The Enigmatic World of Urbex and Dark Tourism

In the shadows of our bustling cities and within the pages of our rich history lie hidden tales of forgotten spaces and somber sites. HiddenMonuments.com invites you to the heart of urban exploration (Urbex) and dark tourism, two intriguing phenomena that offer a unique lens through which to view our world.

Urban Exploration, commonly known as "Urbex," explores and documents abandoned and often off-limited urban structures. This intriguing pursuit delves into our cities' unseen or forgotten realms, including derelict factories, old hospitals, vacant schools, and unused tunnels. Urbex enthusiasts are driven by a desire to capture the beauty in decay.

Abandoned farmhouse Dagverðará in Snæfellsjökull

Iceland

Iceland's abandoned farms

In the westernmost corner of Iceland's Snæfellsnes peninsula, at the foot of the Snæfellsjökull volcano, lies the concrete skeleton of the abandoned farm Dagverðará.

Belgium

20 years of exodus from the ghost village of Doel

The polder village of Doel is located on the left bank of the river Scheldt and is surrounded by the Doel nuclear power plant and the Deurganck container dock that was put into use in 2005.

Berlin

Spreepark: When a Fairy Tale Turns Into a Nightmare

The Spreepark amusement park has been gathering dust since 2001. To avoid bankruptcy, the owner moved some attractions to Peru to start with a clean slate. In vain, as it now appears.

Dark tourism

Dark tourism is a travel trend that involves visiting sites associated with death, tragedy, or the macabre. These locations can range from historical battlefields to sites of natural disasters and abandoned prisons.

The allure of dark tourism lies not in a morbid fascination with death, but rather in the desire to understand historical events, remember the victims, and reflect on the darker aspects of humanity and society.

West Flanders

Underground warfare

West Flanders has never known coal mines. Yet you can still find shafts, drilling machines and other traces of miners in the West Flemish underground.

France

D-Day on the beaches of Normandy

Pointe du Hoc, a promontory littered with craters and concrete blocks, stands out between Utah Beach and Omaha Beach, two of the five beaches where the Normandy landings took place on June 6, 1944.

Berlin

Soviet monument in the heart of Berlin

On November 11, 1945, just six months after the end of the Second World War, the Red Army erected a series of Soviet monuments in the German capital Berlin.

Ethical and legal considerations

Ethical and legal considerations play a significant role in dark tourism and urban exploration, guiding how to interact with historical, cultural, and tragic sites.

Ethically, both activities demand a deep respect for the sites visited and the stories they hold. For dark tourism, this means engaging with places of suffering and death in a manner that honors the memory of those involved, avoiding sensationalism and commodification of tragedy.

In urbex, ethical considerations include not breaking into properties, not taking anything from the sites, and minimizing one's impact to preserve the location's integrity. HiddenMonuments.com advocates for a "leave no trace" philosophy, ensuring that abandoned spaces' physical integrity and historical value are preserved for future explorers and generations.

Safe sites you could legally visit

Some urbex sites have been legally made accessible to the public by converting them into museums or offering guided tours. HiddenMonuments.com uncovers the stories hidden within these forsaken spaces and shares information on how to discover those places legally.

Ruhr Area

Climbing a blast furnace in Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord

In 1901, August Thyssen built a steel factory with a blast furnace, the Rheinische Stahlwerke zu Meiderich bei Ruhrort, in Duisburg, Germany.

Hidden deep in the forests of the French town of Eperlecques, the German army built an assembly and launch base for V2 rockets during the Second World War.

Hauts-de-France

The hidden Blockhaus of Eperlecques

Hidden deep in the forests of the French town of Eperlecques, the German army built an assembly and launch base for V2 rockets during the Second World War.

Berlin

Secret listening station in Berlin

It is quiet at the top of the Teufelsberg, an artificial hill just outside the center of Berlin. Silent as a mouse. That was a bit different during the Cold War.

Nouvelle-Aquitaine

Oradour-sur-Glane massacre

Saturday, June 10, 1944, just days after the Allied landings in Normandy. Major Diekmann and his Waffen SS men marched into the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane shortly after noon.