Dark tourism: Nine eye-opening locations with tragic histories
The so-called travel trend of dark tourism has mystified academics and sun-seeking holidaymakers alike for years, as some travellers continue to be compelled to visit places with dark pasts instead of more traditional destinations.
From monuments to museums, areas where atrocities took place and the remains of natural disasters, tourists have been drawn to these sites that now serve as places of remembrance of lives lost and also as a reminder of what the world is capable of.
Everyone has their motives for visiting these heart-rending sites: for some, it’s confronting a part of their past or family history, and for others, it’s the immense intrigue and motivation to learn the history of an event, no matter how heinous.
Whether it’s looking upon a pile of personal belongings left behind by those killed at Auschwitz or reading the names of people who lost their lives at the 9/11 memorial, these sites remain important to those who have a personal connection to the tragedies and offer the chance for others to partake in keeping memories of those affected alive.
What is dark tourism?
The basic definition of dark tourism is visiting a place that is associated with a tragic event in history, usually surrounded by death and suffering.
However, why people would choose to spend their money or time visiting such places perplexes many, especially when most travellers would prefer to spend their annual leave sunbathing on a beach and switch off their minds, rather than confront sobering and upsetting histories.
Dr Philip Stone, who founded the Institute of Dark Tourism Research at the University of Central Lancashire in 2012, told The Independent that dark tourism chiefly portrays and commemorates “our noteworthy dead within visitor economies, through museums and exhibitions, monuments and sites, as well as visitor attractions”.
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“It represents tragedies or calamities for the contemporary tourist experience and the ‘difficult heritage’ that often entails,” he said. “Dark tourism is bound up in contested memory, memorialisation, and the visitor experience.”
Some people are not totally on board with dark tourism. This might be because of concern over tragic sites becoming commercialised or because it’s not how certain countries want to represent themselves through the tourist sector.
Dr Stone explained that dark tourism is “full of managerial dilemmas” and “political quandaries” as the sightseeing of places with a dark past can be “ethically laden”.
“The dead in dark tourism can warn us of our own fights, follies, or misfortunes,” he added.
What isn’t dark tourism?
Why humans are drawn to dark tourism has been studied by academics. At the Institute of Dark Tourism Research, they look into the multi-dimensional aspects of dark tourism in society and culture, and the business of managing such provocative visitor sites, museums, and attractions.
“The line between commemorating and commercialising the dead is becoming increasingly blurred,” said Dr Stone. “Whilst we never encounter the corpse in dark tourism, we encounter touristified narratives of the demise and the significant dead can mediate our own sense of mortality.
“Dark tourism can entail a kind of secular pilgrimage where journeys in the footsteps of the dead are made, for instance at battlefields or at conflict sites.
“Ironically, in a world that seems to spin ever faster, dark tourism is focused on death and the dead, but it perhaps tells us more about life and living.”
The creator of the online guide dark-tourism.com says that the practice is a “respectful and enlightened” engagement in history and its dark sides, in a way that educates people without sensationalising events of the past.
The website adds that there are several misconceptions about dark tourism, such as that it includes visiting impoverished areas, known as “slum tourism”, visiting current war zones (”war tourism”) or taking part in extreme activities that could put people in danger such as exploring caves (”danger tourism”).
Dark tourism also does not promote tourists being disrespectful at historical sites, the website says, such as what has been seen over the years at Auschwitz with people taking selfies or posing for photos.
While some tourists are not respectful when visiting sites that deal with tragic events, many monuments, museums and places of interest aim to be places of remembrance and sites where people can come to terms with the history, as well as acting as stark reminders.
Dr Duncan Light, a principal academic in tourism management at Bournemouth University who has written review papers on dark tourism research, told The Independent that there are many other misconceptions about dark tourism.
“One of the big ones is that the people who visit places of death and suffering have a sick and morbid fascination with death,” he said. “However, there’s been a lot of research into why tourists go to places of death and it’s found virtually no evidence of such motivations.
“Instead, the main reasons why people say they visit places of death and suffering are to do with learning about the past; remembrance of tragic events, connecting with tragic events by seeing for themselves where it happened, paying respect to victims of suffering, visiting places associated with their family’s history and visiting places that are significant for national identity.
“None of these motives are particularly dark,” Dr Light added.
Dark tourism places of interest
1. Auschwitz-Birkenau
Poland
One of the largest Nazi concentration camps, Auschwitz was established in 1940 and built more than 40-sub camps that exploited prisoners as slave labourers. In less than five years, at least 1.1 million people were murdered at the camp; no other camp or extermination centre under the Nazis saw the level of mass murder of Jews as Auschwitz did during the Second World War. Today, the site is a museum, where the original camp blocks and barracks stand and tens of thousands of objects have been preserved. Personal possessions such as shoes, suitcases, camp garments and works of art made by prisoners are on display, as well as objects that bear testimony to the living conditions within the camps. The memorial and museum are found in Oświęcim, Poland and are open almost every day of the year.
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2. Chernobyl
Ukraine
The Chernobyl nuclear power disaster in 1986 forced around 350,000 people to eventually evacuate and left 28 dead from acute radiation syndrome, along with two who died on the night of the explosion – though some say it is likely more people died. The explosion and fires released at least 5 per cent of the radioactive reactor core into the environment. As a result of the Ukraine-Russia war, tours of the exclusion zone are currently not running, but the site has been frequently visited by many dark tourist enthusiasts in the past. The UK Foreign Office currently advises against all travel to parts of Ukraine.
3. National 9/11 Memorial & Museum
New York, USA
Located at the World Trade Center in New York City, often referred to as ground zero, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum was created to tell the story of the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001 and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. On the site where the twin towers once stood, the museum has a collection of artefacts, media and narratives that tell personal stories and give visitors the opportunity to learn about the history of the attacks and the aftermath. Also at the site is a memorial to the 2,977 people killed on 9/11, as well as the six people killed in the 1993 bombing, with the names of those who died inscribed on bronze parapets. The memorial is open daily, while the museum is open Wednesday to Monday.
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4. War Remnants Museum
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
The War Remnants Museum has nine permanent exhibitions, each displaying photos, documents and artefacts relating to the Vietnam war and the first Indochina war. The exhibitions tell the story of the atrocities, politics and history through the eyes of photojournalists, as well as with artefacts such as torture devices from prisons and information from people around the world who stood in solidarity with the Vietnamese during the war. Two exhibitions are dedicated to Agent Orange, a chemical herbicide used by the US military during the war that contaminated 2.6 million hectares of land and caused serious health impacts on millions of Vietnamese and future generations. The museum is regarded as one of Ho Chi Minh City’s most prominent cultural sites and is open every day.
5. Pompeii
Italy
While this Unesco world heritage site does not deliver the same contemporary history as other dark tourism destinations, the archaeological site of Pompeii still attracts many visitors to bear witness to the area that was engulfed by Vesuvius’s eruption in 79AD. The eruption of the volcano led to two Roman towns, Pompeii and Herculaneum, being buried by volcanic ash along with thousands of residents. The excavations can be visited from Naples, Italy and the site is open year round. Due to record numbers of visitors last summer, Pompeii will now have a daily limit of 20,000 admissions during peak months.
6. Crumlin Road Gaol
Belfast, Northern Ireland
While Crumlin Road Gaol hosts some experiences more suited to visitors interested in ghost-hunting and the supernatural, the former Northern Irish prison also draws dark tourists who want to learn about the Troubles, as well as 19th and 20th-century executions and the imprisonment of Suffragettes. The prison played a leading role in detaining both republicans and loyalists during the Troubles, and the onsite museum and tours allow visitors to learn about the history of the conflict from unionist/loyalist and British/Irish perspectives, as well as understand how the Troubles still impact life in Belfast today. Walking tours of the surrounding area are carried out by former political prisoners, while visitors can take part in self or guided tour of the prison. Crumlin Road Gaol is open seven days a week.
7. Choeung Ek Killing Fields
Cambodia
The Choeung Ek Genocidal Center sits on the former mass execution site used by the Khmer Rouge regime to kill the vast majority of 18,000 prisoners at S-21, a notorious interrogation centre, and is one of the well-known Killing Fields. The brutal regime, whose supposed goal was to make Cambodia into an agrarian utopia, claimed the lives of around 2 million people through murder, starvation and disease. At Choeung Ek, a large Buddhist stupa with glass fronting shows stacks of skulls of more than 5,000 victims whose remains were found in the surrounding graves. The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, also in Phnom Penh, at the site of the former S-21 interrogation site and detention centre, has exhibitions giving visitors a chance to learn about the history, living conditions and lasting impact of the Khmer Rouge regime. The museum is open every day.
8. Kigali Genocide Memorial
Rwanda
The Kigali Genocide Memorial was opened as a place of remembrance, dedicated to the victims of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 that saw some 800,000 killed. The Rwandan genocide happened in just 100 days, led by Hutu militias who targeted the Tutsi minority community and some moderate Hutus. The memorial sits next to mass graves, the final resting place of 250,000 people killed, and includes three permanent exhibitions, the largest of which documents the genocide. The museum can be visited through a guided tour that is often led by survivors or an audio guide. The memorial is open seven days a week and no visitors under the age of 12 are permitted to visit. The FCDO currently advises against all travel to parts of Rwanda.
9. Hiroshima
Japan
At 8.15am on 6 August 1945, the Japanese city of Hiroshima was devastated by an atomic bomb, the first to be used as a weapon of war. Around five square miles of the city were destroyed, and about 140,000 people were killed by the explosion or the effect of burns and radiation. There are several sites around the city where visitors go to remember the victims or learn more about the history. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial, commonly known as the Atomic Bomb Dome, is the only structure left standing in the area where the bomb exploded and has been preserved by the city. Just across the river is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, home to an arched cenotaph that contains registries of the names of all known victims and the Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound, which is placed in the ashes of thousands of unclaimed or unidentified victims. At the other end of the park is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, which houses exhibitions of personal belongings left behind by victims, testimonies from survivors and photographs from the time. The museum is open every day for most of the year.
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