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?