Atomic tourism on the rise?
Are the recent events in Japan responsible for the increase in visitors to atomic tourist sights?
Maybe it's just coincidence, just the recent jump in tourist number at sights like the black crater in Nevada and the Titan II missile in Arizona have had record number visitors since the tsunami and impending nuclear plant explosion in Japan. These types of sites offer education and a peek at the aftermath of deadly nuclean explosions.
It was just months ago that Chernobyl was considered open to the public again in Ukraine. Government-sponsored tour numbers are up as well and tourist are anxious to see what's left of the worst nuclear power plan disaster in the history of the world. It's a ghost town, and that interests people. Private tours can cost up to £200 a person!
Right now a project is underway to build a protecting structure around the exploded reactor... to preserve it for the future. Outside of that though, in Pripyat, the apartment buildings which used to be the home of the reactor's workers still lay empty, slowly turning to rubble, decayed. This attracts people. They're curious.
Other spots include the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum and the Hiroshima Peace Site which both have museums covering the topics of war and recostruction as well as peace. In the USA there are many education centres and bomb test sights open to the public and more and more tourist are looking for educational holidays, potentially looking for a low cost flight to one of these destinations instaad of to the beach.
What are the world's top atomic and nuclear tourism sights?
- Trinity Test Site - where the world's first nuclear device was tested
- Bikini Atoll - where the Bravo H-Bomb was tested
- Project GNOME - underground bomb test site
- Hiroshima - first wartime use of atomic bomb
- Nagasaki - last wartime use of atomic bomb
- Chernobyl - site of the world's worst nuclear disaster
- Titan Missile Museum - world's only public missile complex
- Tinian Airfield - launch site for atomic bombings on Japan
Have you been to any of these sights? Would you go?