Wanderlust Tours has ventured into the thanatourism, commonly known as dark tourism, market and is offering an overnight tour to Jonestown in Region One (Barima-Waini).
Historically, Jonestown was a settlement established by the People’s Temple, led by Jim Jones, in 1974. It became infamous on November 18th, 1978 when 918 people died in what became known as the Jonestown Massacre.
The upcoming tour will delve into the socio-political factors that led to the creation and tragic end of Jonestown, its impact on global history and the lessons learned from that dark chapter. Wanderlust Tours believes that dark tourism, when approached with sensitivity and care, can foster a deeper understanding of the human experience and the complexities of the past.
In a way that permeates thoughtfulness, respectfulness and sensitivity, Wanderlust said, the tour will aim to not just promote sensible tourism and historical awareness but also to honour the memory of the victims and reflect on the implications of such events. Additionally, the tour will explore understanding the dynamics of cults.
Across the world, dark tourism attracts visitors to places linked to death, tragedy, the bizarre, and the macabre. It involves exploring sites that are unusual, tragic, and often frightening. Everyone has their own interpretation of what dark tourism means. For some, it might involve visiting a war museum, while for others it could mean going to a site of immense tragedy. Many travellers have experienced a dark tourist spot, whether the catacombs in Paris, the ruins of Pompeii in Italy, the atomic bomb dome in Hiroshima, or Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, the state museum and memorial built on the site of the concentration camp run by Nazi Germany during the second world war.
Dark tourism sites are not for everyone but they do offer selected visitors with a unique opportunity to explore and learn. Many of these sites serve as an important reminder of past atrocities.
According to Wanderlust, visiting Americans and locals alike were onboard when asked if they would do the Jonestown tour for educational purposes, dynamics involved.
Wanderlust Tours started in 2019, the brainchild of Roselyn Sewcharran in an attempt to help people open their passports. However, as a result of Covid-19, she pivoted to “exploring my own backyard”; the wonders of Guyana.
“I’m an avid traveller, I have travelled to many places and realised there are many different types of tourism and this is one of them that we have not tapped into,” Sewcharran told Stabroek News. “There are tours about the Holocaust that people want to learn about… For a tour like this you need to approach it in a respectful way and a way that benefits the community. We want to show people that this is very possible to occur in our society where people can be very charismatic and manipulating and get you to do things you normally wouldn’t do, which happened in the case of Jim Jones and his followers.”
Once the tour of Jonestown is running smoothly, Wanderlust has intentions of expanding to the sites of other historical events, including slave rebellions. (Khadidja Ba)
