This week's vacation related blog is about weird and unusual
tours. It's May and people are thinking about summer vacation, at least here in
the Northern Hemisphere. Where to
go. What to do. Travel far from home. Stay close by. Fly.
Go by train. Drive. Take a cruise.
So many decisions.
It seems that any place of even minimal interest to the
average vacationer offers a tour. All
major travel destinations have a variety of tours from which to choose. However, there are also tours out there that
are really out there as far as their
subject matter. Here are a few
legitimate tours of the unusual, weird, and even bizarre.
In The Ghetto—Los
Angeles, California: This bus tour
goes through which is locally known as South Central, an area of Los Angeles
that has become synonymous with gang warfare and poverty. The tour guides are former gang members. And with the sight seeing comes some
education. Reformed gang members recall
their lives on the streets. All profits
go toward economic development in the community and helping to provide jobs for
the youth. The sights include LA County
Jail and a graffiti lab.
Tour de Sewer—Paris,
France: If your fantasy is to live
underground, indulge in a little Phantom
Of The Opera role playing, then you'll be happy to know that there are
several tour companies that offer the experience of exploring the underground
sewers of Paris. There is even a museum
dedicated to the below street environs where you can see videos and displays
showing the evolution of sewer technology.
The tour sights include drain pipes and underground tunnels. This website is in French, but it offers a
translation option that puts it into English.
A Paranormal Activity—Edinburgh,
United Kingdom: Numerous locations
in the U.S., and worldwide, have paranormal/ghost tours. This one is particularly interesting. If you're afraid of the dark, you might want
to think twice before embarking on this tour.
High levels of paranormal activity have been reported in the cramped
passageways below Edinburgh's South Street bridge, a space once used as storage
vaults for merchants in the 1700s. Then
the spaces were used as living quarters for the city's poor. Rumors have long circulated that the
underground lairs were used as dumping sites for murder victims. Something that makes this tour different is
that tour members are issued hand held Electro Magnetic Field recorders to
carry with them on the tour in order to detect ghostly presences.
Love For The
Slums—Mumbai, India: With the
success of 8 time Oscar winning film Slumdog
Millionaire, what has been termed "poverty tourism" has become
popular. Over a million people live in
the 550 acre area known as Dharavi, one of the largest slums in Asia. Whether the tour is exploitation or
educational is up to you, but 80% of the profits are donated to help Mumbai's
poor. Similar tours are offered in the
slums of Jakarta, Indonesia, as well as Kenya.
Dead
Celebrities—Hollywood, California:
The "Deadly Departed Tour" (one of several celebrity related
tours) explores nearly 100 sites of celebrity scandal and death, a feast for
pop culture lovers. The tabloid tour
lasts over three hours and is usually offered Wednesday through Sunday.
Hunt Or Be Hunted—Port
Hardy, British Columbia, Canada: For
over ten years Great Bear Nature Tours has been taking visitors into the
wilderness in search of grizzlies. For
anywhere from two to seven nights you go into the wilderness searching for
bears with a biologist as your guide.
Binoculars and rain gear is provided.
Also included is a private room at the Great Bear Lodge with meals. This is an Eco tour in a remote wilderness
with breathtaking scenery. The only
shooting is done with a camera.
Scandal
Sightseeing—Washington, D.C.: There
are lots of different tours available in and around Washington, D.C., but this
one is done with wit and irreverence by the comedy troupe "Gross National
Product." On this tour you'll visit
the familiar such as the Jefferson Memorial and the White House, but the guides
let you in on the juicy details other tour operators tend to leave out.
Have any of you ever taken a weird, off beat type of tour?
Stop by next week for another offering in my summer vacation
blogs.
2 comments:
My daughter and I took a walking "ghost tour" when we were in St. John's, Newfoundland. Held at night, our group was led by a native Newfoundlander clad in a monk's robes. We toured everything from homes where babies had been sealed in the walls to old graveyards! It was fun, all except the warning that it was best not to be the last straggler in the group -- apparently those were the people who got snatched by the spirits. Kept me hurrying to keep up, I can tell you!
Laura: On a ghost tour I took in England, the tour guide said that one of the ghosts at the location had an affinity for blonds and on several occasions they had women with blond hair who had straggled behind the group told him of the experience of being grabbed when there wasn't anyone there. Made me glad I wasn't a blond. :)
Thanks for your comment.
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