Dark Tourist

Continuing with the recent flurry of travel-based posts (Jack Whitehall: Travels With My Father and I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here), I’ve succumbed to the constant appearance of Dark Tourist in my Netflix menu.  It was sat there at the top every time I logged in, promising subversion, alternative lifestyles and the ability to brag about having been to really trendy tourist destinations for optimum office one-upmanship.  For instance, I was just showing off to a colleague about the fact I have been to Portland, Oregon, but I didn’t manage to shoehorn into the conversation I have also visited Austin, Texas, which, together, place me as a hipster traveller, despite the fact that I just made everyone sitting near me listen to Fleur East’s Sax (still a party banger, no matter what anyone says).  But, Dark Tourist is not about food trucks and cool urban scenes.  It’s about going to places you wouldn’t normally associate with Instagram fodder.

However, this seems to be even more hipster than the vegan plastic-free breastfeeding collectives of Portland.  Dark Tourist follows David Farrier, a New Zealand journalist who has always been attracted to death and destruction.  However, in his accent, this sounds more like “dith end distriction”.  He’s a hipster: too cool for a haircut, practical eyewear, non-ironed t-shirts.  Somehow, he’s convinced Netflix to fund his holidays to places that are sad, scary or both.  The people he comes across on these journeys, whether they’re touring the Fukushima radioactive area in Japan or cycling about Alexandra township in Johannesburg, ache with their own coolness about shunning package holidays to the beach in favour of seeing the more disturbing side of human life.

So, dark tourism and normal tourism have something in common: both cause inordinate smugness.  I’ve given some thought as to whether I have ever been a dark tourist.  There was the German exchange when I was fourteen; we made the obligatory visit to Dachau.  Going on to pursue this language all the way through university, I’ve read my fair share of World War II literature, but, at the time, the gravity of the place didn’t register as deeply as I now know it should have.  What I do remember, though, is a very enthusiastic guide taking us to the crematoria and then being slightly appalled by the rest of the class clamouring to take pictures of the ovens which thankfully were never completed in time to be used.  What exactly were they going to do with those images?  Enjoy them at a later date (remembering that this was many years before Facebook, let alone digital cameras)?  More recently, embracing the dark tourist mantra of being open to danger, I recall sitting on my cousin’s veranda in KwaZulu Natal while her son ran off into the bushes with a gun to investigate the sounds of potential intruders.  I just sipped my coffee because, as everyone knows, on holiday you’re immortal.  Especially if you’re a plucky Brit.  Right?

Chances are, we’ve all been dark tourists.  If you’ve ever been to a museum or a memorial or a battlefield, then the sights you’re seeing are rooted in some form of human suffering.  Farrier takes a muted approach to this: he’s not overly deferential or crudely exploitative.  He acknowledges his interest while also trying to understand it.  Nevertheless, it’s uncomfortable viewing, whether you’re witnessing voodoo animal slaughter in Benin, or, closer to home, coming to terms with the fact that England is very much on the list for dark tourism.  But our contribution is not necessarily the site of a transgression, but a museum that makes an exhibit of many: Littledean.  We can never quite make our mind up about the proprietor, but suspending judgment is part of the fascination.  Why else can’t we help watching Making A Murderer, if not for the constant challenges to our certainty about guilt and innocence?

Dark Tourist is at its best when breaking into a closed state or authoritarian regime.  The segments that cover Turkmenistan and Myanmar are particularly gripping.  For me, it’s handy that Farrier is investigating these places that I’ll probably never go to, taking risks and breaking into forbidden territory, whether this is due to free radicals or ethnic tensions.  But it all boils down to the ultimate means by which we justify anything we pursue in our leisure time: it’s entertaining.  We go on holiday to look, point and experience because it’s a diversion from daily life.  Watching a TV show that allows us to do this in shonkier locations but with no risk to ourselves is therefore highly entertaining, all pleasantly hosted by a southern hemisphere Louis-Theroux-alike.  It’s left me wanting to know more about all the subjects covered, precisely because Dark Tourist’s premise is to understand why people want to go there, rather than needing to go into the detail of what actually happened.  Booking details don’t follow each report and there’s no suntanned Judith Chalmers sipping a cocktail and having a jolly nice time, but there’s a curiously inspirational bent to the show: you’ll want to go and be a braver, darker tourist yourself.  I can’t explain why, buy you’ll wish you were there, all whilst being glad you’re not.