Selfies are a regular part of tourism.
Marcos Mesa Sam Wordley/Shutterstock
We analysed hundreds of selfies and found some people were shamed more than others.
Neptune Baths in Romania.
swithuncrowe/flickr
Dark tourism allows people to understand tragic events, experience a catharsis of emotions related to the deaths at a site and it can help people heal from collective trauma.
A participant of the ‘Stokerland’ event in Dublin, in front of St Patrick’s Cathedral, goes the extra mile, with an ornate costume and even stilts.
Luisa Golz
A recent addition to the “spooky” calendar of events are Gothic festivals, inspired by Gothic literature classics such as “Dracula”.
People watch and record images of lava from the Mauna Loa volcano on Dec. 1, 2022 near Hilo, Hawaii.
(AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
It’s very important for tourists to understand the risks of visiting volcanic sites and properly prepare themselves for excursions to see volcanic eruptions.
Pexels
Dark tourism can help shine a commemorative light on the pandemic that has gripped society.
State Library Victoria
A series of films made between 1927 and 1952 shone a light on the convict ruins of Port Arthur and helped develop dark tourism in Australia.
The ruins of Nepal’s Gorkha district after the 2015 earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 people and injured 22,000. Tourism helped lead the way back.
EU/ECHO/Pierre Prakash
It isn’t always good advice for tourists to stay away. Often their money can help, as well as their skills.
© Mikhail Makarenko
Performances of prison life are commonplace nowadays in gulag museums. Visitors can vividly imagine it all – the tears, pain and despair.
Is it ethical to use former prisons, with long histories of death, suffering and wrongful incarcerations, as entertainment venues?
Rockin' the Big House
What does it mean to hold a party in a place with a long history of death and suffering?
African diasporans visit forts and castles in Ghana as the material embodiment of death, violence and subjugation during the slave trade.
Supplied
For Africans and diasporans, learning about their heritage is important. But it remains to be seen how this will translate into a sustained continental and diasporan engagement.
Climbers begin the long ascent.
Jase Wilson
The 2019 season has been one of Mount Everest’s deadliest for climbers.
A ferris wheel in the deserted town of Pripyat, Ukraine.
EPA/Helmut Fohringer
The HBO series ‘Chernobyl’ has reignited interest among tourists to visit Pripyat, but growing up in the disaster’s shadow has made us wary.
EPA-EFE/Thibault Vandermersch
You might think it morbid, but people have many reasons for visiting the sites of battles and disasters.
A tourist photographs the stupa of human remains at Choeung Ek Genocidal Center.
Caroline Bennett
A new Netflix series focusing on tourism to sites of historic disasters or atrocities delivers no more than a contemporary version of a freak show.
By preventing Australians from visiting a ‘sacred place’ like the Kokoda Track, it is more likely that local landowners grievances will be met.
ABC News/Eric Tlozek
The blockade of the Kokoda Track by local landowners is a product of the complex political and economic issues currently affecting Papua New Guinea.
Actress Kara Tointon at the official celebrity launch of the Jack the Ripper show at The London Dungeon in 2008.
Anthony Upton/PA Archive/PA Images
Why is it acceptable to leer at photos of murdered women in the name of entertainment?
Spike Island.
http://www.spikeislandcork.ie/
The former prison, Spike Island, is now one of the world’s top ‘dark tourism’ destinations.
Federico Zovadelli / Shutterstock.com
Northern Ireland has a tourist circuit steeped in death and disaster – is this a good thing?
Students at Ponar Forest in Lithuania, where Nazis massacred many Jews.
Daniel B. Bitran
In recent years, the number of people traveling to sites of death, natural disaster, acts of violence, tragedy and crimes against humanity has dramatically increased. Is it immoral?
The so-called ‘prison tree’: over time, myth has coalesced into a ‘fact’ for which there is no evidence.
Author provided
There is no evidence to support the marketing of an ancient boab in Western Australia as a tree that once held Aboriginal prisoners. The story is a myth that elides the tree’s deep significance to Indigenous people.