What is 'Dark Tourism'

Friday 19 February 2016
It is no secret that people are interested in strange things. Some people are interested in baking, some people like to dance and some people enjoy nothing more than a fine cheese. I am neither inserted in baking, dancing nor cheese. I am interested in Dark Tourism. 


Dark Tourism is the act of visiting a location that is associated with tragedy, misery and death. If you think about it, Dark Tourism is not a modern nor alien concept. For centuries, people have been attending to the graves of their loved ones, preserving memories. When I was 14, I went on a GCSE History trip to Ypres, touring the WW1 battlefields and visiting the location of the Somme. It was a peculiar feeling to know that the trees in the distance bore witness to the deaths of as many as 1,000,000 men in one of the bloodiest battles in history. Strangely enough, I also felt calm. Calm because I knew I was remembering and honouring the wasted lives of these men who died in tragic circumstances. 

My GCSE History group and I are not alone in visiting areas associated with death and tragedy. Every November, the Queen and major political figures lay wreathes of poppies in front of the Cenotaph in London. In New York, the 9/11 Memorial Museum remembers those who lost their lives in the infamous attacks on the World Trade Centre towers. Furthermore, tourists regularly flock to Pompeii to observe the unfortunate fate of those buried in ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79. 

Memorialising death and disaster is a concrete ideology, whether society choses to accept it or not. 

DT
2 comments on "What is 'Dark Tourism'"
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