logo

Have an account?

Suggestions for you See more

Quiz image

Argumentative Writing

The writing process, indefinite and definite articles, 8th -  11th  , transitional words, kg -  2nd  .

pencil-icon

The Nuclear Tourist

User image

20 questions

Player avatar

Introducing new   Paper mode

No student devices needed.   Know more

What is the exclusion zone?

a vast, quarantined wilderness that surrounds Chernobyl

a military base camp

What are some characteristics that draw tourists to areas like Chernobyl?

the landscapes

outdoor activities

for the chilling results of a nuclear accident

What elements caused the explosion at Chernobyl in 1986?

an atomic bomb

a nuclear reactor overheated

a mixture of gases

What is the current condition of the towns of Pripyat and Chernobyl?

abandoned buildings, broken glass on the ground, and materials from the reactor's explosion

enormous industrial buildings

interesting amusement parks

Who is George Johnson?

Chernobyl's governor

a writer and journalist

Where is Chernobyl?

in the Soviet Union

Who are the "returness"?

stubborn old people, who insist on living in Chernobyl

tourists who want to come back

extreme tourists

How many villages were evacuated after the explosion?

Which is the approximate data about the people who were damaged with thyroid cancer for radiation exposure?

What other country suffered from a explosion in a nuclear plant?

Fukushima, Japan

Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan

Aushwitz, Germany

What is a type of literary nonfiction in which the writer describes what is like to visit a particular place?

Travel journalism

From the perspective of a reader, which are the results of an effective travel journalism article?

traveling tickets sales increasement

a vivid impression of a specific location or journey

personal tourist guides services

When does a writer give fact-based information in a travel journalism?

when he/she includes the place's location, how to get there, and key historical events

when he/she shares photographs in Instagram

when he/she shows the most popular hotels and resorts

When a writer includes what he/she saw, heard, felt, tasted, and smelled in a travel journal he/she is giving a __________.

personal observation

personal perspective

personal inferences

What are literary techniques in a travel journalism?

environmental issues

military issues

story-like sequence of events, figurative language, and dialogue

What is the main reason that so many buildings described in “The Nuclear Tourist,” such as the school and hospital, are crumbling and run-down?

No one has taken care of them for years.

Radiation in the area has damaged them.

Looters caused harm while removing valuable parts.

They were bulldozed soon after the nuclear accident.

The Latin root - spec means

The purpose of using scientific and technical terms in your writing is

There are three elements that are usually incorporated into travel journalism to effectively capture the readers interest and give a vivid impression of a specific location or journey. They are (check all that apply)

Fact-based information

Personal Observations

literary techniques

Explore all questions with a free account

Google Logo

Continue with email

Continue with phone

the nuclear tourist answers

Chernobyl: we lived through its consequences – holidays in the fallout zone shouldn’t be a picnic

the nuclear tourist answers

Senior Lecturer in Tourism and Hospitality, Leeds Beckett University

the nuclear tourist answers

Professor of Tourism Management, Leeds Beckett University

Disclosure statement

Dorina-Maria Buda has received funding from the Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research.

Milka Ivanova does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Leeds Beckett University provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

View all partners

We were five years old when the Chernobyl disaster happened. At the time, Milka was living in the small mountain town of Razlog in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria, about 1500 km away from the disaster area. Dorina was born and grew up in a small town in the Socialist Republic of Romania, approximately 850 km south of Chernobyl.

Bulgaria and Romania were heavily contaminated by radioactive material from the explosion that blew the lid off reactor No. 4 at the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Nuclear Power Plant – more commonly known as Chernobyl – in the town of Pripyat, at the time in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. While we were soon dubbed “the Chernobyl children”, the communist authorities kept Bulgarians and Romanians in the dark about the magnitude and implications of the explosion. It wasn’t until the Iron Curtain lifted that many of us would learn the truth.

Bulgaria, May Day 1986 – Milka

As a Bulgarian, I don’t often think about Chernobyl, even though I study communist heritage tourism. Remembering the events of spring 1986 and my government’s mishandling of the crisis still makes me angry, but I try to maintain some emotional separation from my research. When the HBO miniseries Chernobyl aired, I expected the buzz it generated would renew public interest in visiting Chernobyl , and interest in the communist past in general. What I did not expect was to relive my recollection of the days after the disaster.

Both the Soviet and Bulgarian governments kept quiet, even while Western news agencies reported the disaster on April 26 1986. The first official announcement within the Soviet Union came on the evening of the 28th. In Bulgaria, the first brief announcement came three days after the explosion on April 29.

the nuclear tourist answers

I don’t remember much about the announcement itself or the general reaction in Bulgaria. What I remember is my grandmother getting a phone call from her brother, who had connections to the upper echelons of the Bulgarian Communist Party. He warned her not to give five-year-old me any milk to drink. He gave no reason, and my family didn’t know what to make of it.

I remember that the Labour Day parades went ahead as usual and that all the children in my home town had to attend. We were all marching in radioactive rain .

Once the Communist Party admitted there had been an incident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, they reassured the Bulgarian people that things were under control and that radiation in the atmosphere and food was below dangerous levels. At the same time, the leaders of the Bulgarian Communist party were eating and drinking imported food and water .

the nuclear tourist answers

On the Romania-Ukraine border – Dorina

I grew up in Romania – another child of the Chernobyl generation. Still, Chernobyl rarely invaded my thoughts – though the memories are there now, churning in the back of my mind. There’s a certain inner revulsion to most political events from those times for me. I haven’t watched the new miniseries and I’m unlikely to revive some of the personal and collective trauma by doing so.

In 1986, my father was a captain in the Romanian army, patrolling the border with the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. He remembers the army were on high alert in the months after the blast and they were asked to collect information from truck drivers crossing the border, to understand the unfolding situation around the disaster area.

the nuclear tourist answers

At the same time, the army increased the intensity of their chemical training for soldiers and officers and were given courses on how to better understand and prepare for biochemical attacks. My mother was told to avoid lying in the sun, or risk burning her skin. Only later did she realise that radioactive fallout was the real concern.

As I write this – decompressing my memories and digging up those of my family back in Romania – there’s still a heaviness in my chest. Milka and I channel our anxieties over Chernobyl and life in communist eastern Europe into our research. To overcome the restraints of those days, I have travelled, worked and studied in eight countries on four continents. My published work deals with psychoanalytic theories of the death instinct , trauma and nuclear tourism – the industry that monetises a fascination to visit places where nuclear accidents have laid waste to people and their communities. The Fukushima disaster of March 2011 in Japan created the most recent entry in this list of tourist hotspots.

Interestingly, 2011 was also the year that Chernobyl was officially declared a tourist attraction . The HBO miniseries has generated interest in nuclear tourism, but this fascination with our communist history is nothing new among western tourists.

the nuclear tourist answers

There’s an understandable desire among people in eastern Europe to distance ourselves from our difficult – even traumatic – past, but Chernobyl’s heritage, like most communist heritage, is as much about the past as it is about the future.

The HBO miniseries no doubt illuminates the cover-ups and information blackouts that characterised the early response to the nuclear disaster. The events of April 1986 warn us about the cost of lies and of what happens when regimes distort the truth to preserve their grasp on power. In today’s climate of fake news, deceit and dishonesty, Chernobyl remains a lesson from which there is still sadly much to be learnt.

  • Nuclear energy
  • Soviet Union (USSR)
  • Nuclear power
  • Eastern Europe
  • Radioactivity
  • post-communist countries
  • nuclear meltdown
  • Dark tourism

the nuclear tourist answers

School of Social Sciences – Academic appointment opportunities

the nuclear tourist answers

Union Organiser (part-time 0.8)

the nuclear tourist answers

Director, Indigenous Education Research Centre

the nuclear tourist answers

Communications Specialist

the nuclear tourist answers

AUSTRALIAN PESTICIDES AND VETERINARY MEDICINES AUTHORITY (APVMA) BOARD CHAIR

Trending Today

You Can Now Visit Chernobyl’s Control Room, if You’re Quick About It

Visitors will have five minutes to look around the contaminated spot where the worst nuclear disaster in history took place

Jason Daley

Correspondent

nuclear reactor

The control room of reactor 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant—one of most ominous places on Earth—has become tourist attraction.

As we reported over the summer , tourism at Chernobyl is booming. And now, as Jack Guy at CNN reports, companies have begun allowing people to briefly visit the highly radioactive control room where the worst nuclear disaster in history unfolded. But they must take precautions: Visitors have to wear protective suits, helmets and masks and are limited to five minutes inside the space. Afterward, they will undergo two mandatory radiology tests to gauge their exposure.

The tour option is part of big changes at the site of the disaster. This July, Ukrainian authorities took charge of the New Safe Confinement dome, which now covers the contaminated reactor building. The massive $1.6 billion structure took 22 years of planning and construction and is expected to safeguard the damaged reactor for 100 years , when experts suggest it may be safe enough to demolish.

The dome is the reason that the area is safe enough to allow more tourism to Chernobyl. Soon after accepting the symbolic keys to the dome, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine signed a decree designating the site a tourist attraction. “We must give this territory of Ukraine a new life,” Zelensky announced. “Until now, Chernobyl was a negative part of Ukraine's brand. It's time to change it.”

To that end, Ukraine has begun developing new tourist routes and waterways in the area, and will be building and upgrading radiation checkpoints in the area.

The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone has been open to tourists since 2011, according to David Grossman at Popular Mechanics . Earlier this year, researchers found that the 1,000 square mile zone, where humans are not allowed to live, has become a de facto wildlife refuge .

The hit HBO’s miniseries “Chernobyl,” released in May of this year, has led to a tourism boom in the area, with a 30 to 40 percent increase in visitors. “Many people come here, they ask a lot of questions about the TV show, about all the events. People are getting more and more curious,” tour guide Viktoria Brozhko told Max Hunder for Reuters .

Most day-tripping tours visit several abandoned villages, memorials to those who combated the disaster and the now-abandoned city of Pripyat. In total, Brozhko estimates most visitors receive 2 microsieverts of radiation exposure, about the same they’d receive while sitting at home for a day.

Radiation in the control room, however, could be 40,000 times normal levels. While the room remains pretty much as it was in 1986, Brozhko has observed that many plastic control knobs have been removed, likely by decontamination workers and rogue tourists looking for a souvenir.

Chernobyl may now be a tourist attraction, but for many, the spot of the disaster remains an open wound. Because the Soviet Union was unwilling to share data on the nuclear incident, its true toll may never be known. The Soviets claimed 31 people died when the reactor exploded and in the immediate aftermath of the disaster in 1986. As David Brennan at Newsweek reports, in 2008 the U.N. revised that number up to 54. The long-term effects remain hard to quantify. While a multi-agency group called the Chernobyl Forum estimates 4,000 to 9,000 people have or will eventually die from cancer related to Chernobyl exposure, the Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that number is closer to 27,000, and an analysis by Greenpeace suggests the number is closer to 93,000.

Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Jason Daley | | READ MORE

Jason Daley is a Madison, Wisconsin-based writer specializing in natural history, science, travel, and the environment. His work has appeared in Discover , Popular Science , Outside , Men’s Journal , and other magazines.

25 Years Later, Chernobyl Reinvented as a Tourist Hotspot

As Fukushima stokes popular fears about nuclear energy, can Ukraine turn its most infamous disaster into a Disneyland of Soviet-era devastation?

beehner apr26p.jpg

The ruined nuclear reactor at Chernobyl is seen through deserted buildings in the neighbouring town of Pripyat. Gleb Garanich / Reuters

CHERNOBYL, Ukraine -- "Did you drink last night?" Yuri, my chain-smoking guide, asks me as we head north out of Kiev to the world's most notorious nuclear plant. "If you have alcohol in your blood, you'll survive longer than other tourists."

My stomach growls, a mixture of motion sickness and dread as Kiev's dreary concrete flats give way to snowy fields and forests. I am visiting Chernobyl a few weeks in advance of today's 25th anniversary of the reactor's nuclear meltdown. The plant and its surroundings -- the ghost town of Pripyat, the Red Forest, all cordoned off in a 30-kilometer area dubbed the "death zone" -- have become a bizarre tourist attraction in recent years. After being deemed safe a half-decade back, thousands now make the pilgrimage, a ritual that is part ecological voyeurism, part morbid curiosity. And, as another nuclear disaster continues to unfold in Fukushima, Japan, visits to the site are reportedly increasing .

I ask Yuri how many Ukrainians suffer from health problems. "Define 'healthy people'," he answers with a wry smile. "Ukraine is a complicated place."

We pass through a series of checkpoints, where officers lazily run their Geiger counters up and down the outside of his beat-up car and check our documents. Shortly after being waved through, I see the remains of a millennium-old village. Once popular among fishermen and hunters, it's one of several villages now buried within the earth like a post-apocalyptic version of the Atlantis. The seedlings of forests, razed after the disaster, are slowly coming back to life, oblivious to being planted in the world's most radioactive topsoil.

Over the horizon, I spot a few smokestacks and cooling towers. I look down at the yellow Geiger counter that Yuri handed me. It begins to beep faster. The familiar image of a giant reactor, encased in a steel and concrete sarcophagus, comes into focus. The plant actually comprises four reactors, the last of which was deactivated in 2000 (though the smoke billowing from one of its chimneys gives off the eerie, if false, impression that the plant is still active and spewing isotopes). The government has begun work on a billion-dollar concrete shell -- said to be the world's largest movable structure, capable of encasing Notre Dame cathedral -- to shield tourists from radiation that might seep through the rusting sarcophagus currently in place.

Next up on the tour is Pripyat, the Soviet-planned city next door to Chernobyl that was emptied 36 hours after the plant exploded. It looks much as it did on that fateful April day, except for what has been looted by vandals, Yuri tells me. The swimming pool, apartment flats, and Palace of Culture sit empty and strewn with broken glass, like a Soviet house of horrors. Wires dangle from fluorescent light fixtures. A black-and-white photo of Soviet premier Konstantin Chernenko stares up from the floor.

Visiting Chernobyl can feel slightly dream-like -- a cross between Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel The Road and Wim Wenders' sepia-toned surrealist film Wings of Desire. I am alone except for Yuri and a tour group of older Russian shutterbugs bundled in fur. Ukrainians generally do not visit Chernobyl. Perhaps the wound has not yet healed -- the half-life of government resentment appears to outlive that of radiation.

The stories of human suffering are gruesome. A new United Nations report estimates that as many as 6,000 children in the area suffered from thyroid cancer. "He was producing stool 25 to 30 times a day," Lyudmilla Ignatenko, the wife of deceased fireman Vasily Ignatenko, remembers in remembers in Voices From Chernobyl , a collection of narratives compiled by Svetlana Alexievich. "His skin started cracking on his arms and legs. He became covered with boils. When he turned his head, there'd be a clump of hair left on the pillow." After choking on his own internal organs, Soviet authorities came to toss Vasily's corpse into a cellophane bag.

Nikolai Fomich Kalugin, a local father, recalls, "And then one day you're suddenly turned into a Chernobyl person. Into an animal, something that everyone's interested in, and that no one knows anything about. You want to be like everyone else, and now you can't. People look at you differently. They ask you: was it scary? How did the station burn? What did you see? And you know, can you have children? The very word 'Chernobyl' is like a signal. Everyone turns their head to look at you. He's from there!"

Back in Pripyat, the floor of a school cafeteria remains scattered with tiny gas masks fitted for the small heads of Soviet schoolchildren. "We were preparing for war, for nuclear war, we built nuclear shelters," Anatoly Shimanskiy recounts in Voices of Chernobyl . "We wanted to hide from the atom as if we were hiding from shrapnel. But the atom is everywhere. In the bread, in the salt. We breathe radiation. We eat it."

Then there are the ecological tales of woe. Even though wildlife -- moose, wolves, wild boar -- is finally returning to the exclusion zone, mutations in plants and animals born with physical deformities are still reportedly not uncommon. Birds in the area have brains that are on average 5 percent smaller. The radioactive fallout even affected the northern reaches of Europe. Lina Selandar, an artist visiting Chernobyl from Sweden, told me she still does not eat the berries and mushrooms in her native country.

That may explain why Chernobyl remains the single most famous site in Ukraine, which is both a blessing and a curse for Sergii Mirnyi. A Sean Connery-lookalike who was a commander of the radiation reconnaissance platoon that responded to the disaster in 1986, Mirnyi has made Chernobyl his life work -- even penning a novella and screenplay about the disaster. The name has become a watchword for Soviet bungling -- a "monument of failure," in Mirnyi's words -- and the hazards of splitting atoms to power the planet. But it is now also seen as a potential gold mine, one the Ukrainian government hopes to turn into a lucrative international tourist attraction, half a decade after allowing the first of many unsanctioned tours by private companies.

Ukrainians such as Mirnyi worry that Chernobyl may become a missed opportunity to warn the world about the perils of nuclear power and radiation poisoning, one that has become only more urgent after the plant at Fukushima began spilling radiation into the air. If the Ukrainian government succeeds, Chernobyl could become a post-Soviet Disney World of sorts for disaster tourism rubber-neckers. Yuri, my guide, is wearing a Hard Rock Chernobyl t-shirt -- a way of cashing in on past generations of Ukrainians' misery. Mirnyi bemoans that the authorities recently bulldozed a historic block in the town of Chernobyl to make room for a park. He called for a boycott of the reactor by local tour companies but was rebuffed. The lure of tourism dollars is too sweet to resist.

On the way out of the exclusion zone, a busload of migrant workers covered in dust -- thousands of Ukrainians still punch the clock in the town of Chernobyl -- empties out and walks through the radiation detectors, almost oblivious to the inanity of the exercise. I step onto the Soviet-era contraption and press my hands to its side. A yellow light flashes - chisto (clean, or free of radiation). Relieved, I step off.

But the jig will be up, and all the millions of tourism dollars Ukraine's government is hoping to reap may very well disappear, if even one of the thousands of visitors expected to stream through this desolate part of northern Ukraine steps onto this machine -- and it doesn't flash yellow.

National Geographic content straight to your inbox—sign up for our popular newsletters here

rocket refueling suits in the Titan Missile Museum.

Step inside Cold War nuclear sites

Contemplating cataclysmic destruction isn't exactly relaxing. So why do hundreds of thousands of tourists visit these decommissioned missile sites?

Grey, cushioned, comfortable, the chair doesn’t seem meant for a combat position on the front line of nuclear war. Yvonne Morris sat there on alert in the early eighties. Now, when she leads tours, she steers visitors through simulations of the steps she never had to take: Authenticate the controller's flat, dire command; retrieve the launch codes from the war safe; turn the keys in unison with the deputy crew commander to send a seven-story-tall Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile and its massive nuclear payload hurtling off into the world.

That’s when Morris—a former missile combat crew commander and current director of the Titan Missile Museum —tells the tourist they’ve failed. If the mission to maintain peace through deterrence had been successful, the bomb would never have launched.

the blast door in the Miuteman Missile National Historic Site

In 2018, it’s an effective simulation. But at several points in the last seven decades, most people wouldn’t have needed any help imagining the start of a nuclear war. There were some years where nobody forgot that absolute, omnipresent threat. And though it's gone largely unnoticed for years, current events—and increasing nuclear tourism—are bringing it back into the spotlight.

Anxiety and inattention form a repeated pattern when it comes to nukes, suggests Paul Boyer in his book By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age .

a game of battleship in the day room of Delta-01 launch control facility

A game of Battleship waits in the day room at MMNHS. Missile crew members had mandated breaks during their 24-hour alerts, and a guaranteed rest day following.

In the years immediately following World War II, the United States had an “obsessive post-Hiroshima awareness of the horror of the atomic bomb,” Boyer writes. By 1950, it had faded. But in the mid-fifties, fallout from American and Russian atmospheric bomb tests—miles of ash, dead fishermen, radioactive rain, radioactive milk—renewed public terror. [ See photos taken on illegal visits to Chernobyl’s dead zone. ]

The national preoccupation with nuclear war nearly disappeared again after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, thanks to a test-ban treaty and the growing impenetrability of nuclear technology and strategy. And though fears of nuclear war resurged during the global proxy conflicts of the eighties, another wave of disinterest followed after the Cold War’s end in 1991: The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) saw the U.S. and the U.S.S.R agree to reduce their deployed nukes, and people were eager to think the threat had passed.

All the while, thousands of warheads remained buried on high alert beneath ranches, homes, and highways.

Underground on the front lines

At ground level, the missiles were nearly invisible, their presence marked by antennae, barbed wire fences, and the launch duct door like a small basketball court.

“From a distance, it looks like something unremarkable,” says Eric Leonard, superintendent at the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site (MMNHS) in South Dakota . Then you get close enough to read the signs: Use of deadly force authorized. “The distance between mundane and extraordinary is pretty fast.”

the surface of the underground Titan II missile silo

Antennae cluster on the surface of the Titan Missile Museum's silo. When the Titan IIs were phased out in 1982, the site went through an elaborate deactivation process, crippling the missile to ensure it could never fire—and making sure those safeguards were visible to Soviet satellites.

In the 1960s, the Air Force planted 1,000 Minuteman missiles across the Great Plains, each with a payload of a little over one megaton. Only 54 Titans were deployed, mostly in the Southwest—but each of these carried a payload of 9 megatons, enough to decimate an area larger than Maui. [ Learn how shockwaves from WWII bombing raids rippled the edges of space .]

“What it’s designed to do is erase a city from Earth,” says Leonard. “That’s what it does. But the other perverse part of nuclear weapons is, when you’re building weapons that powerful … the very fact that you have them and they’re ready to go is intended to serve as a deterrent against America’s enemies so that they don’t attack.”

That strategy of mutually assured destruction has been the prevailing rhetoric of the nuclearized world. “[It] enabled us to stand toe to toe, to look each other straight in the eye, and not go to war with each other,” says Morris, who pulled alerts at all 18 Titan silos around Tucson , Arizona , from 1980 to 1984.

To ensure a missile was always ready to launch within minutes of receiving an order, crews pulled alerts—24-hour shifts that were a dissonant balance of ritualized routine, constant adrenaline, and eerie domesticity.

Computers in the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site

Keys inserted in this console would have initiated missile launch at MMNHS. That control center was like "the hub of a wagon wheel," says Leonard, controlling a flight of 10 missiles out of South Dakota's 150 total Minuteman IIs.

communication antenna for Titan II missile silo

A comminucations antenna rises from the underground Titan II silo. From 1963 to 1987, 54 Titan IIs were deployed across the U.S.; Tucson hosted a single unit, or wing, of 18 missiles.

After a top-secret security briefing on the day’s threats, officers had to prove and re-prove their identity before even getting into the bunker, where they secured the launch codes in the war safe with their own personal padlocks. Crews filled the hours with gruelingly thorough, top-to-bottom inspections of the missile’s every gauge, light, pump, fan, and belt, Morris says.

At both Titan and Minuteman sites, it was absolutely impermissible for a single person to be in the launch room alone. The weapons’ sheer destructive power was too great a risk and too heavy a responsibility to entrust to only one officer; the crew commander and their deputy always acted together. [ You and almost everyone you know owe your life to this Russian nuclear officer. ]

Yet the presence of immense violence lived alongside the trappings of daily human life. More advanced versions of the weapons that once killed 120,000 people in seconds formed part of the same sites that housed beds, kitchenettes, kitschy morale art, and comfortable chairs.

a Titan II missile

Visitors can walk around the bottom of the Titan II missile, seven stories below the surface. The two-stage booster can lift over 2 tons into low orbit, and Titans were even used for Gemini manned space missions .

The accidental doomsday tourist

Today, Leonard and Morris oversee the world’s only two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) preserved for the benefit of the public.

“The American nuclear arsenal hasn’t grown, but it hasn’t particularly gone anywhere,” says Leonard. “And if national parks are a place for dialogue about what America is and how America works, this is a pretty important subject.”

Recognition of a public need to preserve Cold War missile sites came swiftly: The Titan Missile Museum actually opened before the Cold War ended, and MMNHS is one of the only national historic sites to be listed while less than 50 years old. Visitation to the latter has more than doubled since 2011, and last year, 144,000 park visitors brought about $10 million to the local economy. Though plenty plan ahead—summer tours book months in advance—many visitors are accidental, stopping by on their way from Badlands National Park less than 10 minutes away.

“The most asked question is some variation of ‘Hey, we still have nuclear missiles?’” says Leonard of people’s disbelief. ( We do still have a lot : Of the U.S.’s roughly 6,800-missile stockpile, roughly 1,800 are deployed, roughly 400 of those are ICBMs, and almost all of those can fire within five minutes of the president’s order, though nobody agrees on those numbers.)

vending machine in the day room

Missile crew portraits hang on display at MMNHS. Many missile officers, retired from Air Force bases in Rapid City, South Dakota, and Tucson, Arizona, are deeply involved volunteers at the sites where they once worked.

Not all visitors are nuclear neophytes. Former Cold War missile crews come to show their families the missiles they used to work on, and current missile officers use the retro sites as analogs to the top-secret job they can’t take their families to see today. Both Titan and Minuteman have strong volunteer programs filled with retired Air Force. [ See photos of dark tourism sites around the world. ]

Interest isn’t limited to America’s Cold War survivors, either: International visitation is growing.

“If you’re not from the United States, your Cold War experience is often much more personal,” Leonard says. “Soviet nuclear weapons wouldn’t take you out in 30 minutes, they’d take you out in four.”

And the barbed nuclear rhetoric between the U.S. and Korea may be renewing both foreign and domestic interest in these unique sites. [ Powerful photos show what nuclear "fire and fury" really looks like. ]

Documentary photographer Adam Reynolds , who spent two years taking these photos, links that interest to a Cold War nostalgia. “Now, with nuclear proliferation becoming more and more of an issue, we’re looking back almost like, ‘Wow. It was a lot simpler. There were just two sides.’”

facility manager's room in minuteman missile national historic site

The facility manager's combined room and office at MMNHS showcases the strange domesticity of the launch control centers. Reynolds' photographs explore the bunkers' sense of claustrophobia and antiquation, "almost like the set of an old science fiction B movie."

Reynolds acknowledges the missile sites’ importance, but also the “strange feeling” they elicit: “What are we actually celebrating? Are we celebrating how strong we are, that we can destroy the world? Or is it sort of a morality lesson or a cautionary tale that we’re trying to preserve?”

For Morris, the goal is a little clearer.

“[We want] people to leave here understanding, at least vaguely, what a nuclear weapon is, what its capability is, how expensive it is to maintain and operate , and what’s required,” she says. “And to help [people] make a decision about what they want the future of nuclear weapons in the United States to be.”

“You can read about nuclear weapons all day long,” she adds, “but it is unlikely to have the same impact on you as standing ten feet away from an intercontinental ballistic missile.”

a portion of a Titan II missile

Light throws every rivet into sharp relief at Level 5 of the Titan II missile. "It’s super evocative to see children react to that," Leonard says of similar spectacles at the Minuteman site. "If you’re a child in the world, what can you do about nuclear weapons?"

Related Topics

  • NUCLEAR WEAPONS
  • MODERN HISTORY
  • POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY

You May Also Like

the nuclear tourist answers

What is colonialism?

the nuclear tourist answers

Trace Oppenheimer’s footsteps, from New Mexico to the Caribbean

Limited time offer.

Get a FREE tote featuring 1 of 7 ICONIC PLACES OF THE WORLD

the nuclear tourist answers

Where to stay in Helsinki, Finland's design-conscious capital

the nuclear tourist answers

The true history of Einstein's role in developing the atomic bomb

the nuclear tourist answers

An overnight adventure travelling from Sofia to Istanbul by train

the nuclear tourist answers

6 experiences you shouldn't miss in Connemara

the nuclear tourist answers

A guide to Jaipur's craft scene, from Rajasthani block printing to marble carving

  • Environment

History & Culture

  • History Magazine
  • History & Culture
  • Race in America
  • Photography
  • Mind, Body, Wonder
  • Paid Content
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Your US State Privacy Rights
  • Children's Online Privacy Policy
  • Interest-Based Ads
  • About Nielsen Measurement
  • Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
  • Nat Geo Home
  • Attend a Live Event
  • Book a Trip
  • Inspire Your Kids
  • Shop Nat Geo
  • Visit the D.C. Museum
  • Learn About Our Impact
  • Support Our Mission
  • Advertise With Us
  • Customer Service
  • Renew Subscription
  • Manage Your Subscription
  • Work at Nat Geo
  • Sign Up for Our Newsletters
  • Contribute to Protect the Planet

Copyright © 1996-2015 National Geographic Society Copyright © 2015-2024 National Geographic Partners, LLC. All rights reserved

Screen Rant

10 biggest unanswered questions & mysteries the tourist season 3 needs to solve.

Although The Tourist effectively tied up numerous storylines, there are still several lingering questions that a potential season 3 could explore.

  • Eugene's file holds secrets that could shape Elliot's future, adding a layer of intrigue to his mysterious past.
  • Elliot's life as a special agent presents thrilling possibilities for character exploration and action-packed storylines in season 3.
  • The uncertain future of Elliot and Helen's relationship, coupled with Helen's potential private investigation business, sets the stage for compelling developments in The Tourist.

The article contains spoilers for The Tourist season 2.

While The Tourist neatly resolves many plot threads, there remain several unanswered questions that a potential season 3 could address. The series, which has garnered significant attention since its debut on Netflix, continues to captivate audiences with its thrilling storyline and enigmatic characters. Season 2 of The Tourist delivers the same level of excitement, intrigue, and entertainment as its predecessor, solidifying its position as one of Netflix's must-watch shows. Despite not being a Netflix original, the platform has allowed the series to reach a wider audience, leading to its sustained popularity and trending status.

As the show's fan base grows, the prospect of a third season becomes increasingly alluring. While The Tourist season 2 ending was a satisfying conclusion, tying up many loose ends, the series has left enough unanswered questions to fuel speculation and anticipation for future installments. These lingering mysteries, coupled with the show's compelling characters and engaging narrative, create a solid foundation for The Tourist to continue its journey, potentially exploring new dimensions of the story and delving deeper into the lives of its central figures.

10 What Else Was In Eugene’s File?

A revelation of more secrets.

The revelation of Elliot's former life as a special agent raises questions about his true identity and the events that led him to his current situation.

The contents of Eugene's file, burned in the season 2 finale of The Tourist , remain a mystery that could hold the key to unraveling Elliot's past and shaping his future. The revelation of Elliot's former life as a special agent raises questions about his true identity and the events that led him to his current situation. Season 3 may explore the implications of the file's contents on Elliot's character , potentially uncovering hidden secrets, old adversaries, or unresolved conflicts that could force him to confront his past and redefine his sense of self in the process.

9 What Was Elliot’s Life Like As A Special Agent?

A life of danger and hidden talents.

In the final moments of season 2, Elliot's past as a special agent is revealed, offering exciting possibilities to explore his character further. The Tourist season 3 could delve into the circumstances behind Elliot's transition from a member of a crime family to a special agent, whether through recruitment, coercion, or personal choice. This new storyline could highlight his unique skills , introduce thrilling action sequences, and deepen his enigmatic persona. It also raises questions about the lasting impact of his previous life on his current situation.

8 Will Elliot And Helen’s Relationship Last?

Too many unknowns still remain.

The future of Elliot and Helen's relationship remains uncertain as The Tourist season 2 concludes, despite their apparent happiness and love for each other. The couple's journey has been marked by challenges, primarily stemming from Helen's struggle to accept Elliot's mysterious past. Although they have chosen to move forward together, the lingering questions surrounding Elliot's history suggest that their path in season 3 could lead to either a strengthening of their bond or another painful breakup. Elliot's complex background leaves room for shocking revelations that could further test the resilience of their relationship.

The Tourist Season 2 Review: Jamie Dornan’s Entertaining Thriller Fails To Recapture Season 1 Magic

7 what will come of helen’s private investigation business, a detail that can give the show a new and interesting angle.

With Elliot's varied abilities and Helen's determination, The Tourist season 3 could take inspiration from popular detective series and whodunnit shows.

Helen's mention of starting a private investigation business opens up intriguing possibilities for her character development and the overall direction of The Tourist in a potential season 3. This new career path could provide Helen with independence and a sense of purpose separate from Elliot's complex life, or it could serve as a platform for the couple to collaborate, combining their unique skills to solve local crimes. With Elliot's varied abilities and Helen's determination, The Tourist season 3 could take inspiration from popular detective series and whodunnit shows, featuring episodic mysteries that gradually unravel new aspects of Elliot's past.

6 Who Else Is A Part Of Elliot’s Family Tree?

The possibility for more characters and storylines.

Elliot's family tree is a tangled web of complex relationships and dark history. From his unstable mother and deceased brother to his newfound illegitimate son and an uncle who happens to be his family's greatest foe, Elliot's lineage adds a fascinating and unpredictable layer to the series. Despite Elliot and Helen's attempt to leave the Ireland chapter behind, the possibility of Fergal or other unknown family members resurfacing in their lives remains. Season 3 could further explore the intricacies of Elliot's family dynamics, introducing new storylines and characters on The Tourist that focus on his past.

Why The Tourist's Rotten Tomatoes Critics & Audiences Scores Are So Divided

5 what other lives has elliot lived, endless possibilities for character development.

The revelation of Elliot's past as a special agent raises questions about the other lives he may have lived. The potential for exploring these various identities in future seasons opens up a world of possibilities for the series , allowing it to delve into different genres and settings while maintaining the core characters and their dynamics. The creative possibilities for Elliot’s past are endless, with each new life serving as a fresh starting point for Elliot's journey of self-discovery, providing unique challenges and opportunities for growth that keep the show engaging and unpredictable.

4 Will Elliot Get His Memory Back?

A key plotpoint that remains a mystery.

Season 3 could explore the impact of these resurfacing memories on Elliot's personality and actions, potentially altering his relationship with Helen and his own sense of identity.

Whether Elliot will regain his memory remains a central point of intrigue as The Tourist moves forward. While the series can continue to thrive without fully restoring Elliot's past, the potential for him to recover key memories could propel the narrative in new and compelling directions. Season 3 could explore the impact of these resurfacing memories on Elliot's personality and actions, potentially altering his relationship with Helen and his own sense of identity. By striking a balance between revealing some crucial aspects of his history and maintaining the amnesia storyline, the show can continue to evolve.

3 Who Was The Real Elliot Stanley?

More exploration of his background is crucial.

The true identity of Elliot Stanley, the man whose name Eugene Cassidy adopted, remains a mystery with significant implications. Season 2 reveals that the real Elliot Stanley was an Irish diver who met a tragic end after discovering love letters that exposed an affair between Frank McDonnell's father and Niamh Cassidy's mother. Niamh, unable to cope with the revelation that she and Frank were half-siblings, allegedly murdered Elliot and buried the evidence.

However, the most earth-shattering detail emerges when Elliot's widow, Deirdre, hints at the possibility that Elliot could have been Eugene's biological father. Season 3 could delve deeper into this connection, exploring the significance of Eugene's choice to take on Elliot's identity. This has the potential to explore the ramifications of his relationship with his newfound family further.

2 Who Sent The File?

A secret identity that will add more conflict.

The identity of the individual or group possessing knowledge of Elliot/Eugene's past remains a significant unanswered question from The Tourist season 2. This enigmatic figure could hold the key to unraveling the mysteries surrounding Elliot's former life and the potential consequences that may arise as he moves forward. Season 3 has the opportunity to introduce this character or organization, exploring their connection to Elliot's history and the impact they may have on his future. By revealing the extent of their knowledge and their intentions, the series can add new layers of complexity to Elliot's journey.

1 What Other Hidden Talents Does Elliot Have?

Adds more layers to elliot’s character.

Elliot's unexpected talent for ballet, revealed in a poignant scene, raises questions about the other hidden abilities he may possess. The contrast between the graceful dance and the destruction of his covert past highlights the mysterious nature of Elliot's identity and the potential for further revelations in season 3. As the series progresses, it may explore additional skills or passions that Elliot has yet to uncover , shedding light on his true character and the complexities of his forgotten life. These discoveries could play a significant role in shaping his path on The Tourist and his relationships with those around him.

The Tourist

The Tourist is a dramatic action-thriller series created by Harry and Jack Williams. It was initially released on BBC One in the UK before being released in the US on HBO Max. The series follows Elliot Stanley, an Irish man who wakes up in an Australian hospital with amnesia and must piece together his identity before those pursuing him find him first.

IMAGES

  1. The Nuclear Tourist

    the nuclear tourist answers

  2. Atomic Tourism: Vegas Visitors Watch Nukes Explode

    the nuclear tourist answers

  3. 34 years after Chernobyl: World's worst nuclear disaster site is a growing tourist destination

    the nuclear tourist answers

  4. Wyoming’s Cold War-Era Nuclear Missile Site to Become Tourist

    the nuclear tourist answers

  5. 8 Places That Showcase Atomic Age Archaeology for Tourists

    the nuclear tourist answers

  6. Chernobyl: The incredible number of tourists that visit nuclear

    the nuclear tourist answers

VIDEO

  1. Submarine TK 208 Dmitry Donskoy

  2. Nuclear Countries 🚀

  3. What Kind of Nuclear Expert is This?

  4. IRAN HAS LOST ITS NUCLEAR BUTTON! Israel's deadly drones destroyed Houthi warheads on Yemen!

  5. Does Iran have any nuclear weapons?

  6. A Russian Tourist's Journey into North Korea : Unraveling the Enigma

COMMENTS

  1. The Nuclear Tourist Flashcards

    The Nuclear Tourist author. George Johnson. basic plot. The story is set after the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Point in Pripyat, Ukraine. The story is about the new tourism that has began 28 years after the explosion because people are interested in the affects of the disaster and the "ghost town".

  2. "The Nuclear Tourist" Final Exam Questions Flashcards

    it shows the emotions and reactions people had to the situation. Read this passage from "The Nuclear Tourist.": --> "A few minutes later we reached Zalesye, an old farming village, and wandered among empty houses. ... On the floor of one home a discarded picture of Lenin—pointy beard, jutting chin—stared sternly at nothing, and hanging by a ...

  3. English 9

    What does "The Nuclear Tourist" suggest is the part of Chernobyl that has been most affected by the nuclear accident and its aftermath? two possible answers: 1. Pripyat . the population went down a lot, from 50,000 people to being abandoned.

  4. PDF The Nuclear Tourist

    Desert, where more than a thousand nuclear weapons were exploded during the Cold War, are booked solid through 2014. Then there is the specter of nuclear meltdown. In 2011, Chernobyl, site of the world's worst catastrophe at a nuclear power plant, was officially declared a tourist attraction. Nuclear tourism.

  5. The Nuclear Tourist

    In 2011, Chernobyl, site of the world's worst catastrophe at a nuclear power plant, was officially declared a tourist attraction. Nuclear tourism. Coming around the time of the Fukushima ...

  6. The Nuclear Tourist

    The Nuclear Tourist quiz for 9th grade students. Find other quizzes for and more on Quizizz for free! ... Answer choices . Tags . Log in. 20 Qs . Countries 2.6K plays 1st - 2nd 12 Qs . Netherlands 729 plays KG 20 Qs . Countries 4K plays 4th 20 Qs . Countries and Nationalities 325 plays

  7. Frequently Asked Chernobyl Questions

    On April 26, 1986, the Number Four RBMK reactor at the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, Ukraine, went out of control during a test at low-power, leading to an explosion and fire that demolished the reactor building and released large amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. Safety measures were ignored, the uranium fuel in the reactor overheated and melted through the

  8. The Nuclear Tourist

    environmental issues. military issues. story-like sequence of events, figurative language, and dialogue. 16. Multiple Choice. 30 seconds. 1 pt. What is the main reason that so many buildings described in "The Nuclear Tourist," such as the school and hospital, are crumbling and run-down? No one has taken care of them for years.

  9. Fascination With Chernobyl Inspires Surreptitious Visits

    KIEV, Ukraine—Dmitry was a child when he first heard stories of a mysterious place called Chernobyl, not far from his home in Chernihiv. Something strange and dreadful had happened there: an ...

  10. The Nuclear Tourist by Nicola Ferguson

    In the brutal confines of The Facility, the most brilliant minds in history are resurrected and cloned. Isolated and approaching breaking point, at just seventeen Dane is one of their rising stars. Sent to Chernobyl to investigate a series of inexplicable deaths, linked only by the presence of a rare nuclear isotope, an accident propels Dane ...

  11. The Nuclear Tourist {Comprehension & Additional Q's}

    on April 26, 1986 in Chernobyl's reactor number four. When was the evacuation? 36 hours after the accident. How many villages were evacuated? nearly 200 villages. What was the death toll? surprisingly small, 3 workers and 28 within a year. How many people were exposed to the radiation? 6,000 people.

  12. Chernobyl: we lived through its consequences

    My published work deals with psychoanalytic theories of the death instinct, trauma and nuclear tourism - the industry that monetises a fascination to visit places where nuclear accidents have ...

  13. Chernobyl and the dangerous ground of 'dark tourism'

    A new TV series has spurred travel to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site in Ukraine and has renewed debate over the ethics of so-called dark tourism to locations associated with death and ...

  14. You Can Now Visit Chernobyl's Control Room, if You're Quick About It

    The control room of reactor 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant—one of most ominous places on Earth—has become tourist attraction. As we reported over the summer, tourism at Chernobyl is ...

  15. Are Tourists Safe For Chernobyl? As Danger Drops, Problems Rise

    A tourist takes a picture in an abandoned kindergarten in the ghost village of Kopachi near Chernobyl Nuclear power plant during their tour to the Chernobyl exclusion zone on April 23, 2018.

  16. 25 Years Later, Chernobyl Reinvented as a Tourist Hotspot

    After choking on his own internal organs, Soviet authorities came to toss Vasily's corpse into a cellophane bag. Nikolai Fomich Kalugin, a local father, recalls, "And then one day you're suddenly ...

  17. Chernobyl, site of nuclear disaster, now a tourist zone

    Empty swimming pool —. Three decades after the nuclear disaster there, guided tours take increasing numbers of tourists deep into Chernobyl's Exclusion Zone. Pripyat, the town built near the ...

  18. The Nuclear Tourist Flashcards

    1.enjoyment of dangerous or edgy vacations. 2.The surprising beauty of the forest and rivers. 3. Being drawn to abandoned and decayed places. How was the worlds view of splitting the atom changed since it first occurred. From enthusiasm to fear. What best supports the answer above. More than half a century later the swirling symbol of the atom ...

  19. Step inside Cold War nuclear sites

    That strategy of mutually assured destruction has been the prevailing rhetoric of the nuclearized world. " [It] enabled us to stand toe to toe, to look each other straight in the eye, and not go ...

  20. 10 Biggest Unanswered Questions & Mysteries The Tourist Season 3 Needs

    The article contains spoilers for The Tourist season 2. While The Tourist neatly resolves many plot threads, there remain several unanswered questions that a potential season 3 could address. The series, which has garnered significant attention since its debut on Netflix, continues to captivate audiences with its thrilling storyline and enigmatic characters.

  21. The Nuclear Tourist Comprehension and Annotations Flashcards

    Paragraph 8. We were enthusiastic about the idea of progress, but it turned into fear of destruction. Paragraph 9. IRONY- people are visiting a place that had the highest and most deadly levels of radiation as a tourist attraction. Paragraph 10. IRONY- Chernobyl felt like the safest place to be in comparison to Russia.

  22. 35 years since its nuclear disaster, Chernobyl prepares for tourist

    In the 35 years since the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, the nearby main thoroughfare in Pripyat, Ukraine, has been taken over by plants, trees and wildlife. Abandoned hours after the meltdown of ...

  23. "The Nuclear Tourist" Final Exam Questions Flashcards

    According to "The Nuclear Tourist," how did the residents of Pripyat react at first to the meltdown at Chernobyl? Pripyat (went from population of 50,000 to abandoned) What does "The Nuclear Tourist" suggest is the part of Chernobyl that has been most affected by the nuclear accident and its aftermath?

  24. Oscar-Zero: Notes from a Nuclear Tourist

    Oscar-Zero Missile Alert Facility, Cooperstown, North Dakota, 2016. [Peggy Weil] Operational from 1965 until 1997, Oscar-Zero was one of 15 Missile Alert Facilities run by the 321st Strategic Missile Wing, its crew responsible for ten of the 150 Minuteman missiles then housed at Grand Forks Air Force Base, about 80 miles to the northeast. With ...