Unusual Types of Tourism

As we trav­el to new places, we expe­ri­ence new sights, new foods, new art, and new civ­i­liza­tions. The cul­tur­al impact of tourism is unde­ni­able, but the impor­tance of tourism in eco­nom­ic terms should not be under­es­ti­mat­ed. With $1 tril­lion spent by 1 bil­lion tourists every year around the world, it has lit­er­al­ly become a new indus­try over the past few decades. But what hap­pens when tourism ris­es to a whole new lev­el to meet the chal­lenges and demands of the new times? What hap­pens when tourism becomes anoth­er area of ​​human activ­i­ty, where an alter­na­tive view of it stim­u­lates human curios­i­ty and inter­est? Here you will learn about 10 unusu­al types of tourism that are becom­ing more pop­u­lar.

Nuclear tourism

This is a rel­a­tive­ly type of tourism that emerged after the dawn of the Atom­ic Age. Curi­ous tourists fas­ci­nat­ed by the Atom­ic Age can vis­it sites impor­tant to the his­to­ry of the Atom­ic Age. These are places where sig­nif­i­cant inci­dents relat­ed to nuclear ener­gy have occurred. There are muse­ums that spe­cial­ize in atom­ic weapons, but the places where atom­ic bombs were dropped or det­o­nat­ed are the most vis­it­ed. It goes with­out say­ing that Hiroshi­ma and Nagasa­ki are two of the most vis­it­ed places when it comes to nuclear tourism. You can also learn every detail about the Cher­nobyl Nuclear Reac­tor Acci­dent and its effect on those who lived and worked in the area by vis­it­ing the Cher­nobyl Muse­um in Kyiv. Kyiv Muse­um of Cher­nobyl is the most vis­it­ed muse­um of this unusu­al type of tourism.

Tolkien tourism

Thanks to the amaz­ing suc­cess of the Lord of the Rings books and films, this unusu­al form of tourism has been born. Undoubt­ed­ly, The Lord of the Rings is a cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­non pop­u­lar with mil­lions of fans and fans around the world, but hard­ly any­one could have imag­ined that it would become a rea­son for trav­el and tourism. Tolkien tourism allows fans of The Lord of the Rings to vis­it a fic­tion­al “plan­et”, to see impor­tant places men­tioned in films or books. New Zealand is the loca­tion of this attrac­tion, cho­sen by Peter Jack­son because of its beau­ti­ful nature.

dark tourism

Dark tourism revolves around any­thing that has to do with death, dis­as­ter, tragedy, and in a few cas­es, even the after­life. Pop­u­lar among such tourists are loca­tions where mul­ti­ple deaths, mass sui­cides, or sites of ancient rit­u­als have tak­en place. One of the most vis­it­ed places in the whole world is Drac­u­la’s cas­tle in Roma­nia, where he lived and killed peo­ple.

drug tourism

Nowa­days, des­ti­na­tions for drug tourism are quite pop­u­lar and legal. For per­son­al use and fun, the cap­i­tal of such tourism is Ams­ter­dam in the Nether­lands. Through­out the year, Dutch Mar­i­jua­na Cafes attract sev­er­al mil­lion guests from all over the world. When it comes to some­thing more seri­ous, Colom­bia imme­di­ate­ly comes to mind. Goa in India is con­sid­ered a very pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tion, where you can get any­thing you want at local rave par­ties. Despite the decline in this type of tourism, Indi­an Malana can offer good qual­i­ty hashish, pro­duced here in large quan­ti­ties.

Ghetto tourism

Ghet­to tourism is new to this list, hav­ing orig­i­nat­ed in the ear­ly 2000s. With the spread of hip-hop cul­ture over the past 15 years, more and more peo­ple are inter­est­ed in the places where this genre and cul­ture orig­i­nat­ed. The Amer­i­can ghet­tos of Detroit, New York, Chica­go and Los Ange­les have become tourist attrac­tions main­ly because of young peo­ple inter­est­ed in this par­tic­u­lar lifestyle, graf­fi­ti, music and cloth­ing. Once very pop­u­lar, the Real Bronx Tour is a bus ride that takes tourists through some of New York’s most infa­mous ghet­tos. But unfor­tu­nate­ly for vis­i­tors, the Real Bronx Tour end­ed just this year after local author­i­ties and res­i­dents of the area felt offend­ed by the way their neigh­bor­hoods were por­trayed.

Tourism with sharks

The name of this type of tourism speaks for itself. You can hard­ly find a more creepy or more dan­ger­ous type of tourism than div­ing with sharks. Shark tourism is actu­al­ly a sub­genre of anoth­er type of tourism — eco­log­i­cal. It was cre­at­ed espe­cial­ly for those who love sharks and their bloody jaws. Here it is impor­tant to be an expe­ri­enced div­er and choose the strongest cage for div­ing. Despite the high pro­fes­sion­al­ism and excel­lent orga­ni­za­tion of the tours, there were sev­er­al acci­dents, and even some deaths.

Halal tourism

Reli­gious tourism is noth­ing new; it has exist­ed in var­i­ous forms (such as pil­grim­ages) for cen­turies. This new type of reli­gious tourism has been one of the most pop­u­lar types among Mus­lims for sev­er­al years. How would you like it if you were to spend your vaca­tion with­out drink­ing alco­hol or hav­ing sex? Believe it or not, this is exact­ly what Halal tourism offers. So, if you love pork, then don’t even think about it — you can be killed for such “sin­ful pref­er­ences”. How­ev­er, this par­tic­u­lar type of tourism is pop­u­lar in Islam­ic coun­tries such as Moroc­co and Turkey, which are try­ing to attract more and more Mus­lim tourists.

military tourism

It is some­times referred to as “sui­ci­dal tourism”, which is quite true. A sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence between this type of tourism and Atom­ic or Dark tourism is that in this case the tourist vis­its an area of ​​active hos­til­i­ties, in the midst of explod­ing bombs, bul­lets and grenades. Mil­i­tary tourists are often lovers of extreme sports, adren­a­line addicts. A record high lev­el of mil­i­tary tourists was observed dur­ing the war in Afghanistan. For the more peace­ful mil­i­tary tourists, there are groups that spe­cial­ize in vis­it­ing inac­tive war zones where the sit­u­a­tion is much calmer.

reproductive tourism

Per­haps some will mis­tak­en­ly con­fuse this par­tic­u­lar type of tourism with sex tourism, but that would be a mis­take. Repro­duc­tive tourism is absolute­ly legal and inno­cent. In this regard, it can be con­sid­ered a sub­species of med­ical tourism. Thou­sands of cou­ples trav­el every year to find the per­fect sperm donor. This type of tourism exists because some coun­tries have lib­er­al legal grounds for sperm dona­tion, or low­er prices for this pro­ce­dure. Var­i­ous sta­tis­ti­cal stud­ies prove that coun­tries inhab­it­ed by tall, blond, blue-eyed men are in spe­cial demand.

Suicide tourism

With­out a doubt, this is the creepi­est form of tourism imag­in­able. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, in most cas­es it only requires a one-way tick­et. As the name sug­gests, sui­cide tourism is asso­ci­at­ed with sui­cide and euthana­sia. Most of the peo­ple who under­take these tours are will­ing to end their lives. Usu­al­ly these are peo­ple suf­fer­ing from emo­tion­al prob­lems who are tor­ment­ed by clin­i­cal depres­sion. Places where euthana­sia is allowed are espe­cial­ly pop­u­lar. Oth­ers choose icon­ic beau­ti­ful places like San Fran­cis­co’s Gold­en Gate Bridge, one of the world’s most pop­u­lar sui­cide sites.