Urban Exploration
“Urban exploration is free, fun and hurts no one. It’s a thrilling, mind-expanding hobby that encourages our natural instincts to explore and play in our own environment. It encourages people to create their own adventures, like when they were kids, instead of buying the pre-packaged kind. And it nurtures a sense of wonder in the everyday spaces we inhabit or pass by that few local history books could ever hope to recreate.”
- Jeff Chapman aka Ninjalicious, founder of Infiltration.org
Urban Exploration is the practice of discovering, exploring, and often photographing the more “off-beat” areas of human civilization. The most popular targets of Urban Exploration are abandoned hospitals or institutions, empty factories, or other disused structures, but it can also include “active” sites such as the service corridors, utility levels, or rooftops of in-use facilities, storm drains, steam tunnels, you name it.
Urban Exploration is definitely a fringe hobby, enjoyed by those that have an eye to appreciate the areas they explore and the courage to disregard the occasional “Authorized Personnel Only” sign or chain-linked fence they may encounter.
The willingness to wander into the less-public or traversed areas of a city carries with it the obligation to follow a self-imposed set of ethics. “Take nothing but photographs”, as The Sierra Club says, and be especially mindful that being outside the realms of public passage also puts one outside the realms of the typical safety measures, building codes, and litigated implements to protect the herd like masses of mindless people.
Whether you are interested in reading more about Urban Exploration or already enjoy the hobby, I highly recommend Ninjalicious’ book “Access All Areas”:
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See all my urban exploration posts using the category on the sidebar or by clicking here.
