Off-Beat Trips: Protest, Scare, Homeless and Illegal Immigrant Tourism
JUST as destinations can rise and fall in popularity, so can the activities and tours you take while on holiday.
A decade or so ago, bungy jumps and skydives were the activity to take while on a trip, making you the envy of friends and family when you got home. Nowadays, people are more surprised if you haven't jumped out of a plane or off a bridge upon your return home. And the same goes for tours too.
So if you're looking for something a little different when it comes to a tour, you could try one of these off-beat trips.
While there's little chance any of them will ever make it into mainstream tourism, I'm willing to bet they'll give you the best travel story most people will have heard in a while.
Protest tourism, USA
The closest most tourists usually get to protests is not being able to get where they're going due to transport strikes. And while sitting stranded in an airport isn't the best way to empathise with protesting workers, there are a growing number of travellers who are making a beeline to the 'Occupy' sites in the US to channel their inner socialist for a few hours. New York's Occupy Wall Street is the most popular site, with a wealth of information online about where to go and how to get involved. One of the latest tactics employed by protesters is Sidewalk Sleepovers, where some hardy souls sleep in the belly of the beast on the sidewalks around Wall Street.
Scare tourism, USA & Canada
One of my previous blogs took a look at a couple of scary tours you can take - a haunted house where you can be water boarded and a bespoke kidnapping service in Paris - but it seems some travellers need to take things further. On first look, a cruise based around the movie franchise Saw might be enough to soil even the hardiest horror fans pants, with visions of power-tool wielding maniacs at the captains table or dismembering over shuffleboard becoming a reality.
Homeless tourism, London
It's one thing to see the glossy, romantic side of a city, but
A decade or so ago, bungy jumps and skydives were the activity to take while on a trip, making you the envy of friends and family when you got home. Nowadays, people are more surprised if you haven't jumped out of a plane or off a bridge upon your return home. And the same goes for tours too.
So if you're looking for something a little different when it comes to a tour, you could try one of these off-beat trips.
While there's little chance any of them will ever make it into mainstream tourism, I'm willing to bet they'll give you the best travel story most people will have heard in a while.
Protest tourism, USA
The closest most tourists usually get to protests is not being able to get where they're going due to transport strikes. And while sitting stranded in an airport isn't the best way to empathise with protesting workers, there are a growing number of travellers who are making a beeline to the 'Occupy' sites in the US to channel their inner socialist for a few hours. New York's Occupy Wall Street is the most popular site, with a wealth of information online about where to go and how to get involved. One of the latest tactics employed by protesters is Sidewalk Sleepovers, where some hardy souls sleep in the belly of the beast on the sidewalks around Wall Street.
Scare tourism, USA & Canada
One of my previous blogs took a look at a couple of scary tours you can take - a haunted house where you can be water boarded and a bespoke kidnapping service in Paris - but it seems some travellers need to take things further. On first look, a cruise based around the movie franchise Saw might be enough to soil even the hardiest horror fans pants, with visions of power-tool wielding maniacs at the captains table or dismembering over shuffleboard becoming a reality.
Homeless tourism, London
It's one thing to see the glossy, romantic side of a city, but