Bucket-list trip or ‘doom tourism’? How climate crisis-induced phenomena became the latest travel trend

From flocking to view volcanic eruptions to splurging on ‘last chance’ Antarctic cruises to witness the melting polar ice caps, travellers are increasingly compelled to see destinations before they’re irrevocably changed by climate change. Ellie Sivins investigates whether our morbid motivations are doing more harm than good

Antarctica has seen a huge uptick in visitors (Henrique Setim)

Once upon a time, volcanic eruptions caused people to flee for their lives and get as far away as possible. In 2023, they cause tourists to book the next inbound flight to see the spectacle for themselves, while tour companies add “unmissable” volcano excursions to their schedules. Travellers are becoming increasingly attracted to these so-called “once in a lifetime”, bucket-list experiences; and little attention is paid to how much the climate crisis is responsible for the events they’re flocking towards.

Trips to places that have been impacted by the effects of the climate emergency come under the banner of “doom tourism”. Defined as travelling to places that are environmentally threatened in order to witness them before it’s “too late” and they’re gone, doom tourism stretches over the globe, from Antarctica to the melting glaciers in Patagonia, from the Great Barrier Reef to the ever-heating Death Valley in the US. And, more recently, the volcanic eruptions in Iceland.

In the Nordic island nation alone, there have been three volcanic eruptions in the past three years. Studies have found the surge in activity is linked to the melting glaciers in volcanic regions, which increase the surface pressure and thus the likelihood of eruptions. Elsewhere, in early 2023, Antarctic sea ice reached the lowest levels ever recorded, an expected consequence of climate change. The highest temperature in Death Valley, Nevada is rapidly approaching the highest ever recorded on Earth (56.7C), reaching 53.3C on 16 July 2023. As a result of marine heatwaves, the Great Barrier Reef has suffered six mass coral bleaching events and, as of 2023, 91 per cent of reefs have been affected by the bleaching.

Tourists are flocking to the Fagradalsfjal eruption in Iceland (Tetiana Grypachevska)

While you might expect these worrying climate-induced phenomena to deter people from a trip, in many cases they have actually spurred on tourism. Visits to Antarctica have risen dramatically, with 105,331 people visiting over the 2022-23 Austral season – a whopping 40 per cent increase on the 2019-20 season’s record of 74,381 passengers pre-pandemic.

Tourism levels in Iceland hit a record high in 2019, with two million visitors; in under three years, visitor numbers are returning to pre-pandemic levels, in part due to the draw of volcanic eruptions. In perhaps the starkest example of doom tourism, in July 2023, when Earth’s average temperature set a record high three times in one week, tourists flocked to Death Valley on the California-Nevada border – billed as the lowest, hottest and driest place in the world – to take selfies next to the national park’s famed thermometer as it displayed a sweltering 132F (56C). Pictures of people grinning with thumbs up next to a literal sign showing the planet’s rapid overheating proved a jarring sight.

There is definitely an element of travellers prioritising the destination now before it is too late

Jeremy Clubb, founder of Antarctica Cruises

Speaking to The Independent, Antarctic guide Nina Gallo described how most tourists’ motivations for visiting were largely positive: “The majority of tourists are drawn to Antarctica by the ice and wildlife, or the chance to share a memorable experience with family and friends,” she said. But it’s impossible to deny that the uptick in visits is partly influenced by the “last chance tourism” mentality. Jeremy Clubb, the founder of Antarctica Cruises, said that the increase in visitors to Antarctica “has been compounded by the current climate change crisis, with trips seemingly now all the more urgent as fear of its effects on the region heighten. I think it’s fair to say that there is definitely an element of travellers prioritising the destination now before it is too late.”

Danger zone: A warning sign in Death Valley (Claudia Engel)

Across the Great Barrier Reef, concern about the bleaching has become a major reason for visiting over the last decade, with 69 per cent of tourists surveyed stating they were driven by wanting to see the reef before it was too late, according to an academic paper published in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism entitled “Last Chance Tourism and the Great Barrier Reef. While the survey of 235 visitors found that the majority were generally more environmentally conscious than your average holidaymaker, with a higher level of concern about the overall health of the reef, they were still technically drawn there by “doom tourism”: the desire to see it before the impacts of climate change proved too detrimental.

People aren’t villains for wanting to see something before it’s gone, of course. In a world where we’ve been warned that the Earth as we know it may no longer exist within our lifetimes, surrounded by endless social media posts of places we may never see in person, and feeling as though we’ve lost precious travel time due to a global pandemic, many may well feel the need to scramble to see these places while they still can. Clubb recognises the influence of the Covid restrictions on visiting Antarctica: “In the past two years alone, worldwide searches for ‘Antarctica cruises’ have increased by 600 per cent. The curiosity around Antarctica has always been there, but in the wake of the pandemic, the desire to experience such once-in-a-lifetime adventures has reached new levels.”

Death Valley is one of the hottest places on Earth (Urip Dunker)

And visiting locations severely affected by climate change can also be an educational experience; Christy Hehir’s research paper Last Chance for Wildlife: Making Tourism Count for Conservation assessed the philanthropic behaviour of tourists, with many respondents claiming that witnessing the impact of environmental collapse influenced their behaviour going forward, making them more likely to want to protect the environment. But this potential behaviour and attitude change has to be balanced against the emissions involved in seeing these places first-hand; a flight produces 90kg of CO2 per hour per passenger, while an Antarctic cruise on average adds 4.1 tonnes of CO2 per passenger.

Raising awareness about locations suffering at the sharp end of climate change is important, and the human fascination with weather events or natural phenomena is inevitable. However, when considering a “once in a lifetime” trip, maybe we need to think about whether visiting these places “before they’re gone” is the very thing helping to speed up their demise.