Dark Tourism
Dark Tourism
Dark tourism is the act of travel and visitation to sites, attractions and exhibitions that have real or recreated death, suffering or the seemingly macabre as a main theme.
Tourist visits to former battlefields, slavery-heritage attractions, prisons, cemeteries, particular museum exhibitions, Holocaust sites, or to disaster locations all constitute the broad realm of ‘dark tourism’.
The Institute of Dark Tourism Research (iDTR) at the University of Lancashire in England in 2012 marks the following sites as Dark Tourism locations.
Island of the Dolls, Mexico
Situated on Lake Teshuilo in Xochimilco near Mexico City, La Isla de la Munecas (The Island of the Dolls) is considered the creepiest tourist attraction of Mexico. The island’s origins lie in tragedy. The story goes that the island’s only inhabitant, Don Julian Santana, found a body of a drowned girl in the canal. He was haunted by her spirit, so he began to get dolls for this little girl, often selling off fruit and vegetables that he had grown, so that he could buy old dolls for her to play with. Apparently, his effort was not good enough for the girl because later on, Santana´s body was found in the canal on the very same spot where the little girl had apparently drowned. Today, hundreds of terrifying, mutilated dolls with severed limbs and decapitated heads scare tourists who dare to visit the island. They are frightening enough during the day but when you get to see them in the night, it is a real nightmare.
Although the island did not receive much tourist attention during Don Julian’s lifetime, it has become a well-known attraction since then. International television crews have filmed there several times, including one show that claimed to find proof the island is haunted.
Pompeii, Italy
Pompeii was an ancient Roman town near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania. Founded in the seventh or sixth century BC, the town was destroyed and buried under up to 20 feet of ash and pumice
Dark tourism is the act of travel and visitation to sites, attractions and exhibitions that have real or recreated death, suffering or the seemingly macabre as a main theme.
Tourist visits to former battlefields, slavery-heritage attractions, prisons, cemeteries, particular museum exhibitions, Holocaust sites, or to disaster locations all constitute the broad realm of ‘dark tourism’.
The Institute of Dark Tourism Research (iDTR) at the University of Lancashire in England in 2012 marks the following sites as Dark Tourism locations.
Island of the Dolls, Mexico
Situated on Lake Teshuilo in Xochimilco near Mexico City, La Isla de la Munecas (The Island of the Dolls) is considered the creepiest tourist attraction of Mexico. The island’s origins lie in tragedy. The story goes that the island’s only inhabitant, Don Julian Santana, found a body of a drowned girl in the canal. He was haunted by her spirit, so he began to get dolls for this little girl, often selling off fruit and vegetables that he had grown, so that he could buy old dolls for her to play with. Apparently, his effort was not good enough for the girl because later on, Santana´s body was found in the canal on the very same spot where the little girl had apparently drowned. Today, hundreds of terrifying, mutilated dolls with severed limbs and decapitated heads scare tourists who dare to visit the island. They are frightening enough during the day but when you get to see them in the night, it is a real nightmare.
Although the island did not receive much tourist attention during Don Julian’s lifetime, it has become a well-known attraction since then. International television crews have filmed there several times, including one show that claimed to find proof the island is haunted.
Pompeii, Italy
Pompeii was an ancient Roman town near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania. Founded in the seventh or sixth century BC, the town was destroyed and buried under up to 20 feet of ash and pumice