Summer is coming and, with it, the time for vacations and travel. A Greek island to enjoy the sea and the sun can be a good idea. Or maybe a colder destination like Iceland for those who can’t stand more than 30ºC. To taste the colors. But there are those who are not fully satisfied with this type of tourism. It is not enough for them to stay in a good hotel, or go to the beach, or see monuments, or take a selfie in Big Ben. Much less queuing for two hours to enter the Louvre.
There are people who are into adventure. But the real adventure. Every year, thousands of tourists embark for some of the darkest places on the planet. We talk about corners where atrocities have been committed, natural disasters, accidents or famous murders. From Auschwitz to Chernobyl or Hiroshima. There are those who like to visit the genocide museum in Cambodia or the monument in memory of the victims of 9/11.
It is what is known as Dark Tourism.
Viewers of the Netflix series Dark Tourist They will already be cured of fear, but the truth is that there are many curiosities behind this phenomenon. One who has no other purpose than to visit places where dark episodes have developed of humanity. It should be noted that the same popular culture that shapes us today is helping the trend to become even more widespread. For example, since the premiere of the Chernobyl series, trips to the area that suffered such an unfortunate accident have increased by 40%.
But what we are dealing with today is a specific part of Dark Tourism: the simulations. To live a real adventure you have to do just that: live it. That is why there are those who are not satisfied with just visiting a hotel about the Jewish genocide or the Dallas street where John Fitzerald Kennedy was assassinated. There are those who want…
Take part.
Wait, participate? Yes. Live the experience in your own skins with recreations destined for tourists hungry to live a “real” adventure. What are we talking about? Of Germans crossing the US-Mexico border as if they were illegal immigrants, as if everything were a simulation, a game. Or Americans going to theme parks in Japan that recreate episodes of earthquakes.
From vacation to an earthquake or a false siphon
The Asian country has dozens of theme parks where you can experience simulated earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons or fires. Some see them as disaster education centers offering survival lessons. Others like a day of fun in a science fiction movie. Where else would we be able to walk through a post-apocalyptic setting with smashed cars, swaying power poles, and fire popping up everywhere.
Tokyo’s Rinkai Disaster Prevention Park offers a most immersive experience. Visitors enter what looks like a store elevator, as they descend, a violent tremor causes it to wobble from side to side. The doors open onto a dark, wrecked shopping mall, through which they have to make their way through the shops in a chaotic scene where the cables spark and mega air conditioning machines throw them from one side to the other.
In some cases, visitors don raincoats and hang on where they can, before being lashed by fake hurricanes or artificial rain. There are those who want to live this. And he spends millions to get it.
Cross the US-Mexico border as an illegal immigrant
If the idea of experiencing an earthquake for pleasure already seems surprising to us, imagine paying to flee from border agents at the wall in Mexico. Yes, several tourism agencies offer live simulations so that tourists can find out first-hand how it is that they are persecuted, shot or insulted while crossing the border into the United States “illegally”. All this in the cold dark night.
They call it the “Night Walk,” and it’s nothing more than a three-hour tour of an obstacle course through the desert, all while being chased by “border patrol agents” who fire blanks to further increase the adrenalin. The pack is sold at Parque EcoAlberto. More than 70% of the community that resides there has emigrated to the US and they commented in an article in the Los Angeles Times that “it is part of our culture and it is important to know it.” Besides pocketing some money in the meantime, of course.
Sleep in the room where a murder was committed
The curiosity of spending the night where dark events have taken place is a magnet for many tourists, who would not hesitate for a moment to spend thousands of euros to live the terrifying experience. For this reason, on Ocean Drive Avenue in Miami Beach (USA), what was the famous mansion of Gianni Versace continues to attract curious tourists who would like to photograph the steps where the crime was committed.
But not only that. Following the success of the American Crime Story series, it has been transformed into a luxury boutique hotel. Sleep in Donatella’s or the dressmaker’s room it can cost you from 600 euros to 1,200 for just one night. Built in 1930 and with more than 20 rooms, the house has been acquired at auction by the family that owns the “Victor Hotels” hotel chain.
Travelers have the opportunity to explore the corners that were the protagonists of the most intimate scenes in Gianni’s life, even discovering the dozens of secret doors and hidden passageways in the house.
A walk through Chernobyl, without touching the crockery
In Magnet, a few months ago we told what it is like to spend the night in Pripyat and the exclusion zone. An area that still attracts a brutal number of tourists today (perhaps the HBO series had something to do with the phenomenon) despite the fact that efforts continue to protect visitors from the dangers of radiation. What will we find there? Well, the first thing is the “Dityatki” checkpoint, where you have to pass the special nuclear control for tourists. The delivery of passports is necessary to access the exclusion zone.
The main attraction is the new sarcophagus that covers reactor 4 where the catastrophe occurred or the “Luna Park” amusement park, with its sinister carousel and abandoned Ferris wheel. The entire ghost town of Pripyat is naturally dark, with its abandoned buildings and weeds growing everywhere. But visitable, which is what interests us.
What we had in that article was more focused on what it was like to stay in the vicinity of Pripyat. Within the exclusion zone is the Desyatka hotel, an establishment that tries to recreate the life of the years of the accident and welcomes tourists eager to relive the nuclear apocalypse and its ravages. As we mentioned, the hotel is promoted as follows: “Remember that your body is exposed to additional radiation. Do not touch anything. Everything can be a source of problems for you, your family and your friends.”
Dark Tourism, a mass phenomenon
Disasters will always happen. Whether natural, industrial or military, our world is full of corners where terrible things have happened. And if something has made us take a train ticket there, it can only be one thing: morbid. So much so that there are web pages like this one that compile other destinations and activities that satisfy the wildest and darkest desires for adventure.
If we go to the categories section, we see that among the most prominent are: nuclear tourism (Hiroshima or Chernobyl), tomb tourism (such as the Mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in Turkey or the Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic), prison tourism (Alcatraz or Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela spent 27 years), genocide tourism (Auschwitz or the Genocide Museum in Cambodia), paranormal tourism (UFO sightings in Roswell, USA), etc.
Nowadays there are no limits in tourism. Nowadays an earthquake sounds more fun than a selfie on the Eiffel Tower. Or a dungeon of bones.