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Gaineswood Plantation mansion.

Plantation Tourism Continues to Raise Questions

One plantation tourist manager said covering slavery would be like “trying to tell the story at Disneyland of how poorly the employees at Disney are treated.”
by Sara Rimer, Daniel R. Biddle via Equal Justice Initiative on December 6, 2024
People looking at a window display in a candy store depicting "Fudge Town."

Fudgetown, USA

How a Michigan vacation town transformed the sweet into a nationwide tourist attraction.
by Heather Radke via TASTE on May 21, 2024
People walking around buildings destroyed by the Johnstown Flood.

A Flood of Tourism in Johnstown

Days after a failed dam led to the drowning deaths of more than 2,200 people, the Pennsylvania industrial town was flooded again—with tourists.
by Matthew Wills, Emily Godbey via JSTOR Daily on March 1, 2024
Statue of Paul Revere on Boston's Freedom Trail.

On the Trail—to Freedom?

Touring the palimpsests of cities.
by Charlie Riggs via The Hedgehog Review on November 1, 2023
A crowd of tourist superimposed over images of Salem attractions and a cemetery.

Salem’s Unholy Bargain: How Tragedy Became an Attraction

Is the cost worth the payoff?
by Lex Pryor via The Ringer on October 30, 2023
A historical marker for the Broad Street site of domestic slave trade, foregrounding an image of the Exchange Building, located in Charleston, South Carolina.

Activists Have Long Called for Charleston to Confront Its Racial History. Tourists Now Expect It.

Tourist interest is contributing to a more honest telling of the city’s role in the US slave trade. But tensions are flaring as South Carolina lawmakers restrict race-based teachings.
by Jennifer Berry Hawes via ProPublica on July 29, 2023
People swimming along the Hawaiian coast.

My Whole Life Is Empty Without You

A necessarily abridged perspective of place in Hawai‘i.
by J. Matt via Lapham’s Quarterly on November 14, 2022
Flooding in Livingston, Montana, with Yellowstone National Park mountains in the background.

What Extreme Flooding in Yellowstone Means for the National Park's Gateway Towns

These communities rely almost entirely on tourism for their existence—yet too much tourism, not to mention climate change, can destroy them.
by Megan Kate Nelson via Smithsonian on June 16, 2022
Tourists explore cells in Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. Photo by Mark Murrmann.

The Gruesome Attraction of Prison Tourism Is Being Challenged at Last

“I’m amazed at how numb many of us can be about these sites.”
by Hope Corrigan via Mother Jones on June 9, 2022
Postcard of The Rex Float at Mardi Gras Carnival, New Orleans, Louisiana.

The Strange Career of Beautiful Crescent

How an old textbook lodged itself in the heart of New Orleans’ self-mythology.
by Jordan Hirsch via Slate on April 18, 2022
A witch's hat and crooked stick, with the words "rags to witches"

Has Witch City Lost Its Way?

They’re hip, business-savvy, and know how to cast a spell: How a new generation of witches and warlocks selling $300 wands conquered Salem.
by Kathryn Miles via Boston Magazine on October 22, 2021
Workers on a pineapple plantation.

In Hawaiʻi, Plantation Tourism Tastes Like Pineapple

The Dole pineapple plantation has a destructive history of transforming the Hawaiian Islands—something that continues today in the tourism industry.
by Mallory Huard via Edge Effects on November 12, 2019

The Wild Weird World of American Roadside Attractions

From "real" mermaids in Florida to the world's largest ball of twine, pulling off the highway is more fun than you would think.
by Richard Ratay via Literary Hub on July 3, 2018

How America’s Obsession With Hula Girls Almost Wrecked Hawai’i

Popularized images of female hula dancers have deviated far from their origins and perpetuated stereotypes.
by Lisa Hix via Collectors Weekly on March 22, 2017
Black and white sketch of the front of the Mississippi State asylum.

Ghosts are Scary, Disabled People are Not: The Troubling Rise of the Haunted Asylum

Tourist-driven curiosity about the so-called "haunted asylum" has led many to overlook the real people who once were institutionalized within these hospitals.
by Sarah Handley-Cousins via Nursing Clio on October 29, 2015
Map of Europe with title "Franklina C. Gray: The Grand Tour"

Franklina C. Gray: The Grand Tour

In the late 19th Century, tourism to Europe boomed because wealthy Americans could travel more quickly and safely than ever before on railroads and steamships.
via Camron Stanford House
Miami's skyline with high-rises under construction.

How Dreams of Buried Pirate Treasure Enticed Americans to Flock to Florida During the Twenties

1925 marked the peak of the Florida land boom. But false advertising and natural disasters thwarted many settlers’ visions of striking it rich.
by Greg Daugherty via Smithsonian on April 15, 2025
Floyd’s rowboat used for gathering passengers offshore at Jaffa. Barque et Bateliers de Jaffa.

An American Dragoman in Palestine—and in Print

Floyd’s unusual visibility gives rare insight into how the largely-invisible dragomen shaped travelers’ understandings of the Bible and the Holy Land.
by Walker Robins via Commonplace on March 5, 2025
A group of people riding horses on a dude ranch.

The Rise and Resilience of Dude Ranches

Dude ranches have been a popular American vacation spot for more than one hundred years.
by Teresa Bitler via The Saturday Evening Post on February 3, 2025
View of mountains on the horizon

Who Owns the Mountains?

Hurricane Helene has revived urgent questions about the politics of land — and tourism — in Appalachia.
by Olivia Paschal via New York Review of Books on November 3, 2024
Photo of 5 skeletons controlling panels.

Notes from the Cold War Underground

The weapons infrastructure of the Cold War is now getting rented out on Airbnb or memorialized as patriotic kitsch.
by Emily Harnett via The Baffler on October 22, 2024
Costumed man and tourists in Colonial Williamsburg.

Where MAGA Granddads and Resistance Moms Go to Learn America’s Most Painful History Lessons

Welcome to Colonial Williamsburg, the largest living museum that is taking a radical approach to our national divides.
by Laura Jedeed via Politico Magazine on August 31, 2024
A soldier walking an old woman through a destroyed city.

D-Day’s Forgotten Victims Speak Out

Eighty years after D-Day, few know one of its darkest stories: the thousands of civilians killed by a carpet-bombing campaign of little military purpose.
by Ed Vulliamy via New York Review of Books on June 10, 2024
Map of the Chesapeake Bay.

Our Local Monster

Whose knowledge matters in a changing region?
by Kathryn Carpenter via Contingent on May 19, 2024
Costumed re-enactors at the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum in Boston.

The Boston Tea Party Turns 250

How does the most famous act of politically motivated property destruction in American history speak to our own polarized moment?
by Jennifer Schuessler via New York Times on December 15, 2023
Black residents of Natchez, Miss., walk alongside a railroad track in August 1940.

One of the Biggest U.S. Slave Markets Finally Reckons With Its Past

Natchez, Miss., is beginning to highlight the history of its enslaved people—including at a Black-owned bed and breakfast in former slave quarters.
by Sarah Enelow-Snyder via Retropolis on November 26, 2023
Bison drinking from a pond.

How the Iron Horse Spelled Doom for the American Buffalo

From homesteaders to tourists to the U.S. Army, railroads flooded the Great Plains with people who saw bison as pests, amusements, or opportunities for profit.
by Ken Burns, Dayton Duncan via Literary Hub on October 16, 2023
Birthright Israel group visits the Western Wall

Hooked on a Feeling: Birthright Israel's Affective Politics

You can't be neutral on a tour bus rolling toward the foot of Masada.
by Jacqui Shine via Well, Actually on October 15, 2023
Men view stalagmites and stalactites in a cave.

How the Kentucky Cave Wars Reshaped the State's Tourism Industry

Rival entrepreneurs took drastic steps to draw visitors away from Mammoth Cave in the early 20th century.
by Eliza McGraw via Smithsonian on July 25, 2023
Streetview of New York City.

How the 9/11 Attacks Sparked a Never-Ending Wave of Gentrification

The post-9/11 landscape witnessed crackdowns on New York City nightlife amidst efforts to increase tourism.
by Jesse Rifkin via Literary Hub on July 13, 2023
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