre of all cemeteries: Brookwood in Surrey, which was built to take the overflow of corpses from London and had its own station for receiving them on a single ticket running direct from Waterloo to their final destination. The aesthetics of internment brought about by the garden cemetery revolution was one of the unanticipated consequences of history. Conceived for health reasons as secure resting places for the dead, they evolved as recreational spaces for the living, designed to be within easy reach of visitors, offering picturesque layout and planting and, as time went on, by the architectural variety of their monuments. Guidebooks to all the main London cemeteries were produced that promoted their funerary functionality, but also their picturesque and elegiac effects for dark tourists. Today more than 400 cemeteries belong to the Association of Significant Cemeteries in Europe, founded two decades ago, to promote them as visitor attractions (Felicori and Zanotti 2004; Seaton 2015 ). 80

Another unintended consequence of the cemetery movement was to add a new pastime to the repertoire of middle-class touring, epitaph collecting. Monumental inscriptions had always been prized by antiquarians studying Greek and Roman culture during the Renaissance and later as primary sources of national and local history. On James Harvey’s grave was inscribed a commendation on the value of epitaphs as history and religious lessons in stone:

What biography is to history, an epitaph is to biography. It is a sketch which marks the great outlines of character and excites curiosity to view the portraits as painted on the pages of history. It is likewise an epitome which teaches us … that time is on the wing,—that every rank and age must fall prey to his depredations … (and) that religion is the only defence against the horrors of death, and the only guide to the joys of eternity. 81

This high-minded view was not always apparent in the epitaph literature that flourished in the nineteenth century. By the 1880s, a bibliography listed more than a hundred separate works with titles suggesting that entertainment as much as improvement was the main attraction. Viewing them promised lively titillation as they were named as: ludicrous, merry, queer, panegyrical, satirical, humorous, whimsical, curious, quaint, monkish, and not to be found in any other collection . 82 Epitaphs were also organized by geographic categories: by continents and subcontinents (America, India, Bengal, and Madras); by country (West Indies, France, and Scotland); by towns and cities (London, Westminster, Rome, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Canterbury, and Winchester); and there were compilations of those in single, country churchyards (Cockermouth, Charlton King, and Framlingham). Magazines and journals also featured epitaphs, suggesting their broad and diverse appeals. They appeared in specialist antiquarian and archaeological publications, in the transactions of local history societies, and in general interest magazines with a popular readership including Chambers’s Journal , Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine , Temple Bar, and Household Words (Charles Dickens’s monthly). There were also entries in encyclopedias, including the Encyclopaedia Britannica , and a society dedicated to sepulchral remembrance, The Society for Preserving Memorials of the Dead, published its own magazine between 1883 and 1885. 83

In the USA sepulchral travel and garden cemetery development more than kept pace with European fashions. Internment space was initially abundant and burials were not confined, as in Europe, to demarcated, walled-off, graveyards. This changed as the density of burials per acre increased in settler towns, along with the problems of maintaining graves that became neglected over time. Mount Auburn, the first garden cemetery, was consecrated in 1831 in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Green-Wood in Brooklyn, New York was opened in 1842. Both published illustrated, coffee table guidebooks, 84 and American cemeteries evolved as picturesque developments, competing for public attention by position, plantations, monumental variety, and history. In the 1880s two hundred copies of the first book-length, sepulchral bibliography in the world was published. 85

The cumulative impact of these developments was to foster a sepulchral mindset that particularly affected educated, middle-class touring behavior and generated guidebook recommendations for excursions that included: trips by candlelight round ruined monasteries and monk’s graveyards at Tintern Abbey and other locations in England; midnight descents into catacombs and ossuaries in Europe, accompanied by servants with burning torches; trips round royal and ecclesiastical memorials in Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s, and great religious sites in Europe; exploration of Campo Santos in Italy; visits to the Paris Morgue to gaze at corpses, found dead in the streets or fished up from the Seine; 86 and reverential reflection at the graveside of dead poets and writers wherever they could be found. 87 It also included taking in the fields of Waterloo, the first European battlefield to become a mass tourism site. This involved an all-day drive out from Brussels to view the immense “lion” monument, buy a guidebook written by Edward Cotton, an old soldier turned on-site gift shop and museum entrepreneur, and returning home with battle souvenirs (buttons, badges, and bullets from the battlefield, some of them manufactured, it was said, in Birmingham to meet demand); and folios of Gerard’s lithographs of the principal skirmishing points, memorials and mausolea, none of which featured the French. 88

Governance and Remembrance: The Urban Wallpaper of Mortality and Fatality

A new and less obvious influence on dark tourism generation in Britain during the later nineteenth century was the Victorian state, and the forms of engineered and orchestrated remembrance of mortality and fatality it promoted. These had been inscribed in Britain’s judicial system since medieval times, in the practice of publicly executing and punishing criminals in front of sightseeing crowds, and then distributing their body parts at crossroads, along highways, and on bridges as a warning of the long reach of the law for enemies of the state. 89 In Queen Victoria’s reign these brutal, outdoor displays were terminated by Parliament, but streets and public spaces were retained and progressively reconfigured as different aides memoires about the might and majesty of the Victorian empire. Three initiatives were to affect dark tourism exposure: the state funeral, the progressive expansion of memorial statuary, and blue plaque signage.

Royal funerals had always been ceremonial occasions of “pageants and power,” 90 but until the early nineteenth century they were conducted semi-privately with less overt street-level orchestration. The two earliest to approach the status of national occasions were Nelson’s funeral in 1805 and fifteen years later, that of George III, which drew large crowds on to the streets, with the tolling of church bells, and memorial sermons in London churches and across the provinces. 91

The number and scale of state funerals in Victorian England increased and were extended to nonroyal, national, and imperial celebrities. Their impact was first seen at the funeral of the Duke of Wellington in 1852. He had died on September 14, but agreement between the Crown, the Government, and Parliament on the details of the ceremony took two months, and the funeral did not take place until November 15. It was an unprecedented PR success and tourism bonanza, filling lodging houses and hotels in the metropolis before, during, and after the event. It started with a week during which Wellington’s body lay in state for visitors to pay their respects. A quarter of a million people filed past his coffin. The day itself brought more than a million sightseers on to the streets to watch a processional cortege that took two hours to pass by. They came from all over London. There were also invited VIPs from the provinces: mayors, provosts, and chairs of municipalities and county councils, representatives from religious groups, and from the universities. Also lining the route were thousands of day trippers from across England, who had bought cheap excursion tickets that the railways had refused to allow until the 1850s. It has been estimated that the funeral was watched by half of London and 5 percent of all the people of Great Britain. 92 In towns and cities across the country shops and businesses closed for the day, and people joined the party by proxy, as spectators or participants of memorial services held in provincial churches and cathedrals. The week after another 100,000 visited St Paul’s to see where the great event had taken place. State funerals for non-royal figures later included William Gladstone, David Livingstone, and Major General Charles Gordon of Khartoum. 93 The climactic one of the era was Queen Victoria’s own funeral in 1901, the epic scale of which, as imperial theater and civil religion, can still be witnessed in its processional, gun-carriaged, street-thronged splendor, as the first royal funeral to be filmed and widely photographed. Great royal funerals were necessarily in short supply, and even when royal marriages and jubilees were added to the roll call of national rejoicing, great open-air occasions were still infrequent. However, during the latter half of the century and into the next, two more ubiquitous kinds of street commemoration advanced in London and cities throughout the Empire. The first was the spread of public statues to political, cultural, and military heroes. In 1844 there were only 22 statues; by 1867 there were 41; by 1920, 215; by 1928, 350. In 1981 there were 370 on the outside of Parliament alone, and other government buildings had many more. 94

The second was the development of “blue plaque” signage on London houses and buildings of historic interest, recording, among other things, where national celebrities had lived and died. Until 1900 there were only thirty-four, but in 1901 the new Greater London Council took over responsibility for them, and by 1935 had published five volumes of additions to the stock. 95 Each building was inventoried: by original owner, private, or institutional; by address; and by sponsoring agency when not the Council. Blue plaque signage was official exploitation of the already established tourism fashion for visiting places where the famous had worked and died. The result was that in London, statues, blue plaque sites and memorials, all sited for maximum impact and exposure, surrounded native Londoners and still do so for the 20 million visitors who arrive annually in the metropolis, to wander the streets, or sit out in London’s parks and public gardens.

In addition to these Victorian initiatives, two world wars in the twentieth century have produced an international array of British war memorials, the most numerous being the 1,400 or more in France and Belgium as part of the Imperial, later the Commonwealth, War Graves Commission. 96 Others exist in churchyards, village greens, and on buildings and city walls, throughout Britain.

These official investments in historical remembrance, and other more tourist-oriented animations of Britain’s past, have provoked criticism. Robert Hewison viewed the British “heritage industry” as nostalgic excess, 97 and Patrick Wight saw the presented culture of Britain as fixation with, “living in an old country.” 98 But they miss the point. Irrespective of tourism generation, remembrance of national mortality and fatality have evolved as essential features of governance and state craft across the developed world. They mold historical identity of a country and its people by providing exemplary, or cautionary, role models, to follow or reject, as personification of national values. But no version of remembrance is ever final closure. Historical memory of individuals and events changes according to when they were written and, crucially, by those who control remembrance policies and the resources to implement them. The VE Day celebrations in Western Europe in 2020 provided a suggestive instance of the moving politics of commemoration. Russia was an ally of Britain and America in the victory over Germany, and the Red Army were mythologized at the time as iconic comrades, with a government-backed campaign in the United States and United Kingdom. Russia’s losses to the Nazis amounted to 27 million fatalities. Yet seventy-five years later Russia was written out of official VE celebration agendas in Europe, a “state of affairs” that supports the observations made earlier, that it is the living who engineer and orchestrate remembrance, or silence it.

Although governments and large corporate interests may shape the form and location of commemorative sites of mortality and fatality, their impact as dark tourism may be limited. In London few visitors come specially to view statues or houses, except in rare cases such as the Albert Memorial or Nelson’s Column. More commonly they may register with visitors, if at all, as fleeting, pass-by encounters, that some may stop briefly to read, and, in the case of a blue plaque house, visit when open to the public. This question of impact is crucial. Dark tourism involves a spectrum of different events and locations, ranging from individual street memorials to a few mega-events that dominate media and academic agendas (e.g., Holocaust and other disaster sites). All share a generic identity as engineered and orchestrated remembrance of fatality and mortality, but the volume and quality of the encounters they represent may vary profoundly. Is, for example, being briefly exposed to a blue plaque sign a dark tourism encounter? How long must site contact last “to count” as a significant encounter? How intentional must an encounter be to be authentic? These are difficult questions yet to be answered.

The case history that follows exemplifies some of these issues raised and the ways in which remembrance of fatality and mortality may evolve and change over time. Its subject is one that has received little attention in dark tourism research, that of occupational fatality and community displacement in industrial development. This has not just been about technological change in the production of goods, it also involved new transport networks accompanied by disruptive physical transformation. Canal and railway building required land appropriation, demolition of residential areas, mainly among the urban poor, and often human fatalities in the construction and operation of new transit forms. The case focuses on dam building and urban water supply, and the spectacular obliteration of communities accompanying them, seen on an epic scale in Wales in the 1880s and later internationally. It is the story of the flooding of community spaces and the creation of, perhaps, the most bizarre of all remembered dark tourism sites, the sunken village under the water.

Case Study: Dark Tourism and Remembrance: Vyrnwy, Llanwddyn, and Whalley Bridge 1888–2020

In the summer of 2019 a disaster threatened Whalley Bridge, a small town in Derbyshire, UK. After weeks of unprecedented rainfall, a nearby dam wall threatened to collapse and flood the town below. Residents were evacuated and the nation looked on as engineers fought to prevent the disaster. After six weeks they were successful and evacuees began to return to their homes, only to encounter a new inundation, not of water, but tourists, including “busloads of Chinese” arriving to view the disaster scene that never was. The press, hearing of the tourism revenues among local shopkeepers, hailed a unique situation with the headline: “Disaster tourism arrives in Whaley Bridge after dam incident.” 99 In fact, it was not such a tourism novelty. While Whalley’s fate hung in the balance a rarely seen photographic record had come to light of a dam flooding in rural Wales, more than 130 years before. Llanwddyn was a village of 450 inhabitants in the River Vyrnwy valley, sixty miles from Liverpool, an English industrial city with a population that had more than quadrupled in 50 years. The city’s growth had created recurrent crises in water supply and, after running out of suitable, local options, the Municipal Council identified Llanwddyn as the site for a new reservoir, and sought Parliamentary permission to build a dam, flood the village, and create a lake there. In 1881 an Act was passed allowing development.

Despite local opposition work began on the dam foundations in October 1882. For the next five years a work force of one thousand stone masons and laborers worked on the construction. Forty of them lost their lives in the process. Once the dam was completed the flooding began submerging a church, two chapels, four pubs and around 100 houses. In mitigation of the community catastrophe, the Liverpool Council re-housed residents in a new settlement near the created lake, built a new church on a hillside above it and, nearby a sloping burial ground to which they transferred the bodies and gravestones from the old churchyard. 100

A Council concern throughout the project was the management of public relations in engineering and orchestrating remembrance of the dam development for posterity. Official details of the choice of location, geographical features, costs and engineering features were recorded and publicized. The development was promoted as the first, all-masonry dam in Britain, and the artificial reservoir as the largest in Europe. These details made news in specialist publications and attracted technical sightseers to the Vyrnwy site, during and after the construction. 101

As the development progressed engineered remembrance of the construction was cast more durably in iron, memorial tablets, struck successively to mark three phases of the project: the laying of the foundation stone in 1881; the official Parliamentary conclusion, unveiled by the Prince of Wales in 1910; and changes made between 1933 and 1938. The tablets were sited and mounted at the entrance to the bridge across the dam top, so all visitors had to pass them in crossing on to, or off, the bridge. However, the most powerful form of engineered remembrance, and one that was to establish Vyrnwy’s tourism identity for a century or more, was not textual, but architectural. It was the building of a sporting lodge-cum-hotel above the dam with spectacular views down the lake, and a twelve-mile path around it planted with tree cover. For a century the area became a noted sporting resort for hunting, shooting, and fishing. In 1992 an illustrated hotel history was published. The first chapter described the creation of Vyrnwy as “one of the greatest feats of engineering in the Victorian era,” but the main content was of shooting and fishing records, grand social occasions, and fine dining. 102 The flooding and fatalities in construction received brief mention but the numbers of the dead, it was said, were about the norm for workers killed in comparable industrial projects at the time. There was no mention of resident feelings or opposition to displacement at the unprecedented sinking of a whole village which survive in the disparate evidence of oral tradition and regional news accounts to this day. 103 These can also be sensed in the unexpected reappearance after a century of a large, leather-bound, photographic album, produced by the Liverpool Council for their records, but never widely exhibited. It is in two parts and comprises 21 full-page, before-and-after photographs of the dam construction which lends weight to Lennon’s recent notes on the resonance of photographic imaging in dark tourism generation. 104 Part one depicts the titanic scale of the project: the cavernous excavations, the earth moving-machines (Figure 1 ) and the rise of the dam towering seventy-five feet above the disappeared village, and the pygmy figures of workers among it all (Figure 2 ).

Dam Construction 1.

Dam Construction 2.

Part two offers an elegiac, slower movement to this percussive spectacle. It shows two images of Llanwddyn on a summer afternoon before the flood: a tiny village street, an ancient church, an old-fashioned general store, brothers and sisters holding the hand of little ones (Figure 3 ); and women gossiping at a garden gate, a hen pecking its way through dust, and villagers in working clothes staring, unsmiling, at the camera (Figure 4 ).

Llanwddyn before.

Llanwddyn to be submerged.

For the modern viewer the juxtaposed photographs act as allegorical emblems of a dark effacement, that of a traditional way-of-life buried under the juggernaut of industrial advance. It is remembrance that resonates with walkers who leave the path around Lake Vyrnwy and climb to the church and the memorials in the graveyard on the hill where a hundred exhumed bodies from the flooded churchyard were carried in carts, and reburied, by local people who had lived in the houses that were lost. Similar images exist of demolition during early Victorian railway building but, as lithographic prints, they cast a softer, more picturesque halo over devastation compared with the starker realism of photography that came later. 105

Vyrnwy and Whalley Bridge represent chapters in dark tourism created by flooding in dam and reservoir building that was to be repeated in Britain at: Mardale in Cumbria (1935), 106 Ashopton in Derbyshire (1943), 107 and in the 1960s at Capel Celyn in Wales, less than two hours away from Llanwddyn. 108 All became causes célèbres in which local communities clashed with governmental authorities invoking the primacy of the public good over claims of minority rights. Internationally sunken villages multiplied throughout the twentieth century, becoming collateral damage as mega-water projects proliferated across continents. In the new millennium they have begun to attract website coverage from bloggers, planners, and regional tourism promoters. In 2014 an urban heritage posting hailed the gothic appeal of, “Underwater Ghost Cities & Buildings.” 109 A year later they were identified as a network of generic tourism attractions under the headline, “10 Drowned Towns You Can Visit.” 110 The ten included Villa Epecuén in Argentina which had been an elite resort for the rich and famous since the 1920s, but was submerged when a dam broke in 1985; 111 Shi Cheng, flooded in 1959 to become “China’s ‘Atlantis in the East’” with monuments below the waves going back to 1777; 112 as well as Potosi in Venezuela; 113 and Port Royal in Jamaica. 114 In the United States there were more than sixty locations “flooded by the creation of dams, destroyed by the advancing sea, or washed away in floods and never rebuilt.” They stretched from California to Maryland and New York. 115 Canada became part of this network of nemesis by water with a posting of ten communities submerged in the construction of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. 116 The global spread is so great it has been suggested as an air tour opportunity. 117

The fascination of sunken villages as dark tourism sites—what Bess Lovejoy terms their “mental floss”—rests in their appeals to the mind and imagination. 118 At the outset this lies in their prospective power to obliterate and transform place and community by flood. Once constructed it is the nightmare possibility of technological failure causing dams to break, bridges to collapse, and in modern times, nuclear catastrophe to inundate power stations; all of them, visions of mega-death by water.

Death by water on a grand scale also holds unique, mythic terrors evoking memories of biblical and classical catastrophe of Noah’s Ark, Atlantis, Santorini, 119 and other flood myths in world religions, explored in the anthropology of Sir James Frazer. 120 Sunken villages also represent a variation of the aesthetic Rose Macaulay: once called “the pleasure of ruins,” 121 a gothic disposition that is turbo-charged under water as townscapes mutate into submerged wastelands of “mildewed crosses, lonely spires, barely-visible stone foundations, and rusting bed frames.” 122 More than any kind of dark tourism, sunken villages come closest to delivering encounters with the uncanny in its most quintessential guise, as haunted landscapes of spectral reappearance and the returning undead. This revenant fantasy seems close to reality during hot summers when the waters of lakes and reservoirs shrink and what once was, reappears as what is. Such special effects happen intermittently at a number of sunken villages. At Vilarinho Da Furnas, flooded by the Portuguese Electricity Company, part of the village reappears in autumn and winter, and there is a nearby museum to tell the story. 123 At Kalyazin, in Russia, church steeples rise above the waves and bells, lost below the water, are rumored to ring out again. 124 In St. Thomas, Nevada, certain buildings remained visible which now include houses, a square, and a cemetery. 125 In Flagstaff, Arizona, a historical society archives and exhibits memorials to the sinking in 1949. 126

Llandwddyn’s first reappearance was in 1933, the year the Loch Ness Monster made news. Today visitors to Lake Vyrnwy do not have to wait for hot summers for the revenant experience. It can be imagined in viewing the engine house at the edge of the lake, which was built to look like a medieval, Bavarian tower. It is there all the year round and on a grey day, seen through enveloping mist, it resembles the spectral castle in Grimm’s Norse Mythology that sank under the waters. A photograph of the view is on sale at the hotel.

Dark Tourism History: Making the Dead Work for the Living

Encounters with forms of “engineered and orchestrated remembrance”—seen here as the defining features of dark tourism—have existed throughout history, and are ones that everyone has incidentally engaged in from time to time. The sepulchral features they comprise only became a prime consideration set in traveling and recreational tastes and practices in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This was because of social and ideological factors which included: the aftermath of pilgrimage, the growth of antiquarian tastes, and the many, revolutionary effects of Romanticism—particularly the discursive coding of landscape as travel spectacle with sublime and gothic, as well as picturesque, features. Romanticism and cemetery development also valorized the celebration and acting out of elegiac displays of sentiment at memorials and grave sides, encouraged in guidebooks, which became part of an aestheticized cult of “beautiful death” for which the Victorians became famous. 127 The recency of dark tourism as a named recreational form is why there have been, and continue to be, academic debates over its meaning, temporal origins (traditional, modern, or postmodern?), and its position in relation to other disciplines and travel concepts (heritage studies, human geography, the history of pilgrimage, etc.). A less-parochial issue is where its history is leading. In the past dark tourism has been mainly situated and studied as an agenda in the private sphere: the world of lifestyle, personal taste, and recreational choice. This may be changing. In the new millennium there are winds of ideological change, drawing it into a more public and controversial arena, that of “the politics of commemoration,” 128 a movement that began in academia in the 1990s as critical, postcolonial history, and has since gone viral in news agendas internationally. It has stimulated organized protests involving direct action at sites commemorating colonial figures and events through demonstrations, vandalism of memorials, and attempts to remove statues. Dark tourism has been, and will be, unavoidably affected, since its central activity is travel to view engineered and orchestrated remembrance that includes many such sites.” 129

The consequences may be two-fold. One is mounting threats to specific sites that may require protection, a contingency the English Parliament recognized in February 2021 in preparing a law making the taking down of monuments illegal without planning permission. The second may be the growth of a more informed, dark tourist, whose gaze is turned on those commemorated, but equally directed to the pragmatics of commemorative choices: who is commemorated and who might have been, but is not, and the features of their memorials (forms, events, number, siting, scale, etc.).

The sunken village material represents continuing research that dramatizes issues about the evolution of “engineered and orchestrated remembrance” as dark tourism’s “trademark” feature. Unlike death and the dead, previously assumed to be the visitor encounters in dark tourism, remembrance has no closure. It is always susceptible to change by the living. Over time remembrance of Llanwddyn went from being a traditional, rural village with a history published by the local vicar a decade before to obliteration and metamorphosis as a dam development. 130 It was then commemorated at different times as a necessity in regional water supply; a monument to British engineering; an elite sporting lodge and luxury hotel; and an intermittent, dark tourism phenomenon. The rediscovery of the photographic album offers a striking discursive text to add to those in circulation as supporting this emerging interest in sunken locations.

The case illustrates how what people and events are remembered at commemorative sites over time, reflect the interests, power, and resources of the living. It is they who metaphorically ventriloquize the form and content of memorial messages, through which the dead seem to speak. Sunken villages are new as collective, dark tourism locations. They may, however, be seen as a subset of a larger and neglected domain of spaces in the “politics of commemoration,” that of industrial devastation and fatality which for two centuries has included mining disasters, losses at sea, toxic factory conditions, transport accidents, and catastrophes of industrial pollution affecting human communities and natural habitats. These and associated effects of climate change, may in the future become more explicit agendas in dark tourism visits, not just as sights to see, but as lessons that stimulate reflection and engagement.

Further Reading

Curl, James Stevens.   The Victorian Celebration of Death . Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1980 .

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Curl, James Stevens.   A Celebration of Death . London: Batsford, 1981 .

Dann, Graham. M. S. , and Seaton, A. V. ( 2001 ): Slavery, Contested Heritage and Thanatourism . New York: Haworth Hospitality Press.

Hooper, G. , and J. J. Lennon . Dark Tourism: Practice and Interpretation . Aldershot: Ashgate, 2018 .

Lennon, J. J. , and M. Foley . Dark Tourism: The Attraction of Death and Disaster . London: Continuum, 2000 .

Lloyd, D.   Battlefield Tourism: Pilgrimage and the Commemoration of the Great War in Britain, Australia, 1919–1939 . Oxford: Berg, 1998 .

Macaulay, Rose.   The Pleasure of Ruins , 2nd ed. Thames and Hudson, 1964 .

Seaton, A. V. “ Guided by the Dark: From Thanatopsis to Thanatourism. ” International Journal of Heritage Studies 2, no. 4 ( 1996 ): 234–244.

Seaton A. V. “ Thanatourism at Waterloo. ” Annals of Tourism Research 26, no. 1 ( 1997 ): 130–158.

Seaton, Tony. “Cultivated Pursuits: Cultural tourism as Metempsychosis and Metensomatosis,” in Routledge Handbook of Cultural Tourism , ed. Melanie Smith and Greg Richards . London: Routledge, 2013 , 19–27.

Sharpley, R. and P. R. Stone (eds.), The Darker Side of Travel: The Theory and Practice of Dark Tourism . Bristol: Channel View, 2009 , 23–38.

Stone, P. P. , Hartmann, R. , Seaton, A.V. , Sharpley, R. and L. White (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Dark Tourism Studies . London: MacMillan, 2018 , 377–507

Wolffe, John.   Great Deaths Grieving, Religion, and Nationhood in Victorian and Edwardian Britain . London: The British Academy, 2000 .

1   Jafar Jafari   Encyclopaedia of Tourism : 578. (London and New York: Routledge, 2000)

2   International Journal of Heritage Studies 2, no. 4 (1996): 578. This is the issue that introduced dark tourism and proposed the two the main approaches; J. J. Lennon , and M. Foley , Dark Tourism: The Attraction of Death and Disaster (London: Continuum, 2000).

3   A. V. Seaton , and J. Lennon , “Thanatourism in the Early 21st Century: Moral Panics, Ulterior Motives and Alterior Desires,” in New Horizons in Tourism: Strange Experiences and Stranger Practices , ed. T. V. Singh (Oxford: CABI Publishing, 2004), 64–68.

4   James Moores Ball , The Sack-Em’Up Men: An Account of the Rise and Fall of the Modern Resurrectionists (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1928).

  Lennon, Foley, Dark Tourism , 3.

6   Chris Rojek , Ways of Escape (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993).

7   M. Foley , and J.J. Lennon “JFK and Dark Tourism: A Fascination with Assassination,” International Journal of Heritage Studies 2, no. 4 (1996): 198–211.

8   A. V. Seaton , “Guided by the Dark: From Thanatopsis to Thanatourism,” International Journal of Heritage Studies 2, no. 4 (1996): 234–244 ; A. V. Seaton , “Thanatourism and Its discontents: An Appraisal of a Decade’s Work with Some Future Directions,” in The Sage Handbook of Tourism Studies , eds. Tazim Jamal , and Mike Robinson (London: Sage, 2009), 521–542.

  Seaton, “Guided by the Dark,” 234–244.

10 M emento mori aids comprised a variety of literary and artistic texts, and artifacts that were read, worn, kept at hand, and studied including death’s head rings, desk-top skulls and other emblems of death. A major literary and artistic convention promoting memento mori reflections was the “Dance of Death,” a parade of people from all walks of life being led away to their doom by Death, a skeletal figure dancing ahead of them which was featured in books, drama, and dances. Ars Moriendi were Catholic texts on how to face and endure dying. The classic study of the genre is by Mary Catharine O’Connor , The Art of Dying Well: The Development of the Ars Moriendi (New York: Columbia University Press, 1942). An account of the Ars Moriendi in England is by Nancy Lee Beaty , The Craft of Dying The Tradition of the Ars Moriendi in England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1970).

11   Tony Seaton , “Thanatourism and Its Discontents,” in The Sage Handbook of Tourism Studies , eds. Tazim Jamal and Mike Robinson (Los Angeles and London: Sage, 2009), 534–536.

12   D. Joly , The Dark Tourist: Sightseeing in the World’s Most Unlikely Destinations (London: Simon and Schuster, 2010).

13   G. Ashworth “Holocaust Tourism and Jewish Culture: The Lessons of Krakow-Kazimierz,” in Tourism and Cultural Change , eds. M. Robinson , M., Evans , and N. Callaghan (Newcastle: University of Northumbria, 2002), 363–367 ; W. Miles , “Auschwitz: Interpretation and Darker Tourism,” Annals of Tourism Research 29, no. 4 (2002): 1175–1178 ; Lennon and Foley, Dark Tourism ; G. Ashworth , and R. Hartmann . Horror and Human Tragedy Revisited: The Management of Sites of Atrocity for Tourism (New York: Cognizant, 2005).

14   J. Henderson , “War as a Tourist Attraction: The Case of Vietnam,” International Journal of Tourism Research 6, no. 2 (2000): 97–117 ; D. Lloyd , Battlefield Tourism: Pilgrimage and the Commemoration of the Great War in Britain, Australia, 1919–1939 (Oxford: Berg, 1998) ; A. V. Seaton , “Thanatourism at Waterloo,” Annals of Tourism Research 26, no. 1 (1997): 130–158 ; A. V. Seaton , “Another Weekend Away Looking for Dead Bodies’: Battlefield Tourism on the Somme and in Flanders,” Journal of Tourism and Recreational Research 25, no. 3 (2000): 63–78 ; J. H. Iles , “Recalling the Ghosts of War: Performing Tourism on the Battlefields of the Western Front,” Text and Performance Quarterly 26 (2006): 162–180 ; J. H. Iles , “Consuming the Contested Heritage of War: Tourism, Territoriality and the Memorial Landscapes of the Western Front,” in Heritage at the Interface , ed. G. Hopper (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2018).

15   G. M. S. Dann , and A. V. Seaton , Slavery, Contested Heritage and Thanatourism (New York: The Haworth Hospitality Press, 2001).

16   C. Strange , and M. Kempa ,“Shades of Dark Tourism: Alcatraz and Robben Island,” Annals of Tourism Research 30, no. 2 (2003): 386–403 ; S. Hodgkinson , and D. Urquhart , “Prison Tourism: Exploring the Spectacle of Punishment in the UK,” in Dark Tourism: Practice and Interpretation , eds. G. Hooper and J. J. Lennon (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), 40–54.

17   A. V. Seaton , “Thanatourism’s Final frontiers? Internment Sites and Memorials as Sacred and Secular Pilgrimage,” Journal of Tourism Recreation Research 27, no. 2 (2002):73–82 ; Tony Seaton , M. North , and G. Gajda , “Last Resting Places? Recreational Spaces or Thanatourism Attractions—the Future of Historic Cemeteries and Churchyards in Europe,” in Landscapes of Leisure: Space, Place and Identities , eds. Sean Gammon , and Sam Elkington (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 79.

18   Derek H. Alderman , “Writing on the Graceland Wall: On the Importance of Authorship in Pilgrimage Landscape,” Tourism Recreation Research 27, no. 2 (2002): 27–35 ; T. Blom , “Morbid Tourism: A Postmodern Market Niche with an Example from Althorpe,” Norwegian Journal of Geography 54 (2000): 29–36 ; Robert Ryan , “Standing Where Hitler fell,” Sunday Times , December 15, 2002, T3.

19   Graham M. S. Dann , “The Dark Side of Tourism,” in Studies and Reports, Serie L. Sociologie/Psychologies/Philosophie/Anthropology 14 (1998), Aix-en-Provence, France: Centre International de Recherches et d’Etudes Touristiques.

20   R. Sharpley , “Travels to the Edge of Darkness: Towards a Typology of ‘Dark Tourism’’, in Taking Tourism to the Limits: Issues, Concepts and Managerial Perspectives , eds. C. Ryan , S. J. Page , and M. Aicken (London: Elsevier Ltd., 2005), 215–226 ; P. R. Stone , “A Dark Tourism Spectrum: Towards a Typology of Death and Macabre Related Tourist Sites, Attractions and Exhibitions,” Tourism: An Interdisciplinary Journal 54, no. 2 (2006): 145–160 ; Rachel Raine , “A Dark Tourism Spectrum,” International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research 7, no. 3 (2006): 242–256.

  Seaton, ”Guided by the Dark,” 240, 243.

  Raine, “A Dark Tourism Spectrum.”

23   Geoffrey Gorer , Death, Grief and Mourning (New York: Doubleday, 1965).

  Seaton, ”Guided by the Dark,” 243.

25   P. Stone , “Making Absent Death Present: Consuming Dark Tourism in Contemporary Society,” in The Darker Side of Travel: The Theory and Practice of Dark Tourism , eds. R. Sharpley and P. R. Stone (Bristol: Channel View, 2009), 23–38.

26   James Moore Ball , The Sack-‘Em-Up Men: An Account of the Rise and Fall of the Modern Resurrectionists (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1928).

27   P. Stone , ‘Dark Tourism and Significant Other Death: Towards a Model of Mortality Mediation’, Annals of Tourism Research , 39(3): 1565–1587.

28   Tony Seaton , “Purposeful Otherness: Approaches to the Management of Thanatourism”, in The Darker Side of Travel , R. Sharpley and P. R. Stone , (Bristol: Channel, 2009), 75–108.

29   P. Slade , “Gallipoli Thanatourism: The Meaning of ANZAC,” Annals of Tourism Research 30, no. 4 (2003): 779–794.

  Seaton and Lennon. “Thanatourism in the Early 21st Century.”

  Stone, ”Making Absent Death.”

32   J.E. Tunbridge , J. E. and G.J. Ashworth , “Dissonant Heritage: The Management of the Past as a Resource in Conflict” (Chichester: Wiley, 1996).

33   Tazim Jamal , and Linda Lelo , “Exploring the Conceptual and Analytical Framing of Dark Tourism: From Darkness to Intentionality,” in Tourist Experience Contemporary Perspectives , R. Sharpley and B. Stone (Bristol: Channel View, 2011), 29–42.

34   D. Light , “Progress in Dark Tourism and Thanatourism Research: An Uneasy Relationship with Heritage Tourism,” Tourism Management 61 (2016): 275–301.

35   Philip. Stone , Rudi. Hartmann , Tony. Seaton , Richard. Sharpley , and Leanne. White , eds., The Palgrave Handbook of Dark Tourism Studies : 377–507 (London: MacMillan Publishers Ltd, 2018).

36   G. E. Tunbridge and G. J. Ashworth , “Is All Tourism Dark?” in Dark Tourism: Practice and Interpretation , eds. G. Hooper , and J.J. Lennon (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), 12–25.

37   Sharpley and Stone , The Darker Side of Travel Dark Tourism and Place Identity: Managing and Interpreting Dark Places , eds. L. White , and E. Frew (Routledge, Oxford, 2013) ; G. Hooper, G. , and J.J. Lennon , eds., Dark Tourism: Practice and Interpretation (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017) ; Philip R. Stone , Rudi Hartmann , Tony Seaton , Richard Sharpley and Leanne White , The Palgrave Handbook of Dark Tourism Studies (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

38   G. Bird , M.Westcott , and N. Thiessen , “Marketing Dark Heritage: Building Brands, Myth-Making and Social Marketing,” in The Palgrave Handbook , P. Stone et al., 645–665 ; K. Hannam , and Ganna Yakovska , “Tourism, Mobilities, Spectralities, and the Hauntings of Chernobyl” in, P. Stone et al. The Palgrave Handbook , op. cit. 318–333.

39   R. Sharpley , and Mona Friederich , “Genocide Tourism in Rwanda: Contesting the Concept of “The Dark Tourist,” in Dark Tourism: Practice and Interpretation , eds. G. Hooper . and J. J. Lennon (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), 134–136.

40   D. Timothy , “Sites of Suffering, Tourism, and the Heritage of Darkness: Illustrations from the United States,” in The Palgrave Handbook , ed. P. Stone et al. (2018) op. cit., 381–398.

41   M. T. Clanchy , From Memory to Written record. England 1066-1307 (Blackwell: Oxford and Cambridge, 1993) ; Mary Carruthers , The Book of Memory. A Study of Memory in |Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) ; Janet Coleman , Ancient and Medieval Memoirs: Studies in the Reconstruction of the Past (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) ; Donald R. Kelley , ed, Versions of History from Antiquity to the Enlightenment (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,, 1991) ; Gabrielle M. Spiegel , The Past as Text: The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).

42   Michael Bentley , Companion to Historiography (London: Routledge, 1997).

43   Edward Said , Orientalism (London: Penguin Books, 1978, 1995) ; Edward Said , Culture and Imperialism (London: Chatto and Windus, 1993) ; Homi Bhabha (ed.), Nation and Narration (London: Routledge, 1992) ; Homi Bhabba , The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994).

44   Nataliya Danilova , The Politics of War Commemoration in the UK and Russia (London: Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies, 2015) ; A. Erll, A. and A. Nunning (eds.), Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008) ; B. Graham and P. Howard (eds.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Heritage and Identity (Aldergate: Ashgate, 2007) ; A. King , Memorials of the Great War in Britain: The Symbolism and Politics of Remembrance (London: Bloomsbury, 2014) ; D. Viejo-Rose , “Memorial Functions: Intent, Impact and the Right to Remember,” Memory Studies 4, no. 4 (2011): 465–480 ; Craig Wight “Contested National Tragedies: An Ethical Dimension,” in The Darker Side of Travel , eds. Sharpley and Stone , 129–144 ; C. A. Wight , and J. Lennon , “Selective Interpretation and Eclectic Human Heritage in Lithuania,” Tourism Management 28, no. 2 (2007): 234–254 ; Paul Williams , Memorial Museums: The Global Rush to Commemorate Atrocities (Oxford: Berg, 2007).

45   Ludwig Wittgenstein , Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (London: Routledge, 1922). In this famous and formidable treatise on language, logic, and meaning, Wittgenstein started with disarmingly, simple phrases to engage the reader in pursuing a revolutionary track of complex, theoretical dissidence that was argued in several hundred axioms and assertions. The aim of the “Tractatus” was to demonstrate how the meaning of language was anchored in basic and underlying social contexts, not just a matter of formal, linguistic logic. “State of affairs” and, “that which is the case” were two of the phrases he used to contrast what he saw as the reality of language in actual use , compared to its status as grammatical and syntactical logic. The real “state of affairs” in dark tourism, it is here argued, is “remembrance” as the focal issue, not “death” as previously supposed. “Engineered remembrance” is the actual “state of affairs” confronting both dark tourism consumers and suppliers. “Remembrance” in material form, not “death,” is “that which is the case”—the de facto object of “the tourist gaze.”

46   Tony Seaton , “Patrimony, Engineered Remembrance and Ancestral Vampires: Appraising Thanatouristic Resources in Ireland and Italy,” in Hooper Lennon , Dark Tourism , 55–68 ; A. V. Seaton , “Encountering Engineered and Orchestrated Remembrance: A Situational Model of Dark Tourism and Its History,” in P. Stone et al., The Palgrave Handbook , 9–33.

47   John and Elizabeth Romer . The Seven Wonders of the World (London: Michael O’Mara Books Limited, 1995).

48   Jeremy Black , The British and the Grand Tour (London: Routledge, 1985) ; Edward Chaney , The Evolution of the Grand Tour: Anglo-Italian Cultural Relations since the Renaissance (London: Frank Cass, 1998) ; John Towner , An Historical Geography of Recreation and Tourism in the Western World 1540–1940 (Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, 1996) ; A. V. Seaton , in Keywords for Travel Writing Studies , eds. C. Fosdick , C. , Z. Kinsley , Z and K. Walchester (2019), 108–110.

49   A. V. Seaton , in Keywords for Travel Writing Studies , eds. C. Fosdick , C. , Z. Kinsley , Z and K. Walchester (2019), 108–110.

50   Paul Koudounaris , The Empire of Death. A Cultural History of Ossuaries and Charnel Houses (London: Thames and Hudson, 2011).

51   R. Fraser Rae , The Business of Travel: A Fifty Year’s Record of Progress (London: Thomas Cook and Son, 1891) ; John Pudney , The Thomas Cook Story (London: Michael Joseph, 1953) ; Piers Brendon , Thomas Cook’s 150 years of Popular Tourism (London: Martin Secker and Warburg, 1992).

52   Paul Westover , Necroromanticism: Travelling to Meet the Dead, 1750–1860 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

53   William Howittt , Homes and Haunts of English Poets , 2 vols. (London: Richard Bentley, 1847).

54   William Howitt , Visits to Remarkable Places: Old Halls, Battlefields etc. , 2 vols. (London: Longman, Orme, Green Brown and Longmans, 1840).

55   S. Carter Hall , Pilgrimages to English Shrines , vol 2 (London: Arthur Hall, Virtue and Co., 1853), 154.

56   Joan Evans , A History of the Society of Antiquaries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956), 1–60.

Jonathan Skinner “The Smoke of an Eruption and the Dust of an Earthquake: Dark Tourism, the Sublime, and the Reanimation of the Disaster Location,” in Stone et al., 125–150.

Two of the sites that suffered most from take-away memento seekers were Shakespeare’s Stratford, and the Catacombs at Rome.

59   John Howes Gleason , The Genesis of Russophobia in Great Britain 22 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), 22.

For Scottish lore and legend see, Walter Scott’s works which were intended to sell Caledonia to the world. His “Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border Consisting of Historical and Romantic Ballads,” first published in 1802 in 2 vols. in Kelso by James Ballantyne, was reprinted throughout the century. It abounds in battles, blood, and thunder.

Jaunting-cart in Ireland, camel rides during Holy Land tours, and pony trekking through Iceland, a land with few roads and no railways.

62 “The March of Intellect” was an ironical, journalistic name for the growth in popular reading in the 1830s brought about by technological advances in the speed and volume of printing, and reduced cost of publishing, Entrepreneurs like Charles Knight exploited these to democratize reading by publishing cheap editions of classic works, including Shakespeare’s works, and a “Penny Encyclopaedia” issued in weekly parts. The name was seized upon by graphic satirists like Robert Seymour and George Cruikshank who depicted dustmen reading books, cockneys discussing philosophy and politics. In London their caricatures were hung in shop windows, for the middle classes they were bought as single items or sets, but also hired in scrap books of caricatures lent out for dinner parties and chic weekend entertainment. Graphic satire offers the major artistic record of tourism taste in the 19th century; Tony Seaton , “The Tourist Experience in Graphic Satire 1796-1914”in Tijana Rakic , and Jo-Anne Lester , Travel, Tourism and Art: 13–34 .

63 There is abundant contemporary and modern literature on the Gothic. A classic, often revised, is Kenneth Clark , The Gothic Revival: Essays in the History of Taste (London: John Murray, 1928, rev. 1950 and 1962). Michael Charlesworth has edited a substantial compilation of extracts from Gothic texts: The Gothic revival 1720–1870 , 3 vols. (Robertsbridge, East SussexHelm Information, 2002). Britton’s life and career are described in his neglected, two-volume autobiography which includes a catalogue of his topographical works, as well as interesting contextual material relevant to dark tourism’s expansion on landscape, ecclesiastical illustration, and commercial engraving. John Britton , The Auto-Biography of John Britton , 2 vols. (London: Printed for the Author, 1850).

64 For Gray’s life, see Robert L. Mack , Thomas Gray: A Life (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000).

65   Ronald Fletcher , In a Country Churchyard (Batsford, London, 1976).

66   Ian Ousby , The Englishman’s England. Taste, Travel and the Rise of Tourism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 387–388.

67   William Wordsworth , “Upon Epitaphs,” in The Prose Works of William Wordsworth , ed. Alexander Grosart , vol. 3 (London: Edward Moxon, 1876), 25–75.

68   Montague Summers , A Gothic Bibliography (London: Fortune Press, n.d. [1940]).

69 The gothic has attracted exhibitions and an enormous and continuing literature since its appearance in the late eighteenth century. It was one of the first cultural developments to be named as an influence in Dark Tourism/Thanatourism ( Seaton. op. cit. 1996 : 237–238). Its history may be pleasurably sampled in many, modern illustrated studies including: Richard Davenport-Hines , Gothic Four hundred years of excess, horror, evil and ruin (London: Fourth Estate 1998) ; and, Terror and Wonder. The Gothic Imagination which accompanied a major exhibition at the British Library in 2015 London: British Library 2014).

70   Constantin Volney , Les Ruines ou Meditations sur les Revolutions des Empires (Paris. Translated into English 1802. [publisher?]

Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote the sonnet “Ozymandias” in 1817. It was first included in volume 3 of his collected, poetical works, chosen and edited in four volumes in 1839 by his wife Mary, the author of Frankenstein .

72 Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful was first published in an edition of 500 in 1757. It was quickly translated into other languages, achieving European influence. The best critical edition is by J. T. Boulton (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958). Earlier in the century the Sublime had attracted a book length study published anonymously in London with no publisher “A Treatise on the Sublime … Translated from the Greek of Longinus with Critical Reflections, Remarks and Observations, by M. Boileau, M. Dacier, and M. Boivin” (1712). Samuel H. Monk , The Sublime: A Study of Critical Theories in XVIII-Century England (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, 1935) ; Richard John Hipple , The Beautiful, the Sublime, and the Picturesque in Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetic Theory (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1957) ; Marjorie Hope Nicolson , Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory. The Development of the Aesthetics of the Infinite (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 1959). A recent selection of short readings on aspects of the Sublime is by Cian Duffy and Peter Howell , Cultures of the Sublime: Selected Readings 1750–1830 (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2015).

73   G. A. Walker , Gatherings from Graveyards (London: Longman and Company, 1830).

74   Report from the Select Committee of Improvement of the Health of Towns … Effect of Internment of Bodies in Town (London: The House of Commons, 1842).

75   Edwin Chadwick , Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain Supplementary Report on the Results of a Special Inquiry into the Practice of Internment in Towns (London: C. Clowes and Sons, 1843).

76 Pere La Chaise; Michel Dansel , Au Pere-Lachaise. Son histoires, ses secrets, ses promenades . (Nancy: Fayard, 1972) ; George Blair , Biographic and Descriptive Sketches of Glasgow Necropoli s (Glasgow: Ogle and Son,1857). For Sweden and Liverpool, see James Stevens Curl   A Celebration of Death : 151–154 and 206–210 (London: Batsford, 1981).

77   J.C. Loudon ,. On the Laying Out, Planting and Managing of Cemeteries and on the Improvements of Churchyards (London: Printed for the author, and sold by Longmans, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1843, 1981).

78 Since the 1970s James Stevens Curl has been a notable and continuing campaigner on behalf of historic cemeteries. His two most important book-length, general studies have been A Celebration of Death (New York: Scribners, 1980). The Victorian Celebration of Death (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2000)

79 Curl’s works on specific cemeteries have included: “Nunhead Cemetery, London,” Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society 1980: 14–22 , 1980; “Northern Cemetery under Threat: Jesmond, Newcastle on Tyne,” Country Life , June 12, 1981: 68–69 [pages]; Kensal Green Cemetery: The Origins and Development of the General Cemetery of All Souls, Kensal Green, London, 1824 – 2001 (London: Phillimore, 2001). An extensive bibliography of Curl’s pioneering studies on cemeteries and funerary culture can be found at, http://www.jamesstevenscurl.com/james-stevens-curl-complete-works , accessed 18.6.22

80 The Association of Significant Cemeteries in Europe was inaugurated in Bologna in 2001. It quickly attracted 59 members, which grew to 130 in 99 countries by 2015, and numbered over 200 in 2020. See Mauro Felicori and Annalisa Zanotti, “Cemeteries of Europe: A Historical Heritage to Appreciate and Restore”; Tony Seaton , “Last Resting Places? Recreational Spaces? or Thanatourism Attractions? The Future of Historic Cemeteries and Churchyards in Europe” in Landscapes of Leisure: Space, Place and Identities , eds. Sean Gammon and Sam Elkington (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 71–95.

81 Anonymous, Herveiana (Scarborough: John Cole, 1823), 114–115.

82   William Andrews , Curious Epitaphs (London: Hamilton, Adams and Company, 1883).

  The Society for Preserving Memorials of the Dead, published from 1883 to 1885.

84   James Smillie , Green-wood Illustrated … with Descriptive Notices by Nehemiah Cleaveland (New York: Robert Martin, 1847) ; Mount Auburn Illustrated …with Descriptive Notices by Cornelia W. Walter ” (New York: Martin and Johnson, (n.d. [c. 1850]).

85   John Townshend , Sepulchral Literature: A Catalogue of Some Books Relating to the Disposal of the Bodies and Perpetuating the Memories of the Dead (New York, 1887)

86   John Edmondson , Death and Tourist : Dark Encounters in Mid-Nineteenth Century London via the Paris Morgue , in,, Stone et al., 2018, op. cit., 77–102.

87   Paul Westover , Necromanticism Travelling to Meet the Dead, 1750–1860 (Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan).

88   A.V. Seaton , “War and Thanatourism: Waterloo 1815–1914,” Annals of Tourism Research , 26, No 1 (1999): 130–158.

89   Stony Seaton and Graham M. S. “Dann, “Crime and Dark Tourism: The Carnivalesque Spectacles of the English Judicial System,” in, Stone 2018, op. cit. 33–76

90   John Wolffe , Great Deaths Grieving, Religion, and Nationhood in Victorian and Edwardian Britain (London: British Academy, 2000).

91   E. Pierce , A Concise Biographical Memoir of George III … also an Account of his Lying in State at Windsor; the Procession and other Solemnities observed at the Royal Funeral (London: Sherwood, Neely and Jones, 1820).

  Wolffe, Great Deaths , 44–45.

  Wolffe, Great Deaths .

94   Lord Edward Gleichan , London’s Open-Air Statuary (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1928), xv ; Arthur Byron , London Statues: A Guide to London’s Outdoor Statues and Sculpture (London: Constable, 1928)

95   London County Council, Indications of Houses of Historical Interest in London , 6 vols. (London: London County Council, 1901–1930).

96 Memorials of the two World Wars have been well documented. They include Sydney Hurst, The Silent Cities: An Illustrated Guide to the War Cemeteries and memorials to the “Missing” in France and Flanders: 1914–1918 (London: Methuen, 1929, 1933) ; Philip Longworth , The Unending Vigil: A History of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission 1917–1967 (London: Constable, 1967) ; Trefor Jones , On Fame’s Eternal Camping Ground: A study of First World War Epitaphs in the British Cemeteries of the Western Front (Pinner: T. G. Jones, 2007) ; Gaynor Kavanagh , Museums and the First World War: A Social History (London: Leicester University Press, 1994) ; David Saunders , Britain’s Maritime Memorials and Mementoes (Sparkford: Haynes Publishing, 1996) ; David and Betty Beaty   Light Perpetual: Aviators’ Memorial Windows (Shrewsbury: Airlife, 1995).

97   Robert Hewison , The Heritage Industry: Britain in a Climate of Decline (London: Methuen, 1987).

98   Patrick Wright , On Living in an Old Country: National Past in Contemporary Britain (London: Verso Books, 1986).

99   The Guardian (2019): “Disaster tourism arrives in Whaley Bridge after dam incident,” https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/sep/09/disaster-tourism-arrives-in-whaley-bridge-after-dam , accessed July 28, 2020.

100   Rowlands, D. W. L. , History and Description of Llanwyddn and Lake Vyrnwy (Llanwyddn Parochial Church Council: Llanwddyn Parochial Church Council: Welshpool Printing Company, 1974), 12–15.

101 The Council kept a record of the development in a large album of photographs from which the four illustrations here are taken. One of the technical site visitors was G.F. Deacon a leading authority on water supply engineering who later praised it, See, G. F. Deacon , “Vyrnwy,” Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers , Vol cx1: 111–113, July; 1892. The dam was also described in a standard reference work on water supply which featured Vyrnwy as the photographic frontispiece, see W.K. Burton , (1898): “The Water Supply of Towns and the Construction of Waterworks” (London: Crosby Lockwood and Son, 1898): 76–78.

102   John Baynes , George Westropp George , and Simon Baynes , Lake Vyrnwy The Story of a Sporting Hotel (Shrewsbury: Quiller, 2019), 3–13.

Newspaper accounts and stories passed down to current residents have been identified, but the COVID crisis of 2020 and 2021 has delayed recording and analysis, planned for late 2021.

104   J. J. Lennon , “Dark Tourism Visualisation: Some Reflections on the Role of Photography,” in Stone et al, The Palgrave Handbook , 585–603.

105 The best-known graphic records of railway constructions are the lithographs of John Bourne , Drawings of the London and Birmingham Railway (London: Ackermann and Co. and C. Tilt, 1839) ; John Bourne , The History and description of the Great Western Railway (London: David Bogue, 1846).

108   Capel Celyn , “The Drowning of Capel Celyn,” Medium.com (1963), https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/the-drowning-of-capel-celyn-109496dc611e ; and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ui2rFSP6AM , both accessed March 11, 2020.

109   WebUrbanist, “Drowned Towns,” WebUrbanist (2014) https://weburbanist.com/2014/03/10/drowned-towns-10-underwater-ghost-cities-buildings/2/ , accessed May 12, 2022.

110   Bess Lovejoy , “Ten Drowned Cities You Can Visit,” Mental Floss , 2015, https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/66680/10-drowned-towns-you-can-visit , accessed December 30, 2020.

111   “The Ruins of Villa Epecuan,” The Atlantic , 2011, https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/07/the-ruins-of-villa-epecuen/100110/ .

Si Cheng (2014): “China’s Atlantis of the East.” Si Cheng was flooded in 1959 to make way for Qiandao lake (also known as Thousand Island lake) for the Xin’an River Dam project. Nearly 300,000 people had to relocate, some of whom had families that had lived in the area for centuries; http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20140711-chinas-atlantis-of-the-east , accessed June 8, 2022.

Potosi in Venezuela was flooded in 1985 but over the next thirty years the church spire has gradually emerged from beneath the waters; https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/drowned-church-potosi , accessed June 6, 2022.

Port Royal in Jamaica was a “sunken pirate city” that disappeared in the 1690s due to a natural disaster. Today most of the remains of the 17th century city lie under up to 40 feet of water. In 1969, Edwin Link discovered the most famous artifact: a pocket watch dated 1686, stopped at exactly 11:43; https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/sunken-pirate-stronghold-at-port-royal , accessed June 4, 2022.

115 “ “Flooded Towns of America,” Wikipedia, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flooded_towns_in_the_United_States ; Pinterest https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/347621664966005596/ , accessed January 21, 2021.

116   “Lost Villages of the St. Lawrence River, Canada’s Atlantis,” Global News , 2018, https://globalnews.ca/news/4369620/lost-villages-of-the-st-lawrence-river-canadas-atlantis/ , accessed January 1, 2021.

117   “Airtours,” Ar-Tour.com , http://ar-tour.com/guides/stories-of-submerged-towns-1/the-lost-villages.aspx .

Santorini was an earthquake disaster site in the past that has produced floods and sunamis. See, Jonathan Skinner, “The Smoke of an Eruption and the Dust of an Earthquake. Dark Tourism, the Sublime, and the Reanimation of the Disaster Location” in, Stone et al., op. cit. 2018 : 125–150. In the present Santorini offers tourists the double appeal of earthquakes and inundations as day tours. https://www.viator.com/tours/Santorini/Volcano-and-Hot-Springs-Tour/d959-156401P1 , accessed June 3, 2022.

120 Floods received brief mentions in James Frazer’s twelve-volume study of myths and superstitions, The Golden Bough (1890–1915), and extended treatment later in, James Frazer , Folk-lore in the Old Testament. Studies in Comparative Religion Legend and Law, vol. 3 (London: Macmillan, 1919).

121   Rose Macaulay , The Pleasure of Ruins (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1953).

  http://www.weburbanist.com/2014/03/10/ , accessed January 30, 2021.

Vilarinho Da Furnas Portugal had origins going back 2,000 years. It was flooded by the Portuguese Electricity Company in 1972. Parts reappear in Autumn and Winter. The Museum was opened in 1981; www.atlasobscura.com/places/vilarinho-da-fuma/ , accessed January 30, 2021.

Stalin ordered the flooding of Kalyazin in 1939 to build Uglich Reservoir. Submerged buildings have reappeared and Christian Services still take place inside the Tower; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uglich_Reservoir , accessed January 17, 2021.

St Thomas, Monument City, Nevada, was flooded in 1985 in creation of the Hoover Dam, leaving only the church steeple visible. In 2008 many houses, a square, and a cemetery reappeared; https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/indiana/underwater-ghost-town-in/ , accessed January 16, 2021.

Flagstaff was flooded in 1949 in the construction of the Long Falls Dam; https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/maine/underwater-city-me/ , accessed January 16, 2021. The Dead River Historical Society Museum includes a memorial exhibit to the “lost” towns of Flagstaff Village and Dead River Plantation; https://sites.google.com/site/deadriverareahistory/home/the-flooding-of-flagstaff/ , accessed January 16, 2021.

127 The sentimentalized aesthetics surrounding dying and funerary practices have been the subject of many studies, including those by James Curll,   The Victorian Celebration of Death (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1980) and A Celebration of Death (London: Batsford, 1981) ; John Morley , Death, Heaven and the Victorians (London: Studio Vista, 1971) ; and in David Robinson , and Dean Koontz , Beautiful Death. Art of the Cemetery (London: Studio Vista, 1996).

128 “Politics of commemoration,” and the related areas of “Politics of History” and “Politics of Remembrance,” have been widely debated by historians and social scientists since the Millennium. See six national examples at “Politics of Memory,” Wikipedia , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_memory ; and Maria Bucur and Nancy M. Wingfield , Staging the Past: The Politics of Commemoration in Habsburg Central Europe, 1848 to the Present (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2001).

129 For discussion of modern dark tourism and the politics of remembrance see, Tony Seaton , “Remembrancing, Remembrance Gangs, and Co-opted Encounters: Loading and Reloading Dark Tourism Experiences,” in The Routledge Handbook of the Tourist Experience , ed. Richard Sharpley (Abingdon: Routledge, 2022).

130   Thomas Henry , “History of the Parish of Llanwddyn,” Montgomeryshire: Collections Historical and Archaeological (Vol 4, 1873): 391–406.

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The Rise of Dark Tourism [2022 Study]

There’s a good chance you’ve heard the term “dark tourism” before.

Perhaps, you even ventured out to some morbid destinations yourself, such as the 9/11 Memorial Museum in NY or the Pearl Harbor National Memorial in Hawaii.

After all, dark tourism—visiting places where some of the darkest events of human history unfolded—has been all the rave in recent years. In part, thanks to the HBO miniseries “Chernobyl” and Netflix series “Dark Tourist.”

That’s why at Passport Photo Online, we’ve decided to survey 900+ Americans to shed some light on the topic of dark tourism, discover travelers’ motivations for visiting macabre destinations, as well as explore the controversy and ethics behind it.

Key Takeaways

• 82% of Americans have visited at least one dark tourism destination. Of the remaining 18% of US travelers who haven’t engaged in dark tourism yet, 63% said they are interested in it.
• The leading motivations for traveling to morbid destinations are the educational aspect that comes with it (52%) and a desire to pay tribute to people affected by the grief event (47%).
• The top three most popular dark tourism destinations are the Pearl Harbor National Memorial (45%), Ground Zero (44%), and the Catacombs of Paris (43%).
• Most Americans have a positive (46%) or very positive (18%) attitude toward dark tourism—only 9% are against it.
• 57% of travelers have no liking for fellow tourists taking selfies at macabre destinations.

Dark Tourism: Why Travelers Flock to Sites of Tragedy

As the first order of business, we wanted to gauge the popularity of dark tourism in the US.

It turns out a full 82% of Americans have visited at least one dark tourism destination in their lifetime: 83% of men and 81% of women. Here’s also how different demographics compare:

• Gen Zers (25 or younger): 91%
• Millennials (26–38): 83%
• Gen Xers (39–54): 80%
• Baby Boomers (55+): 71%

As for the remaining 18% of US travelers who haven’t engaged in dark tourism yet, we asked if they’re generally interested in visiting morbid destinations: 63% said “Yes.”

We then asked the respondents about their key motivations for engaging in dark tourism. Below are the results:

• I enjoy the educational aspect that comes with dark tourism: 52%
• I wished to pay tribute to people affected by the grief event: 47%
• I wanted to emotionally absorb myself in a place of tragedy: 46%
• I was looking to discover a place with a story rather than just visit a trendy destination: 45%

As you can see, the educational aspect came out on top. That’s not all that surprising since dark tourism destinations usually provide travelers with authentic artifacts and help gain a more profound understanding of past events.

Next, we asked Americans what types of dark tourism they find the most appealing:

• War/battlefield tourism (recreational travel to active or former war zones): 56%
• Disaster tourism (visiting locations at which environmental disasters, either natural or man-made, took place): 56%
• Cemetery tourism (type of travel aimed at exploring cemeteries for their artistic, architectonic, historic, and landscape heritage): 53%
• Ghost tourism (any form of travel or leisure that involves encounters with or learning about ghosts or hauntings): 52%
• Nuclear tourism (visiting places where there have been atomic explosions): 50%
• Holocaust/Genocide tourism (travel to places associated with the deliberate mass killing of a particular nation or ethnic group aimed at destroying that nation or group): 49%
• Prison and persecution site tourism (involves heritage-related leisure visits to prison museums/attractions or former sites of incarceration): 48%

War/battlefield tourism and disaster tourism took the cake, with 56% of the vote for each. 

Note that there’s a degree of overlap, of course, between the presented categories. Yet, a given site can be appealing to the traveler for more than one reason. Hence, the overlap merely reflects reality.

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Dark Tourism Destinations Intrepid Travelers Want to Visit the Most

At this point, we wanted to ask Americans what dark tourism destinations they’d love to visit the most in their lifetime. 

We presented the respondents with a list of the most popular dark destination and asked them to take their pick.

See the results below, along with some snappy information about some of the less-obvious places.

• Pearl Harbor National Memorial, Hawaii : 45%
• Ground Zero, New York : 44%
• Catacombs of Paris, France (underground ossuaries, which hold the remains of 6M+ people in a small part of a tunnel network built to consolidate Paris’ ancient stone quarries): 43%
• Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, Japan : 42%
• Wreck of the Titanic, North Atlantic : 41%
• Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, California : 40%
• Auschwitz Concentration Camps, Poland (a complex of 40+ concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during WWII and the Holocaust): 39%
• Bran Castle, Romania (famous for spawning the original vampire legend of Count Dracula): 39%
• Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, Ukraine : 37%
• Fukushima, Japan : 35%
• Wuhan, China : 34%
• Choeung Ek, Cambodia (a former orchard and mass grave of 17,000+ men, women, and children killed during the reign of the Khmer Rouge): 32%
• Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre, Rwanda (a memorial commemorating the 1994 Rwandan genocide, which holds the remains of 250K+ people): 32%
• Aokigahara Forest, Japan (associated with suicide and eventually becoming known by the nickname “the Suicide Forest,” the forest has gained a reputation as one of the world’s most-used suicide sites): 32%
• Azovstal plant in Mariupol, Ukraine [post-war] (one of the most emblematic points of the Siege of Mariupol during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine): 31%

Predictably, places historically near and dear to Americans have risen to the top, with the Pearl Harbor National Memorial (45%) and the World Trade Center site (44%) taking the first two spots.

We also went out on a limb and included the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, Ukraine, as an option, which was picked by 31% of Americans. 

Although the Russia-Ukraine war rages on, we hope people will take an interest in visiting said place after Ukraine’s victory to learn first-hand about the bravery of the Ukrainian soldiers and pay tribute to those who perished defending their motherland.

The Controversy and Ethics behind Dark Tourism

It’s not all black and white when it comes to dark tourism.

While most Americans have a positive (46%) or very positive (18%) attitude toward it, some (9%) have no liking for it, our study finds.

Here’s a quick rundown of the main arguments against dark tourism:

• It exploits human suffering: 22%
• Dark tourism sites are sometimes presented with a bias, watering down or whitewashing part of history: 18%
• It desecrates the sites of human suffering and death: 18%
• I just don’t understand the appeal: 16%
• I view it as perverse or inappropriate: 13%
• It’s voyeuristic: 12%

It’s important to note that whether dark tourism is ethical or not in many ways comes down to your past experiences, upbringing, and culture, among others. Hence, the attitude will vary from person to person.

As our penultimate question, we asked the survey respondents what they think of fellow tourists who take selfies at dark tourism sites. Sadly, it’s not uncommon to see people walking around with selfie sticks and snapping smiling pictures in Chornobyl or at the gates of Auschwitz that infamously read “Arbeit Macht Frei.”

Thus, our study finds that 57% of travelers have a negative or very negative attitude toward tourists taking selfies at morbid destinations.

Lastly, we asked the survey participants what they think of travelers who break the rules of certain dark tourism places. A good case in point is Fukushima, where some adventurous spirits try to explore the red zone, which is forbidden due to its dangerous radioactivity.

The result?

Over half of Americans (51%) disapprove of travelers who break the rules of dark tourism sites—rightfully so.

In summary, dark tourism remains controversial to some. That said, if you’d like to visit a macabre destination, it’s critical to behave respectfully. Here are a few pointers that might come in handy:

• Always respect the rules of the site.
• Stay sober and quiet.
• Only take pictures when it’s allowed. Selfies are somewhat OK if you don’t get in anyone’s way, hold up the tour, or pose disrespectfully.
• Avoid causing damage to the site or stealing anything.
• Don’t talk on your phone. Ideally, put it on silent.
• Refrain from talking negatively about the victims of the tragedy the site commemorates.

Methodology

We conducted an online survey of 937 US respondents via a bespoke online polling tool in May 2022. This study was created through multiple steps of research, crowdsourcing, and surveying. All survey participants’ responses were reviewed by data scientists for quality control. ​​The survey had an attention-check question.

Fair Use Statement

Did our findings help you learn more about dark tourism? If you believe your audience will be interested in this information, feel free to share it. Just remember to mention the source and link back to this page.

• Dimitrovski D., Milutinovic S., “Dark Tourism as Educational Tool: The Kragujevac October Memorial Park”
• Giray L., “Ghost Tourism: The Thrill Of Fear (Without The Danger)”
• Hohenhaus P., “Categories of Dark Tourism”
• Hospitality ON, Dark Tourism: Harder, Better, Faster, Darker
• McIntosh A., Harkison T., “Prison Tourism”
• Sampson H., “Dark Tourism, Explained”
• Where the Road Forks, “Dark Tourism Ethics and Criticisms”

As a Digital PR specialist and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), Max has 5+ years of writing experience. Over the course of his career, Max’s work has garnered significant attention, with features in numerous prominent publications such as The New York Times, Forbes, Inc., Business Insider, Fast Company, Entrepreneur, BBC, TechRepublic, Glassdoor, and G2.

Dark Tourism

As the name already suggests, “dark tourism” is related to the activity of tourist, which is stimulated by an enthusiasm in the more somber facets of human reality (Smith et al., 2010).Dark Tourism is that tourism which involves visiting to places which have some events related to death, disaster, violence, massacre etc. (Sharpley and Stone, 2009).

Dark tourism is also famous by the names of Grief Tourism and Black Tourism. Dark Tourism is now becoming a popular form of tourism and tourists are becoming anxious to experience this type of tourism as it helps in gaining educational knowledge from it.  Prison tourism and disaster tourism are also considered to be a part of dark tourism.  

History of dark tourism

Since time immemorial people have taken a keen interest in activities related to death and it is evident from the fact that from medieval period to nineteenth century their used to be a large gathering whenever there was any public execution taking place. Also in Roman era there were lot of gladiator fights used to take place which were of a great joy for the audience. It is commonly said that the Roman Colosseum were the first dark sites for the people who are interested in the tourism associated with it.

The first research on dark tourism was done in International Journal of Science of cultural and historical heritage by Foley & Lennon in 1996, since then there are so many theories and models were made in order to clarify the concept of dark tourism. The concept of pilgrimage tourism is often coinciding with dark tourism due the fact that both involve a psychological journey for tourists. 

Dark tourism is “travelling towards sites, attractions or events that are somehow linked to negative historical events where death, violence, suffering or disaster may have taken place” (Sharpley and Stone, 2009).

As the name already suggests, “dark tourism” is related to the activity of tourist, which is stimulated by an enthusiasm in the more somber facets of human reality (Smith et al., 2010). In 2005, Stone suitably described it as the “travel to sites of death and suffering”. 

Pilgrimage has a sacred or, at least, holy significance, which contains fundamentals of both a personal physical as well as often a psychological journey for participants. Sometimes this can be related with attaining social

Huge chunk of researchers have started taking interest in dark tourism since 2001.As per the various reports of UNWTO (World Tourism Organisation) and WTTC (World Travel and Tourism Council) tourism is measured as one of the biggest and fastest growing industry.

As it is already mentioned about the popularity of dark tourism in older times keeping the view these days it has become one of the unique form of tourism which needs to be pondered upon. There is a sudden thrust in the popularity of this form of tourism due to its unique nature. Huge number of tourists are now diverting towards dark tourism. Ground Zero in New York is the most famous dark tourism site.

Types of dark tourism

1. fun factories:  .

This concept revolves around superficial deaths and it includes all the places which have good tourism infrastructure. A Dark Fun Factory refers to the place or attraction that has some amusement focus and financial ethic. Dark Fun Factories offer hygienic products in terms of representation and are anticipated as less original. Dark Fun Factories acquire a high level of tourism infrastructure. One of the examples of Dark Fun Factories was the intended “Dracula Park” in Romania. Where the schemes for the 460 hectare theme park were cancelled on environmental grounds rather than the real product content. This project revolved around the life of” Vlad the Impaler”, who supposedly distressed his prisoners by making them to run on the spikes and leaving them to die. 

2. Dark Demonstrations:  

This concept revolves around death and misery and it has a unique education leaning for the tourists. Dark Exhibition is those sites, places and exhibitions that essentially amalgamate the product design to portray education and potential opportunities. Dark Exhibitions offer products which go around death and suffering. They also present built in dedicatory, educational and speculative message. So these Dark Exhibitions are anticipated as more original and serious sites. These are declared with a large product range and these are located away from the real side of the death event. Various museums situated around the world offering the concept of death and misery is the best examples of dark fun factories.

3. Dark Dungeons:  

All the places related with matters regarding criminal offence and injustice is been included in Dungeons. It also provides education to the tourists about the history associated with it. Dark Dungeons are the sites; places revolve around earlier prisons and courthouses. These sites provide the benefit of both education and amusement.

For example, the galleries of justice visitor sites ( in Nottingham) promoted as the “ Family Attraction of the Year” under displaying line “Fell the Fear”, these were built from the buildings which were really as prisons and courthouses in 1780’s until recently as 1980’s. With an illustration of ruthless penal codes from days gone by, the attraction seeks to amuse the visitor through heritage whilst promoting educational and historical content.

4. Dark buried Places:  

Dark Resting Places emphasis on the cemetery or graveyards as products for Dark Tourism. Cemetery is being used to popularize visiting to an area, preserve the goodness and structural integrity of landscape and be friend to the ecology. These places include open air museums and various sculptures which are based on the theme of graveyards. In Paris, the largest park is the Pere-Lachaise cemetery; this has been converted into an open museum and garden. Few other examples of resting places are National cemetery of Arlington and academy of la-recoleta.  

5. Dark Sacred places :  

These are shrines which are being promoted as tourist’s spots though not those much popular sites. Location of these sites is nearby to the sites of death and misery. These sites are less attractive to the eyes. The main purpose of visiting these sites are to pay homage and respect to the deceased. In terms of infrastructure these sites are not well developed and are temporary in nature. Best examples are Isles of Solomon and Guadalcanal battle.

6. Dark Conflict places:  

These sites and attractions are associated with some major battles fought in the past. These sites are very much historical in nature and great for learning and research purpose. Again in India context the battle of Jhansi, battle of Buxar and battle of plasi.

7. Dark places of Mass killing :  

These are the sites associated with atrocities and deaths. Places of genocide also associated with dark camps. These have been divided into various categories from darkest to lightest. darkest are the sites which cannot be developed fully in terms of tourism and here the death is really occurred or it is the original place of death where the lightest are the places which have been recreated in terms of deaths. Auschwitz is said to be the darkest place in the world whereas the lightest one is Dracula Park. Stone has given the model of dark campus

Top Dark tourism Destinations

• Sedlec ossuary : It is very historical site associated with Hussite war in 15th century. Location of this site is Sledec, below the saint’s cemetery church. It acquires around 40,000 to 70,000 skeletons of humans which are been arranged in a very decorative manner. It is most widely visited place of the world. On an average around 200,000 tourists visit this place every year. It is the most famous spot of burying the dead.
• Salem, Massachusetts : Salem, Massachusetts has become famous all over the globe as the place of disreputable Salem witch trials of 1692. These results in the killing of 20 individuals liable of witchcraft and magic most of who were women. These trials were conducted in a few of small villages in the area that is now called as the City of Salem. Salem is now a very popular site for those who are passionate for the history of attraction. 
• Catacombs of Paris :   The Catacombs of Paris have ossuaries beneath the city of Paris. It has the remains of six million of people, acquiring its prestige as “The World’s Largest Grave”. The catacombs of Paris were opened their doors for visitors in 19th century and this place is believed to be the world’s darkest site. As a tourist spot and from that time it has become one of the most popular and famous dark tourism spot in the world. An estimated 30,000 tourists visit this place every year.
• Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary : Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary is located on Alcatraz Island it is a prison which used to keep the most dangerous criminals of America, now it has been converted into a museum for tourist. It was opened in 1934. Till 1963, it acted as a supreme security prison. It can be treated as the terrifying prison when the prisoners themselves reported forceful mistreatment and cruelty while being captured there. But now the prison has been converted into a museum and it attracts a lot of tourists from all over the world. Around 1.5 million tourists visit this place every year.
• The Tower of London : The Tower of London is one of the finest dark tourism destinations in the United Kingdom. In 1078, the first section of the tower was made on the bank of River Thames. This tower is also famous for its various functions like it acts a treasury, an armory, a public record office etc. The exterior of the tower was popularized in the 16 th and 17 th centuries. The Tower of London is so famous and popular all over the world because of its history

Also read Dark Tourism in India

Dark tourism in india.

Generally people are influenced by social and cultural behavior. An anxious tourist gets persuaded over the perception of others. The tourist simply needs a motivation or an inspiration for that particular place. Whatever a person is, he is made by the environment and the surrounding. A person who wants to have an experience or entertainment instead, would surely try to find a particular place to complete his wish.

A spot which sounds appealing attracts tourist from all over the world. It is the choice of the tourist that where he wishes to go for amusement, entertainment, business, holiday etc. The person who loves to explore the unexplored things may be fascinated in knowing about what happened to the fatalities of a non –happening or at disturbed places, by visiting that place and exploring it.

Almost every type of tourism exists in India because of diversified cultures, religions, festivals. In India, Dark Tourism is not much famous but there are many spots in India that comes under the category of Dark Tourism. Some of them are:

• Bhangarh Fort: It is in the state of Rajasthan, built by Man Singh. It is the most haunted place in India as it is considered to be cursed by a magician. Visiting to this place after sunset is strictly banned .
• Kuldhara: It is a place in Rajasthan where it is said that 83 villages lost their existence in just one night. This place is believed to be cursed by the villagers and there is no one sustaining there right now.
• Jallianwala Bagh : On 13 th April, 1919 a mass of people gathered at the “Jallianwala Bagh” in Amritsar as it was the day of Baisakhi, the main Sikh festival. On knowing that the mass is supposed to gather in the garden, the British General Dyer ordered to shoot the common mass. The shooting continued for nearly ten minutes and the whole ground was colored with blood of people.
• Dumas Beach : It is situated in Surat, Gujarat. This beach is enclosed with black sand and various mystic activities have been observed here. It is believed that the persons walking around the beach at night could vanish. This is also considered as a Dark Spot in India.
• Three Kings Church : It is in Goa. It is believed that Three Kings killed each other so as to rule over the property of this church and the inhabitants still believe that their spirits wander in the church.  
• Mussoorie : Mussoorie is a famous recreational destinationfor tourist. Dark Tourism also exists there. “The Lambi Dehar Mines” in Mussoorie is one of the haunted places in India. Millions of workers died in the mine while working. Unusual deaths and activities have also been observed.  
• Savoy Hotel: Savoy hotel at Mussoorie is yet again a haunted place in India. Various strange activities have been observed in this hotel. This attractive hill station has many hotels but this hotel makes the tourists to be scary of this place.
• Shaniwarwada Fort : ShaniwarwardaFort is in Pune. It is believed that a Prince was unkindly murdered and there have been many supernatural activities experienced by people there.  
• Hyderabad’s disreputable Ramoji film city is one of the major and famous film cities of India, where there are many hotels and in these hotels, supernatural activities have been observed. Eccentric marks are left on the mirror, the leftover food scatters around the room and the invisible powers tear’s one’s clothes and so on.  

Challenges to growth of Dark Tourism in India

There are many famous type of tourism in India but the Dark tourism is not so much famous.  We have to overcome all the problems as well as the challenges that come in the promotion of Dark Tourism.Some of the challenges that dark tourism faces are given as under:

• Lack of promotion: Promotion is very much required in any aspect. When it comes to tourism, promotion is a vital component. One of the reasons for dark tourism to lack behind is less promotion as well as less publicity.
• Less Local support: When it comes to tourism, local support is very important. Locals do not give their proper coordination to develop such type of peculiar tourism.
• Less tourist services at destination: As the tourist destination is not well known, various agencies and organizations are not able to give the required services to the tourist. That is why a tourist takes a back foot to visit such places. 
• Inappropriate Maintenance of Dark Tourism sites: As it is a form of tourism, so the particular tourist spot or place must be well maintained as well as cleaned. The manifestation of a particular spot must be attractive so that the tourist gets fascinated towards that spot.
• Less accessibility : These places are not well recognized, there is not any proper arrangement to access these places. Due to less convenience, the tourist cannot comfortably access all the places they desire to.

Strategies to overcome the challenges

• Pr omoting India as a Diversified Nation for Destinations : India is known all over the world for her cultures, religions, festivals etc. It is a place where a tourist can enjoy different things in the same time. India offers various domains of tourism; Dark tourism must also be promoted as one of them.
• Local support : People living near the particular spot have sufficient knowledge about that place. They must cope up with the tourist as well as the government and should be protective and supportive towards the tourists. Participation of locals will also help them to earn their livelihood.
• Suggest government to transform the policies : The people in relation to tourism sector must suggest the government to alter the useless policies and implement such policies which must have a positive impact.
• Proper maintenance of the spots: Teams should be selected or a number of people should be elected for the maintenance of the spots. Updating the resources and implementing the strategy for maintenance should be done and followed properly.
• Formulate policies to promote untapped places associated with dark tourism.

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Dark Tourism, Difficult Heritage, and Memorialisation: A Case of the Rwandan Genocide

• First Online: 21 February 2018

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• Mona Friedrich 6 ,
• Philip R. Stone 7 &
• Paul Rukesha 8  

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The International Handbook on Tourism and Peace offers an optimistic foreword in which the global tourism industry is described as:

[a] worldwide social and cultural phenomenon that engages people of all nations as both hosts and guests, [generating] … connections, [which] spur dialogue and exchange, break down cultural barriers and promote values of tolerance, mutual understanding and respect. In a world constantly struggling for harmonious coexistence, these values espoused by tourism could be integral to building a more peaceful future. (Rifai, 2014)

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Friedrich, M., Stone, P.R., Rukesha, P. (2018). Dark Tourism, Difficult Heritage, and Memorialisation: A Case of the Rwandan Genocide. In: R. Stone, P., Hartmann, R., Seaton, T., Sharpley, R., White, L. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Dark Tourism Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-47566-4_11

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20 Unique Dark Tourism Sites Around The World

Disclosure: Advertising and affiliate services, including Amazon Associates, help the cost of running my blog. Clicking ads or making purchases through affiliate links may, at no additional cost to you, earn me a small commission. I appreciate your support .

One of the most unique tourism trends in recent years might have to be the fascination with so-called dark tourism sites. There’s always been a curiosity when it comes to places that might have a historic connection with tragic events. But while there are many reasons for people wanting to visit such sites, dark tourism is not a bad thing.

You might argue that visiting these dark tourism sites is a way of preserving the past. Or making sure the same horrific things don’t happen again . And while you might get some mixed reactions from people about your travel plans, they are fascinating places. And I believe they are places that the world should know about.

Disclaimer: The following article has travel suggestions in both Russia and Ukraine, however was written before the current events unfolded. I have chosen to leave them in this article in the spirit of the original topic covered here, however I am in no way recommending visiting either Russia or Ukraine at this time . Please check current travel conditions for any country you plan on visiting and travel safely.

What is Dark Tourism?

Dark tourism sites are places which we can associate with death, destruction or some kind of disaster. While some might see them as morbid, you’d be surprised at how many places you’ve visited with such connotations. For example, have you ever been to the Tower of London? Full of torture chambers and stories of gruesome events. What about the Colosseum in Rome? The deadly gladiator events here were some of the most bloody spectator sports in history.

We think of them as historical sites in a way we don’t think of some of the following places in the same way. Is it because that was so long ago? Does the length of time before we start exploring these sites really make a difference in how our visiting them should be perceived?

How should I behave at dark tourism sites?

Societal rules about museums are ingrained in us from an early age. But a lot of people worry about what to do while visiting somewhere with such a dark past. How do you behave? What if you do the wrong thing?

Respect is key . Remember that these sites, while open for you to enjoy, learn and experience, are the sites of some pretty bad and horrific things . Be aware of those around you as you never know if they might have a connection to where you are.

While it’s unfair to say you shouldn’t talk or show enthusiasm, use common sense and read the room . A concentration camp is nowhere to be giggling with your friends, a memorial park is not somewhere to be shouting…you get the idea.

Unique Dark Tourism Sites To Visit

Whether you’re a big history buff or just curious in anything a little macabre, these are some dark tourism sites around the world you likely don’t want to miss. From recent tragic events to centuries-old historical happenings, you can’t deny how incredibly interesting these places are.

Alcatraz Prison – San Francisco, USA

Possibly one of the most eerie and fascinating dark tourism sites you will ever visit is Alcatraz . A prison so notorious that it still receives millions of visitors a year. Located on an island in San Francisco ‘s bay area, you now get to experience seeing it from the inside like a prisoner. So close to land but so far away.

The only way to reach Alcatraz island is by a pre-booked boat tour . The tour is popular and often sells out months in advance. There are no food or drinks allowed except at the boat dock area, so plan your day accordingly. You also have a steep walk to the prison at the top of the hill, but there are motorized vehicle transfers for those with mobility issues.

Explore the prison and the grounds with an impeccably narrated audio tour by former guards and inmates. You’ll be led through cells, the recreation areas, the kitchen and more. Learn about the riots, the escapes and the deaths that happened here, and the most famous prisoners to ever call Alcatraz home.

Gravensteen Castle – Ghent, Belgium

Contributed by Cecilie from Worldwide Walkers

Gravensteen Castle in Ghent  is a classic example of dark tourism sites in Europe. The castle was built back in 1180 and housed the Count of Flanders for many centuries until it became a court, a prison, and even a cotton factory.

It’s the dark horror stories of torture that really attract visitors to Gravensteen castle. While visiting, you’ll walk through torture rooms and see all the different tools used to punish criminals back in the Middle Ages.

Many people have died within the castle walls in the most horrific ways, which creates a dark haunted feeling to the place. It’s this uncomfortable feeling that leaves you both intrigued and distressed after your visit.

While it might sound very disturbing, the free audio guide does a wonderful job carrying out all the stories in an interesting way with respect to history. It’s a great place to learn about the history of Belgium’s city Ghent . You can even get one of the greatest city views from the castle roof.

Silver Mines – Potosi, Bolivia

Contributed by Deb from The Visa Project

While there are many landmarks to see in Potosi , a unique attraction is to visit one of these working mines. A guided tour let’s you witness the working conditions of the miners.

If you  live in Bolivia , you would come across many extreme tourist offerings but this one would probably be one of the darkest. The  Cerro Rico  mountains silver mines made Potosi a major economic center of the Spanish empire back in the colonial times.

Mining is more or less still done in 18th century style – using old tools, hand and dynamite. No modern safety equipment or protocols. Although you would be introduced to  El Diablo,  the mountain’s devil-god to who the miners offer cigarettes, liquor as well as blood of an animal slaughtered on the spot for their protection. Child labor is pretty common and you can buy dynamite in the local market!

You will be advised to chew on coca leaves to help with breathlessness if taking a tour through the mines . The miners work in really harsh and dangerous conditions and many get lung diseases afterwards. If you visit, definitely leave a generous tip for the miners.

Port Arthur Penal Colony – Tasmania, Australia

Contributed by Mark from Wyld Family Travel

Port Arthur lies at the bottom of the world in southern Tasmania Australia . Port Arthur was a British penal colony set up in Australia, designed to break prisoners both mentally and physically. To be sent here from England was being sent as far away from your home as possible.

The youngest prisoner was 11 years old and around 70,000 prisoners called Port Arthur home. Prisoners at Port Arthur endured harsh working gangs that built much of Tasmania. The Asylum at the site pays testament to the mental torture these convicts were put through with many slowly losing their minds. Prisoners were regularly flogged to break them into submission.

Port Arthur prison was opened 20 years from 1833-1853 and 7,000 convicts died there. In modern times Port Arthur is also the location for the largest mass shooting in Australian history. This was the catalyst for the strict gun rules Australia lives by now. 

Port Arthur  is today one of the most interesting places to visit when in Tasmania. The prison site has been preserved with original building and tours explaining the history of the location.

Museum of the Occupation of Latvia – Riga, Latvia

As a former Soviet occupied country, Latvia still has many historic sites linked to the KGB. One of the most interesting activities you can do in Riga is visit the Corner House. This was the old headquarters of the Soviet KGB in Latvia.

True KGB style, if you didn’t know this museum existed you might not be able to find it. A inconspicuous doorway leads into a building straight out of the 50s. Here you can find out about the KGB in the city at that time.

The museum is free or you can pay 10 EUR for a guided tour. The tour might be worth it to see parts of the museum you wouldn’t otherwise get to. Walk through the rooms where the KGB worked and to areas of the building where the prisoners would have been taken.

The storyboards depict historical stories of the KGB in Riga, Latvia , and the “criminals” they arrested, tortured and killed here. This is really one of the most unique dark tourism sites in the Baltic states.

Jallianwala Bagh Memorial Park – India

Contributed by Neha from Travelmelodies

Etched in the history of India as a dark moment, is the incident of Jallianwala Bagh. Located in the holy city of Amritsar in Punjab, it remains one of the most popular  places to visit in Amritsar . Jallianwala Bagh is a memorial park in the honor the people that were wounded and lost lives on the fateful day of 13 April, 1919.

Back in 1919, India was under the rule of British and the people of India were protesting for Independence. Over a thousand people had gathered in the Jallianwala park on the festive day of Baisakhi to silently protest the arrest of few national leaders. But General Dyer opened fire unannounced on these people killing and injuring many.

The Jallianwala Bagh now houses a museum with pictures and documents related to the event and some memorial structures in honor of the martyrs.  There is a ‘Martyrs Well’ in which some people jumped to save themselves from the bullets. There’s even a wall with bullet markings on it. 

Every evening there is a light and sound show that throws light on the unfolding of the event. It is a must visit place and is located next to the Golden temple.

Gori, Georgia

Contributed by Emily from Wander-Lush

The small city of Gori,Georgia has a rather dark claim to fame. It’s the birthplace of Ioseb Jughashvili, better known as former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

An  easy day trip from Tbilisi , Gori has become one of the most-visited places in Georgia because of its Stalin connection. The main attraction is the Stalin State Museum, a grandiose sandstone building in the center of the city.

In the yard is one of few remaining Stalin statues still standing in Georgia today. Also the small wooden house where Stalin was born in 1878, and the armored railway carriage he used to travel around the USSR.

The museum opened in 1957 and exhibits remain much the same – that is to say, very Soviet-style. It has a very selective curatorial approach with most artefacts relating to Stalin’s early years and some pretty glaring gaps. With limited information in English it’s recommended to take the guided tour for a few extra dollars.

Visiting the museum is a totally bizarre experience, but it gives an interesting insight into how Stalin’s memory is treated in Georgia today. Some people in Gori (and elsewhere in Georgia) still venerate the dictator, but the younger generations less so.

There are plenty of things to do in Gori that have nothing to do with Stalin. The magnificent Gori Castle, the old town, and the hilltop Gori Jvari church. It’s these attractions that most residents would prefer you remember Gori for.

Tham Piew Cave – Laos

Contributed by Marie from A Life Without Borders

Laos holds the unfortunate title of the most heavily bombed country on Earth. It bore the brunt of clandestine bombing campaigns waged by the USA on Laos during the 1960s and 1970s. Phonsavan  in the province of Xieng Khouang, was particularly decimated. In fact, unexploded ordnance still affects local communities to this day.

Many visitors to the region enjoy Phonsavan’s major tourist sights such as the UNESCO site Plain of Jars. But few venture off the beaten track to discover the site of one of the worst days in Lao history.

On 24 November 1968, just one single missile fired from a US fighter plane killing 374 innocent villagers taking refuge in Tham Piew Cave. Just 60 kilometers from Phonsavan city, the cave is a somber and emotional place to visit. But it is important in the turbulent history of Laos, even if little known throughout the rest of the world.

The site’s information center holds extremely confronting photographs of the immediate aftermath of that fateful day, together with the history of the Secret War in Laos. A moving statue of a man carrying a lifeless child marks the entrance to the memorial park. Walk through a peaceful forest to the mouth of the charred cave. Here visitors can leave offerings of incense at the small shrine for those who perished within.

Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, Ukraine

Contributed by Kami from My Wanderlust

The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is a well-known place all over the world. On April 26th, 1986 the biggest nuclear disaster in the world took place here, changing people’s lives forever. As a result of the catastrophe, the whole area around the power plant became a closed zone. Inhabitants of numerous towns and villages had to move away.

Today you can visit the Exclusion Zone but you need to do it with an official  Chernobyl tour . There are plenty of them departing from Kyiv daily and you can choose between day trips and multiday tours. Now, all these years after the disaster the area is safe to visit and the radiation is low.

During your trip, you will see numerous places in the zone, including the power plant itself. But the biggest highlight is the abandoned town of Pripyat. When the disaster happened it was one of the most modern cities in the former USSR, but now nature has taken over the place.

Keep in mind that even if the Chernobyl zone is a very touristy and popular place, it is also a place of great tragedy. Make sure to visit the place with respect and follow your guide’s instructions. Still, this is a fascinating place to visit and everyone visiting Ukraine should include a Chernobyl tour in their itinerary .

Catacombs – Paris, France

Contributed by Debbie from World Adventurists

Even the City of Light and Love has a dark history. One of the most fascinating places to visit is the  Catacombs of Paris . The Catacombs have a sad history, full of bones of the unknown. In the 17th century, Paris cemeteries were overflowing so badly that there was no longer space to properly bury their dead. Overflowing graves led to the solution of using the underground tunnels to house the bones.

Approximately six million people have been laid to rest underground. Today the bones are neatly stacked, including some designs made from the bones. At some points there are femurs arranged from the floor almost to the ceiling, with rows of skulls in between, or formed into shapes like a cross.

Visiting the Catacombs, it will make you really wonder what their lives were like back then, who they were, and the cause of each death. It is very humbling.

The Catacombs of Paris are extremely popular. It is more expensive, but to skip the line, you will want to buy your ticket in advance . It can also get chilly down there, so bring a light sweater with you. Allow for at least an hour and a half to wander the Catacombs once you are inside.

Lenin Mausoleum – Moscow, Russia

Contributed by De Wet & Jin, Museum of Wander

In the center of the Red Square in Moscow is a somewhat inconspicuous structure which reminds somewhat of a pyramid. But the long line of Russians and tourists is a giveaway that it is one of the most popular  things to do in Moscow .

Inside this step pyramid is where the embalmed body of Vladimir Lenin is on display. Everyone is welcome to visit and pay their respects, or simply come and look at the former Soviet leader for bragging rights.

Visitors to Lenin’s Mausoleum visitors are first searched by military personnel, and bags (and cameras) have to be deposited. There are also a few strictly enforced rules while inside the mausoleum: no talking, hands out of your pockets, no hats and the line must keep moving at all times. Disobey, and a Russian soldier will reprimand you.

The atmosphere as well as the temperature inside the mausoleum is chilling. The line moves quite slowly, so you’ll get a good look at Lenin’s body, which has been on display here for almost a hundred years.

The mausoleum is free to enter and open on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays from 10:00–13:00. Behind the mausoleum is the gravesite of former Soviet ruler, Joseph Stalin, another interesting place to see.

Tianenmen Square – Beijing, China

Dark tourism sites don’t come more secretive than that of one of the world’s biggest massacres in recent history. Tianenmen Square, the public square in China’s capital, Beijing . While most visitors to China will have heard of the Tianenmen Square Massacre, the event is so censored within China that many people don’t know the full extent of it.

In 1989 students led a 6 week long protest after the death of a pro-reform official from the Communist Party of China. The fear was that the country would fall into economic decline and that the corruption in place would become worse. As the protests continued the military were brought in and things quickly got out of hand.

There are varying reports of anywhere from 300-3000 deaths of the tens of thousands of people who protested. While the square is peaceful now, there is always a high security presence as well as airport-style check points.

The square is used for many important national celebrations and Chairman Mao Zedong announced the founding of the People’s Republic of China here in 1949. His embalmed body is now on display in a mausoleum there.

Other than that there’s not a lot happening in the square now. However, the Imperial Palace (also known as the Forbidden City) is across from Tianenmen and is an impressive place to visit.

Bodie ghost town, California USA

Contributed by Olivia from Girl With Blue Sails

Bodie State Historic Park, once a booming California gold town, is now a notorious ghost town. It sits in a memorialized state of “arrested decay” with dilapidated buildings preserved in their state of abandonment from the late 1800’s. Walking down the dusty, dirt roads of Bodie invokes a bit of a dark appreciation and wonder about what happened to the people that lived here. 

Visitors can walk through the main streets of the town, seeing the various houses, stores, and saloons. Canned goods still on store shelves, original newspapers in the buildings, and old wooden pews still in the church. There are old forgotten cars in the grass, rusting and being overgrown by nature.  

Bodie is most popular with history buffs, photographers, and those who love to visit dark tourism sites. Plan your trip to Bodie in the morning to avoid the peak desert heat. While walking through Bodie can be a grim experience, it also provides a unique and realistic glimpse of 1800s California mining life.  

Choeung Ek Killing Fields – Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Contributed by Tasha Amy from Backpackers Wanderlust

The Killing Fields, also known as Choeung Ek Geocidal Centre, is located just a short 17 kilometer journey from Phnom Penh city center . This closeness is important considering the horrible events which occurred here between 1975 and 1979.

During this period, Cambodia was run by the Khmer Rouge Regime communist party who arrested and executed anyone they saw as a threat. This included people with education, opposing beliefs, or anyone who stood up for what was right.

Quite a few foreigners even got executed after accidentally stumbling upon Cambodia during this period. Children were trained as soldiers and those who were disobedient were killed. For a greater understanding of life under the direction of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot watch the film First They Killed My Father .

The Killing Fields outside of Phnom Penh is just one of many locations across the country. Though this one is the most known due to the fact of the horrible acts performed here.

You can book a tour or visit by tuk tuk. The tuk tuk ride for the day should cost you around $12.00. Once at the Killing Fields make sure you hire the audio guide for the stories of those who lived through these events.

Nazi Rally Grounds – Nuremberg, Germany

Contributed by LeAnna from Wander In Germany

It’s no secret that Germany is riddled with a dark, difficult, and oppressing past.  However, decades after WWII, the country does a phenomenal job of walking the fine line between erasing the atrocities and showing respect as well as raising awareness of exactly just what happened. 

One such place is the unfinished Nazi Rally Grounds in  Nuremberg . These huge grounds were Hitler’s vision for an enormous epi-center and headquarters for the Third Reich. 

Walking around the lake at the site, it’s almost easy to not realize exactly what you are standing on. However, on the grounds is the Nazi Dokumentation Zentrum. Here you can see all the blueprints and plans for the grand scheme Hitler envisioned. It makes walking the grounds that much more realistic. 

The museum does an exceptional job of showing exactly how a man with such polarizing, disgusting, racist views could enchant not only an entire nation, but take over much of Europe.  

While in Germany, doing any sort of Nazi salute or tribute in public is illegal.  Therefore, this site is not flocked to by Neo Nazis, but instead is seen as a place of learning from the past. 

Guanajuato Mummy Museum – Mexico

Contributed by Shelley from Travel Mexico Solo

The Museo de las Momias (Museum of the Mummies) is one of the most popular places to visit, and  best things to do in Guanajuato City, Mexico . 

One of the most famous of Mexico’s dark tourism sites has about 100 mummified human bodies on display, in both glass cases and in the open. Most of the bodies are from older adults, but the museum also claims to have the “world’s smallest mummy” of an approximately nine-month-old child.

While not for everyone, it is the most visited place in Guanajuato City . When visiting, you’ll notice Mexican families with children of all ages. In Mexico, death is a much less taboo subject than in other countries — evidenced by annual festivals like Día de Muretos (Day of the Dead).

The story of the mummies is as fascinating (and bizarre) as seeing them in person. Between 1865-1958, Guanajuato’s government decided to start collecting a “grave tax” on buried bodies. If left unpaid by the living relatives for three years, the body was exhumed.

Located in arid Central Mexico, Guanajuato has extremely dry soil and the bodies came out of the ground incredibly well preserved. When the government ended the grave tax in 1958, they had so many mummified bodies that they created this museum.

House of Terror – Budapest, Hungary

Contributed by Marco from Nomadic Fire

Budapest is popular with both tourists and expats for stunning architecture, gorgeous scenery along the Danube river, and affordable cost of living . The city is also home to the infamous museum: the House of Terror.

This museum juxtaposes two of the cruelest regimes of the 20th century: Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Fittingly located in a building that was once the headquarters of both the Nazi and Communist secret police, the museum is an important reminder of both the crimes perpetrated by those regimes and their victims’ courage and resistance. 

Stepping into the House of Terror transports visitors back to a terrifying time in Europe’s history. The museum’s artifacts include personal items confiscated by the secret police. It also tells stories such as a family’s desperate attempt to hide a young boy and baby girl from the Nazis during the Holocaust. Although now a museum, many rooms remain exactly as they were when the headquarters were operational. This includes prison cells, rooms filled with torture devices, and a guillotine scale model.

You can spend anywhere from 45 minutes to a few hours wandering around this well-curated museum. Through exhibits of movie posters, photos, and re-created scenes.

9/11 Memorial and Museum – New York City, USA

One of the most emotional activities on a trip to New York is visiting the 9/11 museum. Built below the original location of the Twin Towers, the World Trade Center site of the 2001 disaster. Entering the museum from the street level, you descend past the twisted metal remains of the massive steel beams that once held the tower up.

The museum is a somber place which stirs up a lot of raw feelings from anyone who visits. It guides you on a journey from the history of the WTC towers to a timeline of the events of that morning.

With witness testimonials, photographs and messages left by those who didn’t make it, the museum is very hard to experience. But the exhibits also talk about what has happened since, what they have learned and why this site is so important. Outdoors, the footprints of the original towers have now been turned into two giant pools. The name of every single victim is engraved around them.

Did you know that white roses are placed at the name of any victim whose birthday it would have been that day? As dark tourism sites go, this one is especially somber given how recently the event took place. But it’s well worth a visit if you’re in New York .

Imperial Crypt – Vienna, Austria

Contributed by Martina & Jürgen from PlacesofJuma

A really cool spot and interesting dark tourism site not to be missed on any visit to Vienna is the Imperial Crypt. It is a real insider tip among  Vienna’s best attractions  and a visit is an eerie experience.

The Imperial Crypt is the final resting place of many of the most famous Habsburgs from Europe. Hidden under the Capuchin Church, it can be visited on a guided tour daily from 10:00 to 18:00.

The crypt is the final resting place of 150 members of the Habsburgs. Among the most famous are Emperor Franz Joseph I, Empress Sisi and Crown Prince Rudolf and Maria Theresa. Walking through the ten dark rooms of the imperial crypt, you travel through a 400-year-long stylistic epoch. You’ll see richly decorated coffins are sometimes even adorned with skulls.

The Habsburgs were preoccupied with their death and therefore had the sarcophagus made according to their wishes. Why not take a tour where you will get lots of information about the funeral rituals?

Auschwitz Concentration Camp – Poland

Contributed by Sean from LivingOutLau

Auschwitz is arguably one of the most tragic sites in the entire world. It was the largest of many German Nazi concentration camp and extermination center in World War II. Over 1.1 million men, women, and children, mostly Jews, lost their lives here. The collective genocide of WWII, known as the Holocaust, is one of the most horrific events in human history.

The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum is now a site where visitors can learn more about how the events unfolded, living conditions, defenses that were set up to prevent the captives from escaping and more.

Auschwitz is more than just a popular attraction in Poland; it is a place where visitors can understand human nature. Auschwitz is the standing testimony of the terror that humans can do to each other. It warns out what happens when an ethnic group is dehumanized. A visit to Auschwitz is solemn and eye-opening.

The best way to visit Auschwitz is to take a tour from Krakow , the nearest touristy city from Auschwitz. As part of your Krakow itinerary , don’t forget to book your tour as early as possible. There are multiple languages you can choose to have the tour in and the English-speaking tours are always the first ones to run out!

Visiting popular dark tourism sites

There’s no denying that visiting many of these dark tourism sites around the world is uncomfortable. The atrocities that happened there or the stories they tell are often unfathomable. But dark tourism sites are just as important as any museum or regular attraction.

Whether or not you want to visit any (or all) of the sites on this post, you have to agree that they are truly fascinating. As long as you have good reasons for wanting to visit, and a respectful attitude towards them you will be welcomed.

If you’ve enjoyed reading this post leave a comment or share using the social media buttons below. Which of these dark tourism sites are you most interested in visiting to learn more about?

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37 thoughts on “20 Unique Dark Tourism Sites Around The World”

I really appreciate this post and how you emphasized that respect is key. I so agree! I think visiting these places can be very powerful and very educational. I’ve visited four on this list, as well as a few others not mentioned, and am so grateful for those experiences to learn more and witness humanity’s dark history.

Absolutely love the unique concept of this post. I especially appreciated how you included the section on mindfulness and respect. Hope to pay many of these places a visit.

this was a great post… and while these sites aren’t for everyone, i think it’s important to connect with ‘dark’ parts of the past, so we don’t repeat those same mistakes.

It is very rare to come across such posts. I absolutely loved the concept. Keep up the awesome work.

This is such an interesting guide! I have been to a few of these places and I’ve also visited some older prisons around the world that have a dark past to them. I definitely have to visit some of these in the future. Especially the ones in Europe!

This is one of the most unique posts I’ve seen in a while! I honestly haven’t been to most of the places on this list, but I’m bookmarking it for later.

I have visited a number if these sites but never heard of the them, ‘dark tourism’ before. I can understand how the term has come about. I always leave these sites very reflective. There’s no denying they have an enormous impact on me. I have pinned the post because, in my opinion, ‘dark tourisn’ is an important aspect of world travel.

I have been to a few of them and wrote about the profound realizations I went through. Thanks for sharing a thought-provoking post.

I love how you mentioned the importance of respect when visiting these places. These places really make you think! It’s important to not forget the ‘dark’ parts of history so it doesn’t happen again.

I definitely find places that would class as ‘dark tourism’ interesting. Although to be fair, we very rarely remember the ‘good’ and ‘peaceful parts of history so I think most places could be considered ‘dark’ in one way or another! I’ve only visited Alcatraz from the places on this list but it was definitely a fascinating place and I’d love to go back. I’d like to visit the catacombs in Paris too. There’s also a lot on this list that I haven’t heard of before but I’d definitely love to check them out. Thanks for the great guide!

This list is very important given the history of these places! It’s also interesting to note the different feelings at each of them. I haven’t been to every single one, but Auschwitz, Alcatraz, 9/11, the House of Terror, Catacombs, and Gravensteen Castle (wow, I didn’t realize how many I had been to) but all of them were so uniquely dark. I think Auschwitz was my most striking and moving, though.

This is such an interesting post. It’s so heartbreaking to read through some of the dark things that have happened around the world. I believe it’s important that we visit these places to pay our respects and remember the people whose lives were drastically impacted by these places. I appreciated how you emphasized the importance of showing respect at these places. Thank you for sharing this post!

You can learn so much at these dark tourism sites. The 911 memorial has moved me to tears. I’m not sure I could visit the mummy museum.

I’ve been to Alcatraz and the Catacombs, but it was interesting to discover some new ideas from this list. And yes, mindfulness and respect are so important, particularly for several entries on the list.

As a historian I’m interested in visiting these sites, although we’ve skipped them the last years, since we found our son to young for them. I’ve been to 2 of the sites mentioned.

What a great list of dark tourism places to visit! I’ve been to many of these such as Alcatraz, Bodie, Ghent and 9/11 memorial. I’d love to visit Chernobyl and the catacombs in Paris.

What an interesting article and list of places to visit. I’ve visited a few on this list and I agree with you, visiting these places can be very educational, but we need to be respectful.

What a great post. Yes, I have been to a few of these dark tourist sites and am now adding a few more to my bucket list.

What an utterly informative and sobering post. I visited the Killing Fields in Cambodia back in 2013 but today still hold it so close to my heart.

Lenin’s Mausoleum was a surreal experience to say the least. No stopping, no taking photos, only getting a quick glance at Lenin before being ushered out. Auschwitz was another one that was really eye opening for me and a unique although sad experience.

What a fascinating post! I have never visited any of those sites other than the World Trade Center site in NYC. I would be interested in seeing several of them. sites like that are so educational and bring history to the forefront.

Thank you for this important post. I think sites of dark tourism are important for exposing atrocities of the past for many reasons. They allow us to pay tribute to those who have suffered, but more importantly, hopefully they instil in visitors the importance of playing a role in ensuring that history isn’t repeated.

I’m not sure that ‘penal tourism’ (sites such as Alcatraz and Eastern State Penitentiary) need to be included in the category of ‘dark tourism.’ My visits to S-21 and Cheoung Ek in Cambodia can’t be equated to the failings of a penal system. My visits to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, Dachau in Germany, or Auschwitz in Poland can’t be compared to Alcatraz.

‘Dark tourism’ and ‘penal tourism’ are important, but… separate.

Thank you for bringing attention to this issue.

that’s a fair point, and I’m in no way comparing one of these places to another, but understand that many people also have different levels of comfort in where they might want to visit so wanted to include a wide range of places. There are certain sites (like the ones you mentioned) that are always going to be the worst of the worst with regards to history. Thanks for reading

Very cool article! Haven’t seen many like this one. I’m actually in Tasmania right now!!

I have not done a lot of tourist type things alone, but one was Alcatraz. Fascinating experience walking that prison by myself and the audio tour.

I love this! I really want to try dark tourism after I saw “Dark Tourist” on Netflix! I totally agree with you, visiting these sites is very educational and an eye opener. And yes, respect is the key. It applies to everywhere we go! I will definitely save this for my future travels! 🙂

This is an interesting list. We’ve visited some already – like the catacombs in Paris. And some – like Tschernobyl are on our bucketlist!

Great compilation! There are so many places to go for dark tourism. And I know I can’t brave to most of them. I guess I can do it with museums. Opss how I missed the Crypt museum in Vienna!

What an interesting and informative article. I’ve been to a few of these sites, as well as a few more that didn’t make your list. I think that travelling is learning- and it’s important to visit places such as these to honour, respect and learn from our past.

In a way, I am really into some aspects of dark tourism, I love things that are creepy or have a ghost story behind it. I did find a few spots on this list that interest me such as the castle in Belgium. Looks beautiful and with an interesting story!

Dark tourism is no doubt not everyone’s cuppa tea. Travel ushers understanding and these sites may serve as monuments that will remind humanity about life itself and not taking the same dark path twice.

Great post Emma, I love visiting places like these (or, in some cases, “love” would definitely not be the appropriate word, but I think they’re important to visit). The hardest place I’ve ever visited is the Killing Fields in Cambodia. Horrendous. The genocide museum in Sarajevo in Bosnia was hard-hitting too. I’d be really interested to visit that KGB museum in Latvia!

Very good topic and original. i agree in most of the places listed, indeed most of them are scenario of some of the darkest moments of humanitty. I have only one thing that I don’t understand by you choose to put Lenin Mausoleum? Independently of the personal believes of rach one, Lenin led the biggest and most sucessul revolution in history . Poeple can like it more or less but I don’t how his resting place is part of dark tourist places….If would be Stalin inside ok, but this one i don’t get it. Great work overall, I am argentinian and I really appreciate that you brought-up the story of Potosi…. Well done! Looking forward for your next post!

Thanks for reading. For this one it’s also more about the fact that you can visit the body of Lenin and that it is on display as dark tourism is focused around often morbid places. There are a few countries that have former leaders on display – Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, Chairman Mao in China – and I think the idea of visiting one of these places to see an embalmed body on display is a little dark in itself

Got your point! You know that is the same guy who embalmed Lenin and Ho Chi Minh? 😁

Great post! Especially seeing these are all easily accessible, no trespassing required. I have only been to a few, but I really recommend the Nuremberg Ralley Ground and the adjacent museum. Few people visit, and it is quite eerie. Also, the 1936 Olympic Village in Berlin which is similar architecture to Nuremberg rallye grounds, it was really abandoned a few years ago, I think more touristic now.

Have definitely been to a few dark tourist sites but Chernobyl has been on my list for ages now!

One of the most eye opening museums was the Anne Frank in Amsterdam but definitely want to keep visiting some new ones.

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Money latest: Gameboys, Sindy dolls, designer shoes, 1950s furniture - the items in your attic that could be worth a small fortune

Gumtree's most popular items include rare stamps, Gameboys and Pokemon cards. Read this and all the latest consumer and personal finance news below, plus leave a comment or submit a consumer dispute or money problem in the box.

Monday 29 April 2024 19:46, UK

• Three of UK's biggest lenders up mortgage rates
• Annual mortgage repayments have increased by up to 70% since 2021
• Higher food prices and shortages warning - as new Brexit checks begin this week
• People on disability benefits could receive vouchers rather than cash

Essential reads

• Gameboys, Sindy dolls, designer shoes, 1950s furniture: The items in your attic that could be worth a small fortune
• Money Problem : 'A company isn't abiding by written warranty for dodgy building work - what can I do?'  
• '£2,000 landed in my account' - The people who say they're manifesting riches
• The world of dark tourism - what is it, is it ethical and where can you go?

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Strikes at Heathrow Airport are taking place over the next few weeks, with the first one already under way.

Staff at the UK's biggest airport are set to walk out during the early bank holiday in May, with their union warning planes could be "delayed, disrupted and grounded".

Click here to find out when all the strikes are, what disruption is expected and which airlines are affected...

The average price paid for comprehensive motor insurance rose 1% in the first quarter of the year, according to industry data indicating an easing in the steep rises seen last year.

The latest tracker issued by the Association of British Insurers (ABI) showed a 1% increase on the previous three months to £635.

That was despite the average claim paid rising 8% to reach a record of £4,800, the body said.

The ABI said the disparity showed that its members were "absorbing" additional costs and not passing them on.

Nevertheless, the average policy was still 33%, or £157, higher between January and March compared to the same period last year.

Read the full story here ...

Getir , the grocery delivery app, has abandoned a European expansion that is set to result in the loss of around 1,500 jobs in the UK.

Sky News had previously revealed that the Turkey-based company, which means "to bring" in Turkish, had  successfully raised money from investors to fund its withdrawals  from the UK, Germany and the Netherlands.

It had already departed other countries including Italy and Spain.

The exits were prompted by growing losses linked to the company's rapid expansion.

Waitrose is launching an exclusive range of products with popular chef Yotam Ottolenghi today. 

The Israeli-British chef is famous for his Middle Eastern and Mediterranean-inspired food, and has worked with the supermarket to release products including a pasta sauce, spice blend and shawarma marinade. 

It is the first time Ottolenghi has partnered with a supermarket in such a way. 

The full range will be available in Waitrose shops, Waitrose.com and Ottolenghi.co.uk from today, while a selection of products will be available from the supermarket on Deliveroo and Uber Eats. 

An introductory 20% off offer is being launched until 18 June. 

The range includes: 

• Ottolenghi Miso Pesto 165g (£4)
• Ottolenghi Kalamata Olive & Harissa Sauce  350g (£4.50)
• Ottolenghi Pomegranate, Rose & Preserved Lemon Harissa 170g (£5)
• Ottolenghi Green Harissa 170g (£5)
• Ottolenghi Aleppo & Other Chillies Blend (£3.95)
• Ottolenghi Sweet & Smokey Blend (£3.95)
• Ottolenghi Citrus & Spice Blend (£3.95)
• Ottolenghi Red Chilli Sauce (£4.50)
• Ottolenghi Shawarma Marinade (£4)

Ottolenghi said he had "always been super eager to get our flavours onto people's dinner plates nationwide, not just in London, without having to cook it from scratch every single time". 

He added: "I hate to admit it but the pasta sauce already features heavily in my home kitchen, when no one is looking."

The cost of bread, biscuits and beer could increase this year due to the impact of the unusually wet autumn and winter on UK harvests.

Research suggests that production of wheat, oats, barley and oilseed rape could drop by four million tonnes (17.5%) compared with 2023.

The wet weather has resulted in lower levels of planting, while flooding and storms over winter caused farmers more losses.

The predictions come just as the rate of price increases on many food items begins to slow as inflation falls.

The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) analysed forecasts from the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHBD) and government yield data.

It found a "real risk" of beer, biscuits and bread becoming more expensive if the poor harvest increases costs for producers, according to its lead analyst Tom Lancaster.

Beer prices could be affected because the wet weather is still disrupting the planting of spring crops such as barley, the ECIU said.

And potatoes might also see a price hike in the coming months, with growers warning of a major shortage in the autumn due to persistent wet weather.

By Emily Mee , Money team

When I think about the toys of my childhood - my pink Barbie car, my Gameboy Micro, my collection of Pokemon cards - I can't tell you where they went. 

Maybe they were shipped off to a charity shop at some point... Or perhaps they're in the attic? 

While my hot pink Gameboy Micro is lost to the void of time (or a cardboard box somewhere in my mum's house), other versions of it are selling on eBay for £100 or more. 

And there are Pokemon cards selling for anything from a tenner to hundreds or even thousands of pounds. 

It's possible you also have items at home that are a collector's dream. 

Gumtree says its collectables category is already proving to be a "hotbed of activity" this year, with listings up 22% in 2024 so far. 

Its most popular items include rare stamps, coins, war memorabilia and Pokemon cards. 

Spring is often the most popular time for buying and selling collectibles, with demand spiking in March and April. 

We've enlisted the help of TV presenter and collectables expert Tracy Martin to give an idea of what could make you an easy buck. 

Old toys making a 'retro comeback'

Tracy explains that while trends change, vintage toys tend to stand the test of time. 

"Toys are always going to be popular because they tap into nostalgia, our childhood memories," she says, explaining that adults like to buy the toys they used to have. 

Perhaps you were into cars, and you've got some old diecast vehicles from Matchbox, Corgi or Dinky Toys. 

A quick look on toy auction site Vectis.co.uk shows a Corgi Toys "James Bond" Aston Martin estimated to sell for between £600 to £700 - while others are likely to fetch £50 to £60. 

Sindy dolls are also particularly sought after - particularly those from the 1960s - and Barbie dolls from the 1990s too. 

Pokemon cards have seen a "massive surge", Tracy says, with people paying "thousands and thousands of pounds" for good unopened sets. 

She's even seen examples of people paying £16,000 upwards. 

Another up-and-coming market is games consoles, such as Gameboys, vintage consoles and PlayStations, which are making a "retro comeback".

What else could earn you some cash?

Tracy says there's currently a surge in people wanting to buy "mid century" furniture, which is dated to roughly 1945 to 1965 and typically uses clean lines and has a timeless feel. 

Vintage Danish furniture is sought after, particularly tables and chairs with good designer names such as Wegner, Verner Panton and Arne Jacobsen.

Prices range from the low hundreds into the thousands.

People will also look out for vintage framed prints by artists such as Tretchikoff, J.H. Lynch and Shabner - these can range in price from £50 upwards to a few hundred pounds plus. 

Vintage clothes, handbags and shoes can fetch a good price - but you can also invest in modern pieces. 

Tracy suggests looking out for good classic designs with high-end designer names such as Gucci, Chanel, Dior and Louis Vuitton. 

Modern designers such as Irregular Choice, Vendula and Lulu Guinness are also collected. 

Collaborations with designers and celebrities can do well as they're often limited edition. 

For example, Tracy says the H&M x Paco Rabanne maxi silver sequin dress retailed at £279.99 last year but now sells for in excess of £600. 

When it comes to shoes, "the quirkier the design the better" - so look out for brands such as Irregular Choice and Joe Browns. 

Converse and Dr Martens collaborations also do well, depending on the design and condition, as well as Adidas and Nike limited edition trainers. 

What's the best way to sell?  

Tracy recommends to always research before selling your items, as they might perform better on different platforms and you can also get an idea of how much they sell for. 

For example, Vinted can be a good place to sell clothes and shoes, while other items might be better suited for sale on Gumtree, eBay or Etsy. 

Tracy's favourite way to sell is through auction - especially if there are specialist sales. 

Vectis is one of the biggest and most popular for toy selling. 

Interests in different periods and items can go up and down, but for the time being vintage pieces from the 1980s and 90s are popular. 

How much you'll be able to get from an item often takes into account its rarity, condition, whether it reflects a period in time, and if it's got a good name behind it. 

You never know - you might be sitting on a treasure trove. 

Annual mortgage repayments have increased by up to 70% since 2021, according to new data from Zoopla .

The biggest impact of rising interest rates has been in southern England where house prices are higher.

Across the South West, South East and East of England, the annual mortgage cost for an average home is £5,000 higher than previously. This rises to £7,500 in London.

But the universal uptick in mortgage costs has been less pronounced in other parts of the UK, with the North East seeing a £2,350 increase.

In a bid to tackle inflation, the Bank of England has raised the base rate from 0.1% in December 2021 to a 16-year high of 5.25% now.

The Zoopla research looked at the average home buyer taking out a 70% loan-to-value mortgage.

This week seems to be starting where last week left off - with three major lenders announcing further hikes in mortgage rates.

Amid uncertainty of the timing of interest rate cuts from the Bank of England  this year, swap rates (which dictate how much it costs lenders to lend) have been rising in recent weeks.

Financial markets currently see two rate cuts by the Bank of England this year.

We've reported on a string of rate bumps from the high street over the last 10 days, and this morning NatWest, Santander and Nationwide moved.

In its second hikes announcement in less than a week, NatWest laid out increases across its full range of residential and buy-to-let fixed deals of up to 0.22%.

Santander, meanwhile, announced increases for both fixed and tracker deals across their residential and buy-to-let products - up to 0.25%.

The same hikes are being imposed for a range of Nationwide deals.

All of these will kick in tomorrow.

Amit Patel, adviser at Trinity Finance, told Newspage it was "not a great start to the week". 

"This is not good news for borrowers," he said.

Where will the base rate go this year?

The majority of the bets, according to LSEG data, are on the first cut coming in August (previously this was June) and the second in December.

This would take Bank rate from the current level of 5.25% to 4.75%.

Disabled people could receive vouchers instead of monthly payments under proposed changes to Personal Independence Payment (PIP).

The changes could see people being provided with either one-off grants for specific costs such as home adaptation, or being directed to "alternative means of support" rather than financial support.

Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride is set to announce plans today to overhaul the way disability benefits work.

In a Green Paper due to be published alongside Mr Stride's statement to the Commons, ministers will set out plans to reform Personal Independence Payments (PIP), the main disability benefit, through changes to eligibility criteria and assessments.

The plans also include proposals to "move away from a fixed cash benefit system", meaning people with some conditions, such as depression and anxiety, will no longer receive regular payments but rather get improved access to treatment if their condition does not involve extra costs.

Speaking to Sky News earlier, Mr Stride said: "I want us to have a grown-up, sensible conversation about a benefit called PIP that has not been reviewed in over a decade.

"And I want to ask the question, is it fit for purpose given the world that we're in today, in which mental health issues sadly present more of an issue than they did a decade ago."

By James Sillars , business reporter

A fresh high for the FTSE 100 to start the week.

The index of leading shares in London was 0.5% up at 8,179 in early dealing.

The gains were led by miners and financial stocks.

Dragging on the performance were some consumer-facing brands including JD Sports and Flutter Entertainment.

One other development of note to mention is that stubbornly high oil price.

A barrel of Brent crude is currently trading almost 1% down on the day.

But it remains at $88 a barrel.

The market has been pulled by various forces this month, with hopes of a rebound in demand in China among them.

The latest decline is said to reflect peace talks being held between Israel and Hamas.

A demand for smaller homes has driven growth in UK property prices early in 2024, according to research by Halifax.

Data from the bank's house price index suggests annual property price growth hit 1.9% in February this year - a significant rise from -4.1% just three months prior.

That equates to a rise in prices of £5,318 over the past year.

It follows interest rates stabilising, Halifax says, after a sharp rise over the past two years which squeezed mortgage affordability.

A key driver behind rising prices, Halifax says, has been first-time buyers, who made up 53% of all homes bought with a mortgage in 2023 - the highest proportion since 1995.

And it's smaller homes that have recorded the biggest increases in price growth in the early part of this year - with buyers adjusting their expectations to compensate for higher borrowing costs.

Flats and terraced houses made up 57% of all homes purchased by first-time buyers last year.

This varies by region - for example, in London, flats and terraced homes accounted for 90% of all first-time buyer purchases.

Challenges remain

However, Amanda Bryden, head of Halifax mortgages, said "it's important not to gloss over the challenges" facing the UK housing market, given the "impact of higher interest rates on mortgage affordability" and "continued lack of supply of new homes".

"But scratch beneath the surface and there is a more nuanced story, one which shows that demand for different property types in different parts of the country can vary hugely," she added.

"As interest rates have stabilised and buyers adjust to the new economic reality of owning a home, one way to compensate for higher borrowing costs is to target smaller properties.

"This is especially true among first-time buyers, who have proven to be resilient over recent years, and now account for the largest proportion of homes purchased with a mortgage in almost 30 years."

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