Dark Tourism Archives - Hoblets On The Go

Northern Territory

Australia: Darwin – WWII Oil Storage Tunnels

Step beneath Darwin's streets and discover the remarkable WWII Oil Storage Tunnels — a labyrinth of wartime engineering that once safeguarded Allied fuel supplies and now stands as a powerful living memorial to the Northern Territory's extraordinary wartime heritage.

Adolf Hilter's bunker at the Wolf's Lair - Poland

Warmian-Masurian

Poland: Gierłoż – The Wolf’s Lair

Visiting Gierłoż, the Wolf’s Lair in Poland, is a haunting experience, as the moss-covered ruins and dense forest surroundings evoke both the chilling weight of its dark wartime history and a sobering reminder of the consequences of unchecked tyranny.

Warmian-Masurian

Poland: Gierłoż – Wilcze Lotnisko Aviation Museum

Wilcze Lotnisko Air Museum in Poland offers a fascinating glimpse into aviation history with its collection of well-preserved aircraft and memorabilia, though its somewhat remote location and limited on-site facilities mean it’s best suited for dedicated enthusiasts rather than casual tourists.

Western Australia

Australia: Western Australia – Fremantle Prison

The Fremantle Museum in Fremantle, Western Australia, occupies a landmark convict-built Gothic limestone building with a rich and layered past, offering visitors immersive exhibitions on local history, community heritage and the cultural identity of one of Australia's most storied port cities.

Western Australia

Australia: Western Australia – Aviation Heritage Museum

The Aviation Heritage Museum in Bull Creek, Perth, is a world-class collection of over 30 military and civilian aircraft, thousands of artefacts, and immersive experiences that bring Western Australia's aviation history vividly to life for visitors of all ages.

Australia: Tasmania – Maria Island

Maria Island is a pristine, car-free Tasmanian national park combining extraordinary wildlife, dramatic coastal scenery, and layers of convict and colonial heritage into one of Australia's most rewarding island getaways.

Australia: Tasmania – Port Arthur

Port Arthur, on Tasmania's Tasman Peninsula, is a UNESCO World Heritage convict site where sweeping coastal landscapes meet remarkably preserved sandstone ruins, museums, and living history that together tell the defining story of colonial Australia.

New Zealand: Christchurch – Earthquake sites

Christchurch’s earthquake sites offer a thoughtful journey through destruction, remembrance and recovery, linking Quake City’s powerful exhibitions with the damaged cathedral, its innovative cardboard successor, and the moving memorials that honour those affected by the Canterbury earthquakes.

The infamous railway tracks leading through the gates of thwe Birkenau death camp - near Krakow, Poland

Poland: Krakow – Auschwitz and Birkenau

Visiting Auschwitz, with its haunting remnants of barbed wire fences, crumbling barracks, and rooms filled with the personal belongings of victims, is an emotionally overwhelming yet profoundly important experience that forces one to confront the horrifying depths of human cruelty, reflect on the immense suffering endured by millions during the Holocaust, and recognise the enduring necessity of remembrance and education to prevent such atrocities from ever happening again.

Poland: Kraków – Schindler’s Factory

Schindler's Factory in Kraków, now a museum, offers a poignant insight into the harrowing experiences of Jews during the Nazi occupation and highlights Oskar Schindler's efforts to save over a thousand lives.

Mexico: Guanajuato – The Mummy Museum

The Mummy Museum in Guanajuato is a fascinating yet spine-chilling place where visitors can walk through dimly lit corridors lined with glass cases containing naturally preserved bodies—each with their own haunting story—offering a powerful, unforgettable glimpse into the city’s unique history, the strange process of mummification caused by local conditions, and the eerie beauty of lives frozen in time.

Bolivia: The Witches Street of El Alto

The Witches Street in El Alto, Bolivia offers a fascinating glimpse into traditional Andean spirituality, where colourful stalls brim with herbs, amulets, dried animals and ritual supplies, and the air is thick with the scent of incense and mysticism, creating an atmosphere that feels both otherworldly and deeply rooted in indigenous culture.

Bolivia: La Paz’s colourful General Cemetery

Visiting the General Cemetery in La Paz offers a moving and unexpectedly beautiful experience, where grand mausoleums stand beside humble graves, the air is filled with fresh flowers and candle smoke, and the lively presence of families honouring their loved ones gives the place a sense of both solemnity and warmth rather than gloom.

Poland: Pomorskie – Museum of the Second World War

The Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk offers a deeply moving and thoughtfully curated experience, blending striking architecture with comprehensive exhibits that confront both the immense tragedy and the complex historical realities of the conflict.

Chapel of bones - Evora, Portugal

Portugal: Évora – Chapel of Bones (Capela dos Ossos)

The Chapel of Bones, is a hauntingly beautiful monument adorned with human skulls and bones, inviting visitors to reflect on the fleeting nature of life.

Turkey: Galipoli – The War Graves

The war graves on the Gallipoli Peninsula stand as solemn reminders of the immense sacrifice made by soldiers during the First World War, with headstones marking the resting places of men from across the Commonwealth.

Norway: Oslo – The Norwegian Center for Holocaust

The Norwegian Center for Holocaust and Minority Studies is a research, education and documentation center in Oslo focusing on the Holocaust, other genocides, extremism, antisemitism, hate speech, and the situation of minorities in contemporary societies.

Ghana: Accra – Fantasy coffin makers

Fantasy coffin makers in Accra, Ghana, craft vibrant, custom-designed coffins shaped like fish, cars, animals, and other symbolic figures, reflecting the deceased's life, profession, or aspirations in a unique artistic tradition.

Ghana: Assin Manso Slave River Site

Assin Manso, located in Ghana, was a significant site in the transatlantic slave trade, serving as a final resting point where enslaved Africans were bathed and prepared for auction before being shipped across the Atlantic.

Benin: Ouidah – Slave Route

The Ouidah Slave Route, a historic path in Benin, West Africa, symbolizes the harrowing journey of countless enslaved Africans who were forcibly taken to the Americas, serving as a poignant reminder of the transatlantic slave trade's enduring legacy.

Togo: Lome – Akodessawa Fetish Market

The Akodessawa Fetish Market in Lomé, Togo, is renowned for its extraordinary array of traditional voodoo artefacts and charms, drawing visitors from around the world who seek insight into West African spiritual practices.

Sweden: Stockholm – Skogskyrkogården

Skogskyrkogården is a cemetery in Stockholm which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was created between 1917 and 1920 by two young architects, Asplund and Lewerentz, on the site of former gravel pits overgrown with pine trees.

Indonesia: Sulawesi – Death rituals and tongkonan houses

Tana Toraja is a region on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. It is unusual in that this community is predominantly Christian in a country where 90 per cent of the population is Muslim. As well as practicing Christianity the people here still have a lot of animist practices embedded within their culture.

The colours of the tombstones are symbolic - The public cemetery in Chichicastenango, Guatemala

Guatemala: Solala – Chichicastenango Cemetery

On the fringes of a densely crowded marketplace in the Guatemalan highlands, a reverent silence looms over the ivory gate of the Cementerio General. Beyond its deceptively sterile exterior, hundreds of vibrant tombstones pepper the hillside.

The old cell block at Horsens Prision - Faengslet, Denmark

Denmark: Midtjylland – FÆNGSLET – Horsens Prison

Horsens State Prison in central Denmark closed its doors in 2006 and was the home of some of the Nordic nation’s most high-profile criminals. FÆNGLSET, the state-of-the-art museum with a staggering collection of items tells the story of Denmark’s most famous prison.

Laos: Vientiane – Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise

Since its creation in 1996, COPE has worked in close partnership with Lao government rehabilitation centres to provide nation-wide physical rehabilitation services. Through COPE thousands of people with mobility-related disabilities, including UXO survivors, have received prosthetic and orthotic services free of charge

Cambodia: Siem Reap – APOPO Visitor Center

A chance to meet the hero rats that are helping to clear landmines in Cambodia. Apopo has trained the highly sensitive, almost-blind Gambian pouched rat to sniff explosives, which dramatically speeds up the detection of mines in the countryside.

South Africa: Gauteng – Exploring Johannesburg

Johannesburg is South Africa's largest and fastest-growing city and is built on a history of racial division that achieved its most dramatic form in the twentieth century policy of strict separation known as apartheid.

South Africa: Cape Town – Robben Island

Robben Island was used at various times between the 17th and 20th centuries as a prison, a hospital for socially unacceptable groups and a military base. Its buildings, particularly those of the late 20th century such as the maximum security prison for political prisoners.

UK: London – Tower of London

The Tower of London is a historic fortress on the River Thames that has served as a royal palace, prison, treasury and home to the Crown Jewels across more than nine centuries of British history.

France: Paris – Père Lachaise cemetery

The Père Lachaise cemetery takes its name from King Louis XIVs confessor, Father François d'Aix de La Chaise. It is the most prestigious and most visited necropolis in Paris.

The South Pool, sitting on the site of the South Tower of the World Trade Center - 9/11 Memorial, New York City

New York: New York City – 9/11 Memorial & Museum

The 9/11 Memorial & Museum in Lower Manhattan is a deeply moving tribute to the nearly 3000 lives lost on 11 September 2001 featuring twin reflecting pools etched with victims' names and immersive underground galleries honouring their stories and legacy.

The amazing crypts and tombs at St Louis #1 cemetery in New Orleans

Louisiana: New Orleans – St Louis Cemetary #1

St Louis Cemetery No 1 is New Orleans' oldest and most celebrated burial ground — a hauntingly beautiful maze of above-ground tombs steeped in Creole heritage voodoo legend and over two centuries of extraordinary multicultural history.

A skeleton on a wheel - Spansih Inquisition Museum, Granada

Spain: Granada – Spanish Inquisition Museum

The Spanish Inquisition Museum in Granada offers a compelling and immersive journey through one of history's most controversial eras using authentic artefacts vivid reconstructions and expert storytelling set against the breathtaking backdrop of Andalucía.

Gettysburg National Military Park, Park

Pennsylvania: Gettysburg National Military Park

Gettysburg National Military Park preserves the legendary Pennsylvania battlefield where one of the Civil War's most decisive and bloodiest encounters transformed the future of an entire nation.

Pennsylvania: Valley Forge National Historical Monument

Valley Forge National Historical Park in Pennsylvania preserves the site where Washington's Continental Army endured a brutal winter encampment that forged the foundations of American independence.

South Dakota: Pine Ridge Reservation – Wounded Knee

Pine Ridge Reservation in south-western South Dakota is the vast homeland of the Oglala Lakota Nation, encompassing over two million acres of mixed-grass prairie, Badlands borderlands, and sites of profound historical and cultural significance, including the Wounded Knee Massacre Site of 1890.

National Parks & Monuments

Montana: Little Bighorn

Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana preserves the site of the 1876 battle between the US 7th Cavalry and Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors, offering visitors a deeply moving and historically rich experience on the northern Great Plains.

South Dakota: Minuteman Historic Site

Minuteman Missile National Historic Site near Wall, South Dakota, preserves the Cold War's most powerful legacy — a real, demilitarised nuclear missile silo and underground launch control centre open to the public along a 15-mile stretch of Interstate 90.

USA: California – Alcatraz National Park

Perched on a rocky island in San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz is a former federal penitentiary turned National Park landmark that offers visitors an immersive journey through layers of criminal history, Indigenous activism, and extraordinary natural beauty.