Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Dark Tourism

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

This week, Amanda is joined by author and travel writer Sheila Yasmin Marikar (@sheilaym) to descend into The Cult of Dark Tourism, the booming travel industry built around vacationing where very, very bad things have happened. From Chernobyl excursions and serial killer pub crawls to war zone tourism, suicide forests, nuclear disaster sites, and the "haunted house" where people willingly sign up to be tortured, we’re asking what possesses someone to look at human tragedy and think: I should book a trip there. Helping us to unpack the cultiness is dark tourism legend David Farrier (@davidfarrier), documentarian and creator and host of Netflix’s Dark Tourist, to share what he learned after traveling to some of the strangest destinations on Earth. We discuss the bragging rights, rubbernecking, questionable ethics, and impressive mental gymnastics required to turn death and disaster into a bucket list. Because apparently, a beach vacation just isn’t enough for some people. Subscribe to Sounds Like A Cult on Youtube!Follow us on IG @soundslikeacultpod, @amanda_montell, @reesaronii, @chelseaxcharles, @imanharirikia.  Pre-order Iman's new book, Once in a Timeline, here! Your pre-order helps make more books possible! Sounds Like A Cult is coming to you LIVE from The Elysian in LA on October 15th! Get tickets at soundslikeacult.com with code CULT! Thank you to our sponsors! If your glasses are overdue for a refresh, now is the time. Use code PODCAST15 for fifteen percent off your first order Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns at https://Quince.com/slac Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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featuring a brilliant 15.3-inch 16.5 hertz display seamlessly engineered into a portable 15-inch body, powered by an Intel Core 7 processor for high performance during every session, all wrapped in the elite and durable alienware design. It's everything you need for an immersive gaming experience, distilled into one iconic machine. Visit alienware.ca slash alienware 15 today. The views expressed on this episode, as with all episodes of Sounds Like a Cult, are solely host opinions and quoted allegations. The content here should not be taken as indisputable fact.

This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. He blindfolded me and put these big headphones on and piped heavy metal music while he made me hold different yoga poses and then just like kick me really hard at various points. And that went on for about three hours. It just feels like we've become disturbingly comfortable packaging human suffering as an experience that you can add to cart and do. As people's dopamine systems become just like fucking shot and overrun in the digital age, certain influencers who might have never even entered the dark tourist space before are now doing so for clout, for views. This is Sounds Like a Cult.

a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm your host Amanda Montel, author of books including cultish, the language of fanaticism. And I'm Sheila Yasmin Maricar, author of The Goddess Effect, Frenza Napa, and Incidentals, and today's guest host. Every week on this show, we discuss a different fanatical fringe group or guru, something that puts the cult in culture, from Erwan to Etsy witches, to try and answer the big question. This group sounds like a cult, but is it really? And if so, which of our three cult categories does it fall into? A live your life, a watch your back, or a get the fuck out. Because the thing is, cult-y groups, cult-ish thinking, it falls along a spectrum in the 21st century, and not all cults are equally bad.

Like say, Trader Joe's or Horse Girls, how deadly could those really be? But some contemporary groups are reimagining control tactics and ritual and expletual and expletual. in this day and age and are far more influential and dangerous than they might appear, like Mark Zuckerberg or The Manosphere. Or like a cult of voodoo festivals, possibly haunted forests, and faux-illegal border crossings that are all visited in the name of vacation. We're talking about the cult of dark tourism, a niche of travel that's become increasingly popular for people who want to venture far, far from the daily grind.

Sheila, welcome to Sounds Like a Cold. It is so delightful to have you here. I mean, as morbid as the subject matter is, you are the perfect person to guest host this episode with me. I wanted to kind of like introduce you to the culties before we really dive in today. So Sheila is one of my dear friends, also an author. That's how we met. Sheila is also a travel writer for publications like The New York Times. So you have seen so much Sheila's debut novel. The Goddess Effect has some seriously culty themes, and I think the foundation of our friendship was writing about modern-day cultishness in various forms. And yes, that paved the way for a friendship. We are, I guess, now also collaborators. We commiserate about the writer life. We connect over the writer life. I go over to Sheila's house. She lives in my neighborhood. She makes the meanest negroni in Southern California. I always say her house is my favorite bar. And you have a new book out that relates to at least the cult of tourism. Could you talk a little bit about your new book and maybe how it connects to today's subject?

I can. And first, I'm so excited to be here, to be invited into your culty universe. And high praise about the Nogronis coming from a woman who has traveled up and down Italy and sampled some of the best of Peritivo that the world has to offer. I do fear that's true. Light tourism. You know, my second novel, Friends in Napa, dealt a lot, you could say, with the cult of high-end wine drinkers and the great lengths that people will go to to consume very highly rated wines and be invited to exclusive wineries. In the same way, my third novel, Incidentals, which came out in March, is about people who define themselves by the places that they go on vacation. Our protagonists are a couple whose marriage is on the rocks and who are thinking that a trip to a fabulous resort in the Maldives might save them.

But they've run into another couple at this resort that claims to be frequent travelers and quite versed in this luxury tourism space. They've been to all the most fabulous places. They wear it as almost a badge of honor. And as the book goes on and the vacation goes on, we find that not everything is as it seems. The people who claim to be the, most worldly are often, at least in this case, on this island. They've got a lot of problems, and being uncultured is probably one of the least of them. So in this particular cult, it's people thinking that staying in the most expensive hotel room is somehow going to save their marriage or make them somehow happy in a way that it simply can't. A great hotel can do a lot of

things. It can't save you. So Sheila's books are absolute romps. I highly recommend them. This is going to be a very special episode because not only do we have Sheila guest hosting, but someone that I have been praying to guest on the show since its inception is joining us later. I'm sure plenty of his fans, viewers, and listeners are here in our cult of Sounds Like a cult. David Ferrier, who is a writer, journalist, documentarian, on-camera host. He's the host of Netflix's Dark Tourist series. He's also the host of the flightless bird podcast, the writer of the webworm newsletter. his whole body of work lives in the land of human weirdness and voyeurism and taboo curiosity.

So you are not going to want to miss that interview in a bit. But first, I actually wanted to ask you, Sheila, throughout your many travels, which to my knowledge are more luxury than dark, have you ever done like a dark tourist experience? You know, I did a ghost tour or haunted tour of New Orleans the first time I visited there. And I got to say I did not love it. I don't want to go to a cemetery for a movie screening, for a concert. I'm not into that. And so going through a city with the express purpose of, here's where so and so died.

And here's a mansion that is supposedly haunted by this person, not my kind of thing. No way. That's the darkest that I can think of right now into this arena. But what about you? No, I'm way more macabre than you. Girl, we're going to get into some really extreme examples of dark. tourism in this episode. I feel like I've only just scratched the surface, but I'm the writer of a cult book. I'm the host of a cult podcast. Obviously, I like to dabble in a bit of darkness,

but I mean, I have been on several ghost tours in New Orleans where my mom is from. I love a haunting, despite not earnestly believing in ghosts. I am still hoping to meet one. I have favorite cemeteries around the world. I love Perlachez and Paris. Hollywood Forever Cemetery just to relax in Los Angeles where so many celebrities are buried. It's a beautiful place in Peacock's Rome Free. So Sheila and I, we happened to be in Bologna, Italy at the same time a few years ago. And one of my favorite dark tourist attractions is there. Did you ever go to the Archigenazio, the 17th Century Operating Theater? Oh, gosh, no, I did not. I did not go while I was there. Oh, that reflects well on me. I've been there probably 10 times. So Bologna, Italy is home to the oldest university in Europe.

It was built in 1088. And long before the advent of the scientific method where people were doing really fucked up experimental surgeries. And there's a 1600s operating theater in Bologna that was like attached to the university where there's this like marble table. They replaced the marble tabletop because it was literally covered in people's blood. But you go in there and you like can sit where surgeons in scare quotes used to watch the bodies of recently publicly executed people get like picked apart.

in the name of medical experimentation. So I'm definitely interested in that sort of thing. So I guess yeah, I'm more of a dark tourist than you. I guess that's, you know, yes, you are definitely more of a dark tourist than me. I think you do have more of a stomach and appreciation for the macab than I do for sure. A Parisian cemetery does sound beautiful. Like anything Parisian, I'm sure that I could be convinced. Oh yeah. I mean, Oscar Wilde is buried there. Edith Piaf is buried there. You have to go. That is Beyonce. But yeah, you know, I went to Pompeii when I was a child and being dragged along by my parents,

so I didn't really have much of a say in it. But that would also be, and I think probably something that one wouldn't really until you kind of start to think about it and hear about dark tourism. It's a place of history. Oh, yeah. I've been to Pompeii. I mean, I am definitely, like, transfixed in a number of different ways by the deceased bodies preserved in ash.

Well, really, they're kind of mold. of bodies. They're not fossils. But anyways, I also have my limits. And there are many examples of dark tourism that we'll discuss today that I would never, ever, ever engage with. But before we get into those examples and more into like quantifying this phenomenon as not just like a freaky thing that exists, but actually a cult, we should probably get some definitions out of the way and delve into a bit of history. Yes. Let's talk about. the history of this specific cult. Dark tourism was formerly coined by Scottish professors John Lennon and Malcolm Foley in 1996, but the practice has been around as long as tourism itself.

Watching death as sport at the Roman Coliseum, that's dark tourism. In the crowd at a public execution? Definitely dark tourism. The genre has evolved to encompass pilgrimages to sites associated with death, disaster, and atrocity, like Chernobyl, Auschwitz, Pompeii, and Salem, the site of the witch trials. These days, it also involves group trips to war zones, active natural disasters. Why go to an active natural disaster? Okay, I will suspend judgment. I'll suspend judgment. Hubs for drug and gang violence and other destinations, many people would emphatically rule out for a holiday. Okay, yeah. So now we're getting into some stuff that does not appeal to be on any level. But I'm actually now remembering that when I was in high school, I was really obsessed with storm chasers.

like photographers who will get like really up close to tornadoes. I would never do it myself, but I was fascinated by those people and what drove them. Of course. Yeah, I think it feels like dark tourism really overlaps with this desire to do something that other people just haven't done or to go where it's almost like a little bit of a Christopher Columbus type of explorer. Like I'm going to delve into areas that everyone else would shy away from or is not brave enough to explore. Well, it's interesting that you bring up Christopher Columbus because it also gives colonizer vibes because, as we'll discuss with our guest, David, later, most of the people who engage in this type of macab, dark tourism, are white patrons, often from the UK or the

United States, who go to the Middle East or Africa or Asia and sometimes engage with those cultures in pretty vile ways. Yeah, Central and South America. It does feel like it's very much this type of moneyed individual who is driving this industry that's evolved from a niche curiosity into a legitimate category in the tourism market. Researchers estimate that the global dark tourism market was worth roughly $31.9 billion in 2023 with continued growth projected through the decade. I mean, when people are looking to, especially with social media and posting from the trip as big as it is now, if you're looking for bragging rights or some kind of perverse way to one up your friends again,

I'm having a hard time seeing how this would read as a ethical or just thing to do. But yeah, taking one of these trips to a place that no one would go to, that's one way to differentiate yourself. Yeah, I mean, I can't lie when I like low-key bragged just now, weird flex but okay style about going to Pompeii and visiting the operating theater. It's like, why am I proud of that? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, we'll get into unpacking the psychology shortly. Well, but you do have an intellectual curiosity and you are interested in history and the quirks of human behavior. And I would believe that probably a lot of dark tourism aficionados are also couching it in some other like, well, I have a history with this area or maybe they have roots in that particular place or maybe they're writing a book about it. Who knows? You could come up. with so many excuses. I mean, yes, like the mental gymnastics go from like somersault level to

Cirque de Soleil level. But I'm interested in long ago history. I'm fascinated by the way that people lived, the way that people died. I want to understand my own life and my own values and, you know, how humanity has evolved from this anthropological and yeah, just like educationally, historically curious perspective. And I follow my intuition. with that. Like learning about New Orleans where my mom is from or like Italy, where some of my ancestors are from, like Italy, a country that I have a connection to. Like that doesn't feel like offensive to me. Maybe it would be offensive to others and that is fair. And like, yeah, for sure. Like I'll go visit battlegrounds like Gettysburg or whatever. Like I'm fascinated by these historical

events. I'm not fascinated by death itself. Well, I am fascinated by death itself. But I'm not interested in murder. That's what I'll say. I don't love murder. I'm with you. Do not love murder. Do love true crime. Although talking about true crime, I do think that the similarity between people who love true crime and people who might be interested in dark tourism, there's also that HBO show Chernobyl, which was part of the reason that the annual visitors from Chernobyl jumped 72% in a single year up to 124,000 in 2019. Thanks to people watching this show and it just just being in the zeitgeist more than it had been in a really long time. And people who are curious to see a nuclear disaster site, which verges on pretty much

apocalypse tourism, which is perhaps a subcategory of dark tourism, I'm sure that there are plenty of people who kind of want to, yeah, like, okay, well, civilization almost ended here. Let me go and check this out and immerse myself in what happened. Dude, that reminds me, the last I heard. the site of the Jonestown massacre was being transformed into a Torah site in Guyana, which like that turns my fucking stomach. And I guess, I don't know. I mean, like some could argue that it's for education purposes.

But for me, I guess already knowing the history of that tragedy, I'm just like, that's fucked up. But then some people could say that same thing for me going to the, you know, operating theater. It's like, well, bodies were completely defaced there. Well, it's also like an ancient form of autopsy, or if not ancient, like centuries old, at least. Yeah. I want to voice another ethical boundary I have. Sure. Because I just watched this documentary on YouTube about this 500-plus year old mummy of a 14-year-old girl from the Inca Empire that was found at the top of a very, very high peak in Peru.

And this documentary was investigating this anthropological discovery of this. this mummy, which was like flawlessly preserved. Like it looked like she had only just died. And they were trying to understand what happened to her and how she died and how she got there. It's a fascinating documentary. Honestly, I should link it in the show notes. But this mummy of this 14 year old girl is now like on display in Peru. And that gave me the ick. That gave me the major hebi-jeebies because it's not like going to the catacombs, which I also, oh my gosh, I've been to so many catacombs. And I love going to the catacombs and have since I was a kid. I think kids are like even more macabre than adults in certain ways. But it's not just like a pile of, you know, nondescript bones.

This is like the body of a girl who is identifiable. Like you can see her face. You can see her hands. And it just felt like this dehumanizing violation of autonomy and dignity for this girl. And I remember going to the Natural History Museum on Shrooms not long ago and looking at the skeleton and being like, this was a person. And I know that these bones are on display for educational purposes, but like, this feels wrong. Like, it just felt wrong to me. So I think anything that dehumanizes people, I don't like that. That's where I, like, put my foot down on the dark tourism thing. Yeah. Well, you know, there is something about time when you're talking about centuries elapsing and having distance between, say, something like Pompeii and you visiting it

in the modern day, that does, you know, turn something from it was a horrible tragedy, but now it is also a huge historical event. Yeah, exhuming a body and then putting it on. display. There's a major ick factor there. Yes. And like watching these anthropologists go like bug-eyed talking about their investigations, I was like, this is cool, but this is fucked. I guess you're justifying it in the name of science. I guess that's how they're doing it too. But as it pertains to dark tourism, it feels like there's the forest in Japan that is unfortunately quite well known for the amount of people who've committed suicide there. And the, notoriety has grown undeniably through popular culture and through people almost, I don't want to say

normalizing it because it does still strike me. And I think most people who hear about this is, gosh, what a sad and unnerving legacy for a forest for something that nature has given us to have. But for some people in the dark tourism space, this is a bucket list destination. This is a place on par with like serial killer tours, crime pub crawls, Chernobyl excurs. versions, cartel tourism, war zone tourism. It just feels like we've become disturbingly comfortable packaging human suffering as an experience that you can add to cart and do. Yeah. Okay, that's another dimension of this that gives me the ick is like who's profiting and how much are they profiting. You know, it costs like three euros to go to the operating theater and ultimately supports like

a university museum. But when, for example, I learned about this suicide forest, as it's sort of glibly and colloquially called, it's actually called the Aoki Gahara Forest. I originally heard about this place from the controversy that occurred after YouTuber Logan Paul, curse his name, filmed the body of an apparent suicide victim in 2018 in this forest. He like joked on camera about it. All seemed very dehumanizing and disrespectful and then uploaded the footage to his massive YouTube channel for millions of people to watch. There was obviously international outrage and backlash. This was swift and critics accused him of turning real human tragedy into content. But I do think that that is happening more and more.

As people's dopamine systems become just like fucking shot and overrun in the digital age, certain influencers who might have never even entered the dark tourist space before are now doing so for clout, for views, for content. And that is really dark. It is really, really dark because I think that mentality of whatever it takes to get the views, to get the hits, any attention is good attention can lead to things like this where you're really disrespecting human beings, a particular site. You're just not thinking about the ramifications of where, you're pointing your camera and what you're doing. Like, it's one thing to put a three euro donation in the pocket of a museum. It's another thing to sort of hire a guide to take you into a really sorrowful place that should not be known for what you're portraying on your YouTube channel. And it's sad that some people feel they can do that just because they have a following. Yeah. And I'm in the curiosity business, you know, like I love to learn. And I guess like thinking about this from an opera. domestic angle, I can understand wanting to visit the site of a famous tragedy in order to maybe

connect with the dead or to pay homage to them in some way. But I think where this goes from an interesting, quirky and maybe even actively respectful thing to do to a cult is where you're, like, sacrificing time and money, putting it into the coffers of potentially nefarious figures, and then doing all these mental gymnastics to justify it. But really, what you're doing is just, like, wanting to prove how special you are and how, like, unique of a life that you're living. I mean, that is very culty, ultimately. It is, it is so culty, ultimately. It's almost like there's no bar for this is something that I won't touch. It's like, if going to this place and taking this tour and highlighting this specific unsavory thing about it will bring in more views, then sure, why not? And I'm doing it in the name of tourism. I'm doing it in the name of tourism. I'm doing it in the name of. of travel, which people can kind of generally sort of get on board with. And anyone who's criticizing me or who says that this isn't appropriate is just approved or they're not as open-minded as I am. You can see how that sort of like toxic attitude could justify a lot of this behavior.

Yeah. And, you know, memorial sites have faced repeated controversies over this like dark tourist attitude, including selfies and content creation at sites of genocide, like Auschwitz. I visited a concentration camp, but it could not have been with a more different attitude than the attitude that I brought to, like, the New Orleans ghost horror, which felt almost like a camp thing. Like, I don't, like ghosts aren't real. But despite what some people say, the Holocaust was, I, aye, yay. I think before we go too far down, that rabbit hole of horror.

it might be time to transition into our interview because David Ferrier has so many more personal anecdotes of the most insane examples of dark tourism and how it really has become a cult. And so we want to introduce him. Stick around after the break for our interview with David Ferrier. Start your Alienware Journey with the streamlined Alienware 15. They designed this machine to refine the essentials,

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Visit alienware.ca slash alienware 15 today. Oh my god. Some of my absolute favorite sponsors of all time are sponsoring this very episode of Sounds Like a Call and one of them is Zenny. Yo, I just updated my prescription sunglasses using Zeni, the online eyewear shop of your dreams, where prescription sunglasses, eyeglasses, blue light glasses, start at under $30. I had been avoiding getting new prescription sunglasses,

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Plus, free shipping on all U.S. orders over $65. The styles sell out, so don't sit on it. That z-en-n-I.com slash podcast promo code, Podcast 15. Ah, David. David. Hi. Hi, is what I meant. And also, it's been overdue your presence here

on the Sounds Like a cult podcast. I'm just so grateful to be here. I'm a huge fan of yours. And I mean, waiting for the call. I've been here waiting and it finally came. It was like sort of a euliation that you heard just in the ether. And then you knew that you had to arrive. Anyway, you and I met in person, actually randomly for the first time last week.

We were at the Webby Awards. We did. It was so nice. It was at the Webby's, which is a very funny award ceremony. And I was kind of deep in panic when I met you because I was there alone. And as I walked into that room, I sort of realized, oh, God, this is going to be a hard room to immerse myself in. And then you magically appeared and you were so warm and friendly. And I was like, oh, my God, I've got a friend.

This is great. Yeah. No, that was a cult space for sure. It was tech bros abounded. And I immediately knew how safe you would be because you were wearing crocs with the character Stitch. Anyway, could you introduce yourself to our listeners, David? I mean, they already know who you are. And also, as you introduce yourself, could you mention your relationship to the cult of dark tourism?

I can. So my name is David Farrier. I'm a journalist from New Zealand currently based in Los Angeles. I made a show about dark tourism and the cult of dark tourism about eight years ago now, and it's still sitting on Netflix and I still get people coming out to me who are just finding it for the first time, which is so nice. And I love talking about this topic so much. Beauty of Netflix, people can discover it at any time. It's really neat. The thing that freaks me out a little bit about digital services like that is if they disappear. I talked to my team the other day and none of us have a copy. We have the hard drives of the edits of Dark Tourists somewhere, but we don't have like a finished high-deaf version

of the show. So if Netflix goes down, I'll just be relying on hopefully someone taking it on pirate bay or something. But yeah, I don't have a copy. Pirating is on the rise. It is. I mean, we have to because we don't have copies of things anymore. It's all being streamed and we don't have the stuff. At least pirating gives you an option to kind of keep the thing, you know? we are here to talk about dark tourism and out of the gate as a pioneer of dark tourism media, what do you think is the single cultiest thing about this industry as a whole? I think with dark tourism, the thing that really stood out to me is that people's kind of

ethical sort of moral values seem to sort of go out the window and it becomes a very kind of chasing this thrill of seeing something you're maybe not meant to see or being close to something really dark and bleak. And, you know, based around a death or a massive number of deaths or something sort of awful happening. And people sort of forgetting the really weighty context around it and just kind of going for the thrill of sort of the equivalent of a roller coaster or something like that. I found that really intriguing to me. I thought people would be a little bit more self-aware that were intrigued by these spots. But that seemed to kind of all go out the window a little bit.

Spooky. David, can you talk about some of the dark tourist experiences you had and specifically the cultiest phenomena that you confronted when you set out to learn more about each of the sites that you featured in the show? I think the two, when I think culty and think of, you know, a group of people that are really obsessive, I think three come to mind. We did a serial killer tour that was based around Jeffrey Dahmer in Milwaukee. So it was a walking tour of Milwaukee going to some.

sort of sites where Jeffrey Dahmer had either abducted people or killed people. So there was the narco tourism that we did around Pablo Escobar's old compound. Our tour guide was Popeye, who was essentially Pablo's hipman. You know, he killed hundreds of people. And people drawn to that were very into narcos, which was on Netflix at the time. And just very, it was like a combination of pop culture and people wanting this kind of dark thrill that kind of came together into one weird mishmash. And then the third one that jumps to mind, and I'm happy to go further into any of these, is the deeply online and very strange cults of McCamee Manor, that extreme haunt. And there's been subsequent documentaries that Dalvin much deeper than I did into McCamie Manor. But it's this one guy

and the whole idea of Macaamy Manor, he's got a lot of really viral videos online that have been going crazy for the last 20 years, is no one will make it through this haunt. And it's less haunt, more kind of low-key torture, people getting waterboarded and hit and that kind of thing. But there's a very intense online following pro-Russell who runs this thing and against who he calls the haters. And these two factions just play off against each other in this really wild way. And that just creates these cultic elements as each side kind of further embeds. You know, one side being like, this guy is a sadistic, probably serial killer who is abusing people. and staff and the other side who just desperately want to get in and have the experience.

The notion of wanting to be waterboarded and calling that an experience that you're opting into is just mind-boggling. Yeah, I think it partly taps into, I think, America's love of game shows and wanting to beat something and the fact that no one's ever gotten through this haunt, maybe they'll make it through. But still, you know, it's pretty brutal what he puts people through and people come out bruised and battered. And the thing is, no one's ever going to get through because it looks like anyone is about to like beat his haunt. He'll just like hold your head underwater until you tap out. So like you'll never make it through. But that's just kind of created over the years, this law and this sort of mythology around it that people just get so

excited by. But I'm like, you, I don't really fully understand why people would want to go through with that. I mean, I tapped out very early on. I didn't even get into the house. He blindfolded me and put these big headphones on and piped heavy metal music while he made me hold different yoga poses and then just like kick me really hard at various points. And that went on for about three hours. And so it wasn't enjoyable for me. I didn't love that experience. And by that point, I had cameras with me so I felt somewhat safe, but I really didn't want to be alone with him because this whole thing is you've got to go in there alone with him. So I'd have no camera, no crew. and it just wasn't worth it for me personally, so I tapped out.

Understandable. You're like soft delivery in articulating these horrors. I mean, it's part of your brand, but it never gets old. I have to say, I mean, this individual that you're describing, if he's not a cult leader, I don't know who is. I mean, he's like torturing people under the guise of this, like, alluring experience that, like, if you're able to reach the highest level to go clear in the context of,

of his experience, then, like, you'll ascend beyond what any other human has ever been meant to, but it's also, like, a bit. I mean, you were saying one of the more surprising things that you observed was that people were not more self-aware about it. Do you think people go into these experiences with a sense of irony, or are they just following their impulses? I think how Russ McCamey operates, I don't think people go in with a sense of that. I think people go in there with a really pig-headedness of we're going to ascend and we're

going to beat this thing. And sort of a side dish in this, and it's just I sort of remembered after you mentioned kind of how cultic this was, he'd often have younger woman around who were fans of what he did. And so when we went there, you know, he was in his 50s. When we went there, there was a young woman who I'd assume was early 20s that was living with him on a mattress in his caravan, who was sort of a fan and was there to help, but I felt like they were in some sort of a something. And I just remember being in that trailer and it just didn't feel good. And if you look through his previous videos, there's often much younger people, often female fans around who just kind of idolize him in a way. There's definitely a pretty high level of ick around him and definitely feels very culty in more ways than one. It's fascinating too,

because in another episode that you mentioned, another experience, the narco-tourism element where you like went to Columbia and like explored some of Pablo Escobar's territory, that was one story that you told in that episode, but the word cult was not uttered as a part of that storyline. But then there was another dark tourist experience that you had in Columbia that was presented as an interaction with a known cult, which was the Santa Morte, which is like this grassroots community that formed around this one woman who kind of like celebrates death or like has all these like rituals and touchstones and relics aimed at. not glorifying death, but allowing people to become familiar with death,

less afraid of death, but that like the broader Catholic religious community kind of demonizes and calls a cult. But it was so funny to see that this group that is regarded by the mainstream as a cult actually proved to be like quite positive and just like a group of misfits who weren't kind of really hurting anyone. But then this like narco-tourism, fun, thrilling experience helmed by a, former hitman was not framed as cult, but I was like, that's the cult. Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? I think when you've ever, you've got any kind of religious elements that come into a story, you kind of, it makes it so easy to go, oh, that's a cult, that's something. You know,

you've got some central figures, you've got a bunch of people meeting around it. But, you know, the idea of sort of looking death in the face and making it less scary was such a positive, life-affirming thing. Everyone there was amazing. They found hope and an escape in this belief system. And yeah, the opposite when you're kind of glorifying Pablo Escobar and the horrific things he did, I couldn't agree more. And I think something when I look back on, and I haven't watched the series in a while. I mean, I don't watch it. I don't watch it again and again. It would be a bit self-involved.

But we had a lot of discussions making that show and really like tying ourselves and knots around what dark tourism was and what defined it. And we went pretty loose. I mean, we went to a space shuttle launch in Kazakhstan, you know, because all these people go to, watch a shuttle launch. And that's not really dark tourism. It's not. It's just a bunch of people going. The only argument that could be dark tourism is people go there wondering if it's going to explode when it launches, you know, secretly hoping for a disaster. But it was a bit of a stretch. So all the way through, we were kind of having very loose and changing definitions of what dark tourism was. What was culty. What wasn't. What to judge harshly. What to judge less harshly.

I mean, we try to treat everyone with respect and not be too judgmental, but then when you're in South Africa with a bunch of white supremacists waiting for an upcoming black race war, more difficult to be hands off on your judgment of that kind of thing. Are there sort of sacrificial rituals around all of these activities that sort of unite them together as being in the genre of dark tourism? Like, what is it? Does it have to involve some horrible thing that's happened to humanity? Does it have to involve your own sacrifice, like sacrificing your body. Of course, you're sacrificing money and time. I'd say, and no, again, this is a definition we were trying to really figure out. Because, I mean, it's not like dark tourism is this like heavily defined academic term.

It's pretty casual, I think. And there'd been a couple of books written about this before we came on board. But really, I think death and destruction are the two kind of main things I'd say. It's a site where something horrific has happened to people. I think death has to be involved. whether that involves sacrifice or a natural disaster or a cannibal or something else like that, just has to be death and destruction. And added to that, death and destruction at a place where people want to go to essentially ogle, you know,

I mean, it's an extended version of when you drive past horrific crash on the freeway and you all sort of leer at it and look because you want that little thrill, whatever that gives you, whether it's catharsis or learning from it or just being a sicko. you know, it's kind of that idea, but on a much grander scale. Are there rituals in this space that you've noticed are actually respectful versus the ones that are sort of deeply unsettling? Yeah, good question. And I'd say largely no.

I mean, I was going to answer, we do an episode where we went to Indonesia and hung out with a tribe that was very difficult to get to. And you've probably seen the photos where people exhumed the dead and they sort of fossilized. and they give them money and they give them alcohol and they do a ceremony and then they pop them back in the grave. And everyone around that, there was a high level of respect. But that wasn't a place where tourists really go. Like when we were there, it was just us. So I didn't get to see how other people were reacting.

But in talking to some members of the tribe, it sounds like tourists that did go to witness these kind of ceremonies were much more respectful. And I think that's just because it takes such an effort to get there. It's not an easy trip. You know, you can pop into some of public. about stuff so easily when you're like hung over after your big night out the night before, whereas with this particular tribe in Indonesia, it took like a really effort. So I think the people that chose to do that were a little bit more respectful and a bit more specific, whereas people going on the Jeffrey Dahmer tour were more there just to get a bit drunk and have a laugh and

kind of feel the thrill. It's so interesting because thinking generously for one hot second about this extreme rubberneck, that is like the participation in dark twill. You know, my understanding of rubbernecking is that, like, yes, we're, like, morbidly curious and we're, like, sick ovoyers, but also, like, when we look at a car crash, we're scanning for threats. We want to understand if this tragedy is a direct danger to us, mind and body, how can we prevent this from happening to us? But defining dark tourism as challenging as that is, and classifying this as a cult is even

harder. And I think the intentionality and how far you go with it is part of how we are. understand this as a cult and the more very earnestly trying to see like what can I learn from this to protect myself. Like I don't know that that is what makes this a cult. Like what makes this a cult in terms of like the boxes that we're checking. It's yeah, it's like showing up and paying money to engage with this ultimately pretty twisted and disrespectful thing out of what wanting to engage with like debauchery. It's like white people go to Vegas. Like is it that? What are people seeking, I guess is my question.

I think it varies for people. Thinking about the Jeffrey Dahmer tour, which is an observation, I think people make about a lot of fans of serial killers. I was the only guy on that tour. It was mostly woman there, and that kind of taps into the stereotype of, like, females being curious about male killers. And I think about that again, and I think, reflecting on what you said, I think a lot of those people, sure, they're there for a thrill on one level and to kind of learn about it.

Again, I don't know what I'm talking about here. I'm just rambling, but I think obviously a lot of those females on that trip were probably deeply aware that men are really, really scary. And to kind of like look at that as an internal thing of like, we need to learn from this and confront it. Because I think every woman is afraid of being snatched or abused at some point or has been. And sort of confronting this thing head on is a way of acknowledging that whether you are learning from it, whether it's like catharsis, whether it's just a way to think about it with a group of people. sort of all acknowledge it together. So I think about experience like that being a perfect example of how I don't want to look at all dark tourists and go, oh, you're just profiting off death. And I think maybe even how I started off this interview by sort of saying,

it's all morally repugnant. You know, there's elements of it that we're all trying to learn about these horrible things and adapt and figure out how we can survive on this planet. Yeah, it kind of reminds me of how, like, people who are terrified of sharks are some of the most fervently participatory in like shark week. And like they are in the fucking cult of sharks as like a weird like exposure therapy type thing. Yeah, I think it's like people that love horror or anyone that loves horror. Like that's why we watch horror.

We go and watch these awful things happening on screen and it's a way to think about the stuff and confront it in a safe environment. Yeah, the same with true crime. I mean, I'm sure that there's a line that's quite short between a really avid true crime viewer and saying, well, maybe I should go to Milwaukee and maybe I should do this Jeffrey Dahmer tour and maybe that's taking my fandom to the next level. But of course, the implications of that are dodgy. I want to understand this more as a community because if we're trying to understand it as a cult, I think there needs to be a community element. And certainly

plenty of modern day cult communities, though not all of them, have some kind of leader or figurehead. Who do you think fulfills the cult leader role in the dark tourism industry? Is it tour guides? Is it travel influencers? True Crime Media? Social media algorithms rewarding the most shocking content. Or is the leader just humanity's endless appetite for proximity to horror? Oh my God. These are all such good options. And I think they all probably play into that. I think internet culture has a huge part to do with us. I think without the online community and people talking about this stuff and seeing imagery of these different things, none of this would exist. You know, the dark tourism isn't marketed through typical ways. There is actually like a dark

tourist.com or dot net. Not the dot net. People still use dot net. And, you know, I'll probably got a book on my bookshelf that I think is like a dark tourist destination. So there's certain experts in the field, but really people are coming across things and stumbling across things on their algorithms and on their feeds. And I think a really good example of that is thinking about, you know, that suicide forest in Japan. And that's a topic that we covered, and I hope we did it somewhat sensitively. I think, looking back on that, I think we probably shouldn't have gone at all. But that's a place that purely got famous from a bunch of influences, I think, including at one point, Logan Paul, got marching into this forest looking for people that had taken their lives.

And then people saw it, and they were like, oh, this is a beautiful forest, this is an adventure, this is crazy. And I think that's the ultimate version of the really selfish. awful side of dark tourism where you've got mostly Americans going to Japan and just like stomping their white little butts through a forest looking for this really personal awful thing that they shouldn't have any business and they're going in there to get views you know because they're all recording everything I think that's the worst version of what dark tourism can be I'm curious if you think whether dark tourism creates a moral hierarchy where participants cast themselves as you know intellectually curious and they're seeking truth, dismantling the notion of diving into something that

might be squeamish or unsavory and saying, you know, I'm doing this for a historical purpose. I'm doing this to be a more informed tourist. Totally. And I think when we, in the show where we do talk to tourists that have just turned up, you can kind of see people, once the questions out there, trying to justify it in their minds in a way. You could sort of see people doing the mental somersaults. And I think a lot of people had turned up to certain places just to ogle. And out of a sense of curiosity, but as we talked to about it, they were trying to come up with reasons that they saw as being more justifiable, like education or like paying their respects to certain things that had happened. And so, yeah, people jump to that, but I think at their core, I don't know, I think there's a certain sort of person that is drawn to this. I mean, I think most people, when they take a holiday, they want to go somewhere beautiful and maybe a beautiful sandy beach or a forest or.

or like Vegas, something fun, whereas there's a certain sort of person that wants to go somewhere sort of bleak and awful. And I think those are just two different sorts of people. I think you either have friends that want to do that or they wouldn't do it in a million years. Or if it's somewhere where no one's ever been. Oh, it's the ultimate I'm not like other girls. Exactly. Exactly. I have a group of friends who, this was years ago, they were in Seoul and South Korea and several of them took a bus to the DMZ just to be at the border, just to see, I mean, you can't cross the border. I'd say that's certainly a dark tourist activity.

You know, that's that exact brain and you're seeing something that has really dark connotations and a little bit scary and dangerous. And yes, some people would do that and some people wouldn't. You didn't consider going at all? Oh, I was not on that trip. And no, I did not. That would not be my cup of tea. Let me go to a border crossing that is heavily militarized and what?

Just take a selfie? It just doesn't make any sense to me. I mean, we all have like our ethical boundaries with regard to dark tourism, I think. But like I feel like being on a resort in Mexico where like mostly citizens of that country are taking care of white people. I think that is dark tourism. That white load of shit, right? That is horrifying to me.

That is fucked up to me. So yeah, I'm not going to the DMZ. I'm barely going to the DMV. Something else I just remembered talking instead of talking about the ethics of dark tourism. It's a character I haven't thought about in a while, but we took this guy Andy with us and he came to us to Kazakhstan and in Russia a little bit.

We swam in this lake together that had been created when a nuclear bomb went off when they were testing it in Kazakhstan, which I still think I probably shouldn't have done. That was a stupid thing to do. But Andy was a really interesting character because he was this Brit, he was a builder, But his idea of going on holiday or having an adventure was going into active war zones.

And we were looking to pursue with him at some point going and shooting with him. But then as a crew and a production, we quickly realized that that was kind of crossing our ethical border. Because if you're going to do dark tourism in a war zone or a border close to a war zone, you're putting your own lives in danger for no reason, but you're also endangering the minders that are around you and the people that are around you. And he was always trying to justify. I mean, I really like Andy. He was a really interesting guy. I really liked his family. But he was always kind of justify what he was doing as being journalism and reporting. And if I can show what's going on at these places, then I'm informing others. But I think that's sort of stretching things a little bit. I think he just got a thrill like a roller coaster from being somewhere where there were bullets flying over his head. And he paid a lot of money to fix us to go to those places. So this is interesting because I've been trying to understand how this cult, differs from, say, the cult of, like, extreme sports people, like the Alex

Hunnold types, who's that free solo rock climber dude who, like, doesn't fear death, or, like, white people who go on safari in Africa and, like, don't appreciate the wilderness and, like, think it's Disneyland or whatever. And I think the pseudo-educational, pseudo-intellectual false promise or, like, delusion is a key ingredient that separates this cult from those others. And I'm curious, like, have you come across stories of people who've, like, really found a community in the dark tourist space? They, like, have met their friends.

They've met their spouse, like, deadheads who, like, fucking follow the Grateful Dead and, like, have a spouse that they met. I mean, the community that comes to mind is the community based around serial killers and true crime. I mean, I remember Natalie, who was in our Jeffrey Dahmer episode in Milwaukee. She sort of was deeply involved in the online community of people that were at looking into this case and collecting certain things. And I think that is just a very online community. Yeah, I think Andy, with his war tourism, there was a community built around that at people like him.

I mean, it's such a specific thing to do, but he would have his friends that if a war zone was kicking off, he had no where to go and who to talk to. And so there's, there are little worlds based around it. But they're small and they're specific. And to be honest, I kind of find them exhausting because they just, almost too specific in what they're into, you know? I'm just curious. Where was Andy's journalism? Was he doing it all on social media? Yeah.

When we met him, his journalism was Instagram and that kind of thing. He did end up being interviewed by a couple of news programs when he had been into certain war zones and he kind of marketed himself there as being a journalist or a citizen journalist. So, look, he was in those places and he could talk to them. But I think it was definitely a balance he was trying to. to find where he could justify what he was doing, get the word out there more, get more followers, and go back in there. I mean, he'd be doing the stuff whether he was getting coverage on the news for it or not. Right. I'm thinking of recently there was a travel creator on the cruise that got

infected with hauntavirus and is one of the many people who now has to quarantine and is uploading content from where he's quarantining and has turned it all into, you know, I'm sure he had a whole vision for what his content was going to look like before things went south on his cruise. Is he the guy that he's quite dramatic and quite loud? I keep seeing a guy pop up on my feed who is just, I feel he's milking this content to the max. He's being so dramatic about it. And it's obviously it's scary and it's very dramatic, but he's taking it to another level, I think. Yeah. This cult probably converges with a lot of other cults where I'm sure it's almost like a proximity to crisis, the citizen journalist thing, the wanting to be a person who has access

where other people do not. I think it's that, like, kind of singularity, I'm special, this makes me notable. No, that's a really good point. I think that's something super specific to this crowd of they want a good story, a good, really specific story of had access to this place, you know, I've been to Fukushima and gone into the restricted zone and being near radiation. what a story, like what a great travel story, what a great thing to have, what great access to have, and that's definitely a big part of it. They're almost life maxing. You know, they're trying to be like, look how much I lifed. You know, some people are like, I want to summit the seven highest peaks or whatever, like, I want to climb a mountain in every one of the 50 states.

These people are like, boring. I went to the moon. Yeah, it's bragging rights, a lot of it, you know? And I think occasionally you'll have a celebrity that will do it and will bust out into the mainstream. sort of consciousness. I feel Justin Bieber took a really inappropriate photo in Anne Frank's attic or something. There was some kind of Holocaust adjacent thing where he's sort of there in a very... He said Anne Frank would have been a believer. Oh, right. Yeah, that's the one. Yes, yes. But, you know, it's occasionally these people that sort of stands out to me an example

of sort of dark tourism gone very wrong. Yeah. That actually leads to our final question before we get into our game. Yeah, so what's the real harm when dark tourism goes bad? What do you think is the worst case version of this cult? It's a really good question. I mean, I think for one thing, it can be dangerous to human life if you are going into a war zone or something like that. If you are going into a radiation zone in Shinobal or more recently in Fukushima, I think there's sort of health concerns. When I think about dark tourism, and I think about it as a white host of a show where I'm sort of traipsing over the world, diving into these different cultures. I think one of the main sort of bits of ickiness in it is kind of a judgment of other people's culture

and the way that they think about death and the local customs and laws in that place. And I think a lot of dark tourists, I think they are white. I think a lot of them are from the UK and from the United States. And I think it's just sort of a lack of cultural awareness in this space as people kind of march to get to this specific location where something awfuls happened, that kind of being disrespectful often to just the local people in that area, just trying to get on with life and do their thing. I think that's the thing I kind of saw clashing a lot, because also a lot of these things, they're very niche. It's not like they have a big government endorsed kind of backing to bring the tourists in and make money for the locals.

It's very kind of low key. And so I think culturally, I think, is where a lot of the issues kind of rise up. That makes so much sense. And is so reflective of a lot of the cults. that we discuss on this show. It's like the actual true believers make up a small group, but the tentacles of their cultural impact slither far and wide. Start your Alienware journey

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luxury tourism. Because luxury tourism is really like Sheila's actual beat. Because Sheila is a travel journalist for realzies, but in the luxury space. I'm so jealous of the people watching you get to do, like the places you get to go and just the people watching, my God, I'm jealous. Well, look, there are plenty of dark people and dark situations that, as we mentioned, you can find out the nicest places around the earth, but it's interesting how human behavior has a way of sneaking into the most luxurious resorts. Yes, so true. The first example, culty or just cringe. Faking an illegal border crossing, which is a dark tourist experience that David did cover on his show, just to say you've done it. I will say as far as border crossings go, I will go culty.

Totally. Number two, visiting every Amman resort and making sure people know it. Cringe. Wait, Sheila, what is that? What is an Amman resort? Ooh, okay, so you've probably seen pictures of them. The one in the U.S. that is the most famous is Amangiri, which I believe our friend Justin Bieber and Haley also frequent. Their resorts are very sort of minimalist, like Japanese principles of design and relaxation. They're also exorbitantly expensive. They are beautiful.

Don't get me wrong. They're sanctuaries in and of themselves, but there are people who are Amman diehards. who make a point of going to every single one across the globe who try to get invited to the openings. They have a community around being an Amman loyalist. And, you know, there are people who are really into the Four Seasons or to Rosewood hotels or other various brands. But I think that Amman has a following that's more fervent than almost any other. Wow. Oh, no, wait, now I think it's Colty. Yeah, I think that they are very cool. I've only stayed at one. So the Amman culties would laugh at me. They would not include me in any of their conversations. But I think they're fabulous places. I would not hang my hat on being exclusively going to any of these places or making it my life's mission. I think there are many, many other. Yes, more diverse kind of experiences one can have when they leave the house.

All right. That's fascinating. I do want to do an episode now on the Cold of Blonde. luxury resorts. Next one. Culty or Just Cringe. Bragging about burn marks sustained during a dark tourism outing. Cringe. Cronge. Culty or just cringe. Bragging about how your Bonvoy status got you as sweet at the St. Regis. Oh, that's verging into dark tourism, but I'll go for cringe. It's so dark. It's so awful that shit. Well, there are so many Reddit threads, right? And I'm sure other boards too, but I mean, especially Bonvoy, like how to maximize those points. I'm the worst points maximizer of all time.

I know America is deeply into the point system on flights, on different credit cards. I'm always dropping the ball on all the things and I don't care. Me too. I literally put for 2027 an episode on the cult of credit cards just so that someone can come on and teach me how to be a little bit more in the cult because I am just leaving money on the table. Yeah, that would be a great episode just out of curiosity. And for, I'll listen to the hell out of that. I need help.

Me too. Okay, Caltier just cringe. Modeling your vacation after a humanitarian tragedy. Oh my God. The cringiest of all. The cringiest of all. Culte or just cringe, modeling your vacation after White Lotus. I'm going to go dark tourism for that one.

Okay, I can't lie. When I was in Italy with one of my very close friends a few years ago, we did dress up like Mia and Louie. Chia from season two, and we took a bunch of picks in the lobby of a fancy hotel. How did you find people reacting to that, reacting to you differently to how they typically would? I mean, yeah, like the people working at the hotel were scandalized and horrified, but the other patrons were like, hello, like, who are you? I love this.

This is so funny. That's amazing. That's like a little vacation cosplay. It was a bit, but we had the best time. And of course, like, you know, we like made little memes out of them. I stand by the behavior. Okay, cultier just cringe going to the DMC. Culty.

And finally, Culty or just cringe going to the moon. That's such a good question. I think of Katie Perry going up there. I mean, it's both. It's a perfect fusion of both worlds. I've got to put both in there. It's both those things. It's dark tourism.

It's incredibly cringe. I'm all for the astronauts going up there if you're doing a bit of science. But any member of the public that's launching themselves up into space, incredibly worst version of dark tourism and incredibly cringe. Of course. Yeah. And to be specific. It's going to the moon for tourism purposes. David, wow. Thank you for joining this episode of Sounds Like a Cult. If people want to keep up with you and your work and not to brag, but I know what you're working on. And it is explosively sparkly and fun. Where can they do that? I think the best place to follow me, I have a free newsletter you can sign up for.

know everyone has a newsletter these days, but it's at webworm.co, that's W-E-B-W-O-R-M. And a lot of my weird investigations I've got behind-the-scenes dark tourist stuff there. That's probably the best place. Absolute sleigh. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Okay, Sheila, it's time for our verdict. Out of our three cult categories, live your life, watch your back, and get the fuck out. Which do you think the cult of dark tourism falls into?

I'm going to go with watch your back, although personally, I would say get the fuck out. You know, there's that line between investigating something as a historical artifact, as something that happened during the history of humanity. I don't know. And then there's something else about taking this sort of morbid pleasure in death and destruction and atrocity. And if you want to go to one of these places to pay your respects, great, wonderful. Do it, do it with the right attitude. Do it not to get content. Do it from a human level. But if you're paying to get waterboarded, like what? No, that's definitely a get the fuck out. Yeah, I agree completely. I definitely think it's a heavy, heavy watcher back. The most extreme dark tourists, I mean, it's so fucked up. I still don't think that the cultural consequences are as extreme as a cult like maha or incels, you know, and we do ultimately grade on a curve here. It sounds like a cult. So I'm going to call it an extreme watch your back and I feel pretty confident in that. But super curious to hear what our

listeners think. And we, we have been doing weekly Q&As where we get listener feedback on every episode on our Instagram. So if you have feedback, want to participate, find us on the cult of Instagram and sounds like a cult pod. But anything, Anyway, Sheila, thank you so much for joining this episode. This was so fun to do with you. Thank you so much for having me. I am honored. And just remind the people the name of your books and where they can find them.

Yes, the latest is Incidentals. And you can find it as well as my two previous novels, Friends in Napa and the Goddess Effect, wherever books are sold. And in all formats. Audible, Kindle, hardcover paperback, whatever floats your boat. Hell yeah. Well, that's our show. Thanks so much for listening. Stick around for a new cult next week. And in the meantime, stay culty, but not too culty. Sounds like a cult was created by Amanda Montel and edited by Jordan Moore of the pod cabin. This episode was hosted by Amanda Montel. Our managing producer is Katie Epperson. Our theme music is by Casey Cole. If you enjoyed the show, we'd really appreciate it if you could leave it five stars on Spotify, or or Apple Podcasts. It really helps the show a lot. And if you like this podcast, feel free to check

out my book, Cultish, The Language of Fanaticism, which inspired the show. You might also enjoy my other books, The Age of Magical Oversinking, notes on modern irrationality, and word slut, a feminist guide to taking back the English language. Thanks as well to our network studio 71. And be sure to follow the Sounds Like a Cult cult on Instagram for all the discourse at Sounds Like a Cult pod, or support us on Patreon to listen to the show ad-free at patreon.com slash sounds like a cult.