I Am The Dark Tourist

Dark Tourism is the practice of visiting sites associated with death. While participation increases, dark tourism remains a mystery, regarded as the tourist industry’s dirty little secret. This book challenges the misconceptions of a ghoulish practice through the eyes of a self-confessed dark tourist, who has spent forty years visiting the world’s dark sites. From the cobbled streets of Whitechapel on a Jack The Ripper walking tour to the snowy suicide forest of Aokigahara, Japan, H. E. Sawyer ticks off the darkest sites on earth. He visits locations that have promoted themselves to become major tourist attractions, contrasting with those dark places that seek to remain hidden from view. In the course of his travels he wrestles with the ultimate question regarding dark tourism; why would anyone want to visit sites touched by death in the first place?

Dark Tourism is the practice of visiting sites associated with death. While participation increases, dark tourism remains a mystery, regarded as the tourist industry's dirty little secret. This book challenges the misconceptions of a ghoulish practice through the eyes of a self-confessed dark tourist, who has spent forty years visiting the world's dark sites. From the cobbled streets of Whitechapel on a Jack The Ripper walking tour to the snowy suicide forest of Aokigahara, Japan, H. E. Sawyer ticks off the darkest sites on earth. He examines how some sites seek promotion beyond their physical boundaries, employing education to disassociate from the dark tag, whilst others wish to remain hidden from our curiosity. In the course of his travels he wrestles with the ultimate question regarding dark tourism; why would anyone want to visit sites touched by death in the first place?

Dark tourism is the practice of visiting sites associated with death and disaster. Participation is increasing, yet much of the machinations behind dark tourism remain shrouded in mystery, and intentionally so. This all-new book explores the seductive premise that dark tourism offers the possibility of 'transformation'; that visiting memorials to past tragedy will ultimately lead us to becoming better versions of ourselves. Championed by enthusiastic governments -- notably in the UK -- 'must have' memorialisation has become an opportunity to groom the public with contrived grief from the past that will be replenished by establishment neglect in the future. From the waters of Loch Ness to the chaos of Mexico's Dia de Muertos, H. E. Sawyer considers the questions state-sponsored dark tourism fears whilst posing one for himself: "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"

Ever since he can remember, Dom Joly has been fascinated by travel to odd places. In part this stems from a childhood spent in war-torn Lebanon, where instead of swapping marbles in the schoolyard, he had a shrapnel collection -- the schoolboy currency of Beirut. Dom's upbringing was interspersed with terrifying days and nights spent hunkered in the family basement under Syrian rocket attack or coming across a pile of severed heads from a sectarian execution in the pine forests near his home. These early experiences left Dom with a profound loathing for the sanitized experiences of the modern day travel industry and a taste for the darkest of places. In this brilliantly odd and hilariously told travel memoir, Dom Joly sets out on a quest to visit those destinations from which the average tourist would, and should, run a mile. The more insalubrious the place, the more interesting is the journey and so we follow Dom as he skis in Iran on segregated slopes, spends a weekend in Chernobyl, tours the assassination sites of America and becomes one of the few Westerners to be granted entry into North Korea. Eventually Dom journeys back to his roots in Beirut only to discover he was at school with Osama Bin Laden. Funny and frightening in equal measure, this is a uniquely bizarre and compelling travelogue from one of the most fearless and innovative comedians around.

Dark tourism is the practice of visiting sites associated with death and disaster. Participation is increasing, yet the machinations behind dark tourism remain shrouded in mystery, and intentionally so. This book, a companion to I Am The Dark Tourist Travels to the Darkest Sites on Earth, explores the seductive premise of 'transformation' that dark tourism offers: that visiting memorials to past tragedy will ultimately lead us to become better versions of ourselves. Championed by enthusiastic governments — notably in the UK — 'must have' memorialisation provides an opportunity to engage the public with contrived grief from the past to be replaced by establishment neglect in the future. From the waters of Loch Ness to the chaos of Mexico's Dia de Muertos, H.E. Sawyer considers the questions feared by state-sponsored dark tourism, and poses one of his own: "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"

The Darker Side of Travel is a contemporary and comprehensive analysis of dark tourism. Drawing on existing literature, numerous examples and introducing new conceptual perspectives, it develops a theoretically informed foundation for examining the demand for and supply of dark tourism experiences. It also explores issues relevant to the development, management and interpretation of visitor sites and attractions associated with death, disaster and suffering.

Dark tourism has become widespread and diverse. It has passed into popular culture vernacular, deployed in guide books as a short hand descriptor for sites that are associated with death, suffering and trauma. However, whilst books have been devoted to dark tourism as a general topic no single text has sought to explore dark tourism in spaces where crime - mass murder, genocide, State sanctioned torture and violence - has occurred as an organising theme. Dark Tourism and Crime explores the socio-cultural contours of this unique type of tourism and explains why spaces/places where crime has occurred fascinate and attract tourists. The book is marked by an ethics of respect for the suffering a place has experienced and an imperative to learn something tangible about the history and legacy of that suffering. Based on empirical ethnographic research it takes the reader from the remnants of Auschwitz concentration camp to the tranquil Australian island of Tasmania to explore precisely what things a dark tourist might encounter - architecture, art installations, gardens, memorials, physical traces of crime - and how these things invoke and evoke past crimes. This volume furthers understanding of dark tourism and will be of interest to students, researchers and academics of criminology, tourism and cultural studies.