Hallowed Ground

An interesting article on "dark tourism," which more or less means traveling to someplace where something terrible happened in order to observe the aftermath. Examples would be New Orleans or Sarajevo or Northern Ireland. I suppose we all have different reasons for traveling, and morbid curiosity is not the worst excuse as long as we treat people well when we get there. I also suspect that in most places where there has been recent devastation they would love to have visitors, both for the money and so that others can learn.

Comments

[Jeremy]

The further an event occurred in the past the more likely tourists interest will be seen as "historical" rather than morbid. Sarah Vowel's book Assassination Vacation explores this theme as she tours sites connected with each of the presidential assassinations, though rather than sharpen the line between morbid fascination and historical interest she ends up blurring it.

[Avery Palmer]

That's true, and probably the morbid fascination is greater if an event seems remote and not so real. At modern locations it seems we're shamed into a more subdued posture.

I didn't mention the most obvious, which are Holocaust sites. These are certainly "attractions" that draw people into Munich or Poland, but it's not as if people can act like they're having fun while visiting them.