A Different Kind Of Journey
What kind of tourist are you? Maybe you think of tropical resorts, sandy beaches, fun amusement parks, and long road trips through enchanting landscapes. Or maybe you want to plunge into the darkness of history and the human soul. If so, “dark tourism” might be for you!
Uncomfortable Stories
Dr Philip Stone was so interested in the topic that he started the Institute For Dark Tourism Research. Based at the University of Central Lancashire, Dr Stone says dark tourism focuses on “our noteworthy dead,” perhaps exploring an area’s “difficult heritage” along the way.
Exploration Or Exploitation?
Stories of the departed can bring tourists to the original sites of “tragedies or calamities,” perhaps with the help of museums that can educate the visitor. The lofty goal might be to get people to learn about the lessons of tragic history. But when money’s involved, exploitation is a risk.
Plenty Of Choices
And there are seemingly endless options for tourists who want to take the dark route. Peter Hohenhaus runs a web site called dark-tourism.com, and has written an Atlas Of Dark Destinations describing 300 disturbing destinations from Mount St Helens to Easter Island.
Ghosts Of History
Hohenhaus is careful to limit the scope of dark tourism. It’s not gawking at the poor (“slum tourism”) or risking life and limb (“danger tourism”), let alone seeking out active armed conflicts (“war tourism”). And though he’s into ghost towns, no haunted houses need apply.
Jörg Blobelt, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Disaster Sites
Instead, Hohenhaus supports “respectful and enlightened touristic engagement with contemporary history, and its dark sites/sides”.
But even within those limits, his online directory encompasses nearly 50 categories, ranging from concentration camps to environmental disaster sites.
Crisco 1492, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Not So Morbid
Dr Duncan Light at Bournemouth University has studied why some travelers take the road down dark tourism, and says, “None of these motives are particularly dark”.
It’s usually not a morbid twist, but rather a genuine desire to learn about the past and pay respect to victims of tragedy.
A Lighter Shade Of Dark
Dr Light writes that “many visitors are more deeply engaged than they have been given credit for,” with dark places proving to be “transformative and even life-changing”.
That’s even true of “lighter dark tourism,” as visitors to the London Dungeon revealed in a study he helped conduct.
www.CGPGrey.com, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Take The Guided Tour
So let’s take a look at prominent and not-so-prominent destinations that dark tourism has to offer. Though we’ll be sure to include a volcanic eruption and another natural disaster, the vast majority of this selection will plumb the depths of human depravity—or just plain folly.
Chernobyl (Ukraine)
The Chernobyl power plant is a disaster area now situated within another disaster area. In 1986, while Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union, a reactor core melted down and released a huge amount of radiation, prompting mass evacuations.
Though the radiation levels eventually dropped enough for tourism to begin, the tours have since stopped, as Chernobyl is in a conflict zone.
IAEA Imagebank, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
Bran Castle (Romania)
Fans of Bram Stoker’s Dracula might be disappointed to learn neither Bran Castle nor its most famous occupant, Vlad the Impaler, have much to do with a gothic novel first published in 1897.
Nowadays the castle houses a museum featuring art once owned by the last queen of Romania.
Dobre Cezar, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
National 9/11 Memorial & Museum (New York City, USA)
A solemn reminder of the nearly 3,000 people who perished on September 11, 2001, the memorial and museum sit where New York’s World Trade Center towers collapsed.
The museum tells the stories of the day’s victims and the history of events before and after 9/11.
Paul Sableman, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
Auschwitz-Birkenau (Poland)
Built in 1940, this concentration camp ended the lives of more than one million people, primarily pursuing Germany’s campaign of extermination against Jews.
Tourists can visit a museum that preserves the original buildings and displays personal items once belonging to former inmates. A difficult, but unforgettable experience.
Dnalor_01, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
War Remnants History (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam)
This museum in the former capital of South Vietnam gives the victorious Hanoi regime’s perspective on a bloody conflict that drew in thousands of conscripted men from the US.
The museum includes exhibits on Agent Orange, a chemical the US dropped to reduce forest cover.
Prenn, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Pompeii (Italy)
Not exactly ripped from the headlines, but the excavated town of Pompeii is still popular, as life stopped in its tracks when Mt Vesuvius erupted in the year 79 CE.
You can head to nearby Naples to book a tour of the place where thousands of people found themselves buried in the fatal ash two millennia ago.
Crumlin Road Gaol (Belfast, Northern Ireland)
Spirits remaining from executions at the Gaol may have prompted their share of paranormal tourism, but you can also get a more conventional education on the politics and history of the penitentiary at its museum. Besides the hangings, you can read about incarcerated Suffragettes and the Troubles of the 1970s.
GrimsbyT, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Choeung Ek Genocidal Center (Cambodia)
Located in Phnom Penh, this museum stands where thousands of captives perished after interrogation. It’s the site of just one of the country’s many Killing Fields used by the brutal Khmer Rouge.
Altogether two million Cambodians lost their lives through execution or neglect.
Timgray200, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Kigali Genocide Memorial (Rwanda)
Over just a few months, ethnic conflict in Rwanda cost 800,000 people their lives, mostly from the Tutsi minority. The museum sits next to mass graves containing 250,000 people massacred by majority Hutu militants.
Tourists should be cautious due to border tensions and theft.
Hanay, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Japan)
Near the end of WWII, the US dropped an atomic explosive on Hiroshima, with 140,000 fatalities right away or soon after. Besides the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, with its famous dome at ground zero, there’s a memorial park housing a museum and the ashes of many who perished.
Oilstreet, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
The Sixth Floor Museum (Dallas, Texas)
Like 9/11, the assassination of President John F Kennedy sent shockwaves through America. From the sixth floor of the building that now houses the museum, Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy as he rode past on November 22, 1963. The museum offers both exhibits and talks.
Dakota L., CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
The Paris Catacombs (France)
Descend 131 steps below the streets of Paris and see millions of skulls and bones, dumped into an abandoned quarry after authorities began closing various cemeteries to protect public health. By 1809 the dark tourism of the era attracted its first visitors to this massively popular ossuary.
Sarajevo Assassination Site & Museum (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Gavrilo Princip’s assassination of Franz Ferdinand, next in line to be Emperor of Austria-Hungary, triggered the WWI, and the Museum of Sarajevo 1878–1918 stands next to where the assassin stood.
The museum’s gun, however, is a replica of the assassin’s.
Hibasi, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Stalin Museum (Gori, Georgia)
The Soviet strongman’s ruthless reign ended with his passing in 1953, but a museum opened soon after that paints the hometown boy in unrestrained patriotic glory.
You can see a copy of his death mask, and then nip next door to visit his first childhood home and his railway carriage.
Stolbovsky, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Robben Island (South Africa)
Situated in treacherous seas just off South Africa’s mainland, visitors can tour the former high-security penitentiary and view the cell where Nelson Mandela spent 18 years, as well as the island’s cemetery, a quarry, and various bunkers, all part of the Robben Island Museum.
Paul Mannix, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
The Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall (China)
China estimates 300,000 people lost their lives soon after Japan took over Nanjing in 1937. The museum houses documents and artifacts from the time, as well as the exhumed skeletal remains of victims.
On the large outdoor grounds are more exhibits on the Nanjing Massacre.
Litanwei, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Washington, DC)
Opened in 1993, the museum is an educational and research center dedicated to preserving the history of Germany’s campaign of extermination against the Jewish people. The museum’s permanent exhibition includes four theaters showing documentaries and survivors’ stories.
AgnosticPreachersKid, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
London Dungeon (England)
Starting off as a wax museum, a grimly humorous tour takes visitors through centuries of London’s history, with guest appearances by Jack the Ripper and Sweeney Todd, or at least actors portraying them, and with the Black Death and Gunpowder Plot among events reviewed.
Bhopal Union Carbide Plant (India)
The still heavily contaminated site was the scene of an overnight gas leak that contaminated a half-million people in 1984, injuring many of them permanently, with thousands of fatalities.
Union Carbide claimed sabotage. Activists blamed poor maintenance of the pesticide factory.
Bhopal Medical Appeal, Martin Stott, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
The Titanic (Various Locations)
A submersible imploded on route to the Titanic wreck in 2023, so safer choices might be museums in Belfast, Liverpool, Southampton, and Cobh (in Ireland).
Halifax, Nova Scotia, graves hold Titanic victims, and a Cape Race, Newfoundland, museum recounts rescue efforts.
Ardfern, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Death Railway Bridge (Kanchanaburi, Thailand)
The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957) is riddled with inaccuracies, but you can check out the Death Railway Museum and Hellfire Pass Memorial for the real tale of Allied POWs and Asian captives brutally forced by Japan to construct this railway from Burma to Thailand during WWII.
PumpkinSky, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
The Aral Sea (Uzbekistan/Kazakhstan)
In a grim manmade disaster, the world’s third-largest lake shrank to a sliver of its former self. All this was caused by the Soviet Union’s desire in the 1960s to become a major cotton exporter, so rivers were diverted to irrigate a desert. You can visit, but you sure won’t see a lot of water.
Anne Frank House (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
The house where famed diarist Anne Frank hid and adjacent buildings form this museum dedicated to her memory and the fight against persecution. Having fled Germany in 1934, she and her family hid in the house’s “secret annex” from 1942 until found by the Gestapo.
Former US Embassy (Tehran, Iran)
Remembered for the US hostage crisis of 1979 to 1981, the embassy building still stands and includes an anti-American museum. While certain nationalities would likely shy away from a visit to Iran, some tourists might want to see the site that dramatically altered Middle East history.
Alcatraz (San Francisco, USA)
A place that gets 1.5 million visitors each year isn’t exactly niche, but Alcatraz still fits the bill as a prime example of dark tourism.
The island is best known for the “escape-proof” federal penitentiary that operated from 1934 to 1963, and which now operates as a public museum.
Rhododendrites, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Jonestown (Guyana)
Cult leader Jim Jones set up Jonestown in Guyana, but the arrival of a US congressman and media in 1978 led him to order the apocalyptic demise of over 900 followers.
The hard-to-reach camp then mostly faded into the jungle until a Jonestown Memorial Tour launched in early 2025, charging $650 per person. The tour was set up by the Guyanese government to increase tourism revenue.
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Wikimedia Commons
Castro District (San Francisco, USA)
The grim toll of AIDS cut San Francisco’s gay community by almost half as the health crisis took hold in the 1980s. The Castro district, which was hit hard by this social and medical tragedy, is still lively, with attractions ranging from the Castro Theatre to the GLBT Historical Society Museum.
Burkhard Mücke, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
D-Day Beaches (Normandy, France)
Allied landings on June 6, 1944 secured a major foothold for the Allies in France so they could take the fight to Germany’s western front.
It was a decisive moment in WWII, and various tour operators can take the interested visitor to beaches codenamed Omaha, Utah, and more.
Jebulon, CC0, Wikimedia Commons
The Aceh Tsunami Museum (Banda Aceh, Indonesia)
A giant tsunami hit Banda Aceh just twenty minutes after an underwater quake struck the Indian Ocean in 2004. The first wave reached at least 80 feet or 24 meters, with fatalities estimated at 167,000.
The Aceh Tsunami Museum includes exhibits and a memorial to this huge tragedy.
Rachmat04, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Medellín (Colombia)
Spurred to visit by the Netflix series Narcos, some viewers might be surprised that the Colombian city has moved on from the nightmare of Pablo Escobar and his cartel.
It’s even considered a fun place to be—though locals grumble about higher rents amid all the tourism.
Alexander Canas Arango, Shutterstock
Basking In The Shadows
Academics and tour groups talk about dark tourism, even if the concept feels a bit hard to pin down. Nonetheless, for the explorer interested in the more tragic side of humanity—with a lot of grim history wrapped in—there’s likely some shade of darkness out there that will appeal.
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Chad W, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
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