In May 2025, a glacier destroyed the village of Blatten. It was not a disaster that arrived without warning: the glacier had been retreating for years, and scientists had repeatedly raised concerns about the risk. But what nobody expected was the reversal of the usual narrative. It was not the tourist traveling to witness the glacier disappear. It was the glacier arriving at the village.

That image — ice advancing over homes, residents evacuated, families trying to recover what they lost — captures the question this story wants to explore: what does it mean to visit something that is dying?

Last Chance Tourism

It has a name: last chance tourism. The urge to see something before it disappears is growing rapidly. Research published in Nature Climate Change has documented how fascination with disappearing landscapes is pushing millions of people toward already fragile ecosystems.

More than fourteen million people visit glaciers every year. To make those visits possible, new walkways are built, synthetic membranes are placed over the ice, and helicopter tours are organized. All with the best intentions.

Researcher Emmanuel Salim summarized the contradiction with an observation worth considering: some tourists will simply move on to the next trending destination once the glaciers are gone. The experience is not necessarily about the place itself. It is about rarity. About grief transformed into a product.

The Cases

Coral reefs may be the most studied example. They support more than a million species and protect coastlines from storms and erosion. They are also bleaching and dying at unprecedented rates due to rising ocean temperatures. And paradoxically, they remain among the world’s most sought-after diving destinations.

Some tourism operators now dedicate part of their profits to reef restoration projects. It is a meaningful gesture, but it does not fully resolve the contradiction at the center of the issue: reaching the reef still requires boarding a plane.

In Mexico, the closest version of this same tension can be found in the cenotes of Yucatán. Considered sacred by Maya culture, they now receive millions of visitors every year. Researchers such as Sergio Grosjean have documented how many cenote owners modify them with heavy machinery to attract more tourists, disrupting the natural circulation of water. What should naturally refresh within twenty-four hours can instead take up to one hundred hours, accelerating decomposition. The common solution is chlorine.

“When you visit a cenote and there isn’t a single fish, it’s because they are chlorinating it,” Grosjean explains. Of the monitored cenotes in Yucatán, 83% show signs of contamination, with tourism representing only part of the problem alongside industrial farming and real estate development.

Venice is perhaps the most cited architectural case. The city sinks roughly two millimeters each year while receiving thirty million tourists annually. Extreme flooding has become increasingly common. And yet Venice remains one of the world’s most desired destinations, partly because everyone understands that something about it is slowly disappearing.

Chernobyl disaster represents another angle entirely: catastrophe that has already happened. Since the HBO series brought it back into public consciousness in 2019, tourism to the exclusion zone has surged. Here, the ethical question shifts. It is no longer about saving a place — there is nothing left to save — but about how we choose to visit it, and with what level of awareness.

Hashima Island, also known as Gunkanjima or Battleship Island, introduces another dimension. In 1959 it was the most densely populated place on Earth, a complete city built atop a rock in the sea to mine underwater coal. When Japan abandoned coal in 1974, residents left within weeks, abandoning schools, hospitals, apartments, and entire streets behind them. Since 2009 it has welcomed tourists, and in 2015 it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Detroit may be the most complicated example because its ruins are not entirely historical — they are still present. Over fifty years, the city lost more than half its population, leaving behind abandoned factories, empty mansions, and collapsing theaters. Decades ago, a term emerged to describe the fascination with photographing these landscapes: ruin porn. Soon after, guided tours followed.

Closer to home, northern Mexico’s ghost towns present their own version of the dilemma. Places such as Guerrero Viejo— submerged since 1953 after the construction of Falcon Dam and visible only when water levels drop — or Mineral de Pozos attract visitors seeking something similar to what draws people to Detroit: contact with suspended time, with lives that once existed there.

The Tension Between Perspectives

Some argue that visiting endangered places is an act of care, and that care can generate political pressure for protection. They believe tourism in vulnerable regions can fund conservation efforts, create local jobs, and make visible what might otherwise disappear unnoticed.

Others argue that this reasoning is, at best, a rationalization. That the flight carrying you to the glacier emits more carbon than any restoration fee could offset. That turning the decline of a place into a consumable experience is another form of extractivism.

And there is perhaps a third position — the most honest one — which is that there is no universal answer. Visiting Hashima with historical awareness is not the same as treating Detroit like Pompeii. Supporting coral reef restoration is not equivalent to flying over a glacier in a helicopter. Collapse tourism is not inherently good or bad: it depends on who travels, how they travel, what they do once they arrive, and who benefits economically from their visit.

The Question That Remains

There is something about collapse tourism that reveals something deeper about us. About our relationship with loss, beauty, and guilt. About our need to witness things, even when witnessing carries a cost.

Perhaps the most useful question is not whether we should go, but how we go. With what information. With what humility. Willing to listen not only to the official story, but also to the people who stayed behind — and to those who never chose to become a tourist destination.