Dark Tourism

By: Jess Johnson

The phenomenon of dark tourism is interesting. People visit sites of war, death, and horror, voluntarily, and receive something out of it. For some people it is a way to remember tragedy. For others it is a way to connect with a person they may have lost. Some people find joy in walking through the worlds scariest penitentiary’s and some people visit by coincidence. Dark tourism is the idea that we, as human beings, have the urge to see and explore even the most grotesque of places. It can be as simple as rubbernecking a car accident or making a cold place a destination location, to as serious as visiting Auschwitz or the grave site of war heroes. There is no limit to the ideology behind dark tourism.

Dark tourism, in my opinion, could be used effectively. For places like Siberia that don’t get much attention, they can twist what is normally seen as negative into a positive. Instead of accepting the fact that most people don’t want to vacation in a freezing cold location, tourist marketers turn it into a place to find solace and to get away from everything. I think dark tourism sits on a spectrum that is determined by the purpose of the location and that is what increases the prevalence of this phenomenon. People like being nosey when there’s a car accident. They like to be reminded that they are human and imperfect. They like to be able to reflect on the past while looking into the future. Dark tourism, while seemingly a very weird concept, is actually very interesting because it explains how peoples’ minds work. People enjoy what dark tourism has to offer.