Dark Tourism: Why Travelers Are Visiting Places with Tragic Histories

From the eerie quiet of Auschwitz to the spectral remains of Chernobyl, more and more tourists are being drawn to places that have been touched by tragedy. This growing phenomenon, referred to as dark tourism, travels to the places where history went wrong in a painful way—places linked to death, disaster, war, or human suffering. 

Although it is perhaps morbid on the face of things, dark tourism is actually going in for an intrinsic psychological and emotional need to explore, empathize with, and even confront the very worst aspects of human behavior.