{"id":974,"date":"2026-09-28T09:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T13:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/?p=974"},"modified":"2026-09-28T08:19:44","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T12:19:44","slug":"industrial-tourism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/blog\/2026\/09\/28\/industrial-tourism\/","title":{"rendered":"Industrial tourism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Google search returns a list of sites that describe industrial tourism as \u201ca type of travel that involves visiting active factories, decommissioned industrial plants, craft workshops, and industrial heritage sites to learn how things are made and explore economic history\u201d1<\/a><\/sup>. I think of it differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I first encountered the phrase in Edward Abbey\u2019s Desert Solitaire<\/em>, a chapter entitled \u201cPolemic<\/em>: Industrial Tourism and the National Parks.\u201d Abbey\u2019s polemic is directed at mechanized tourists, those who visit national parks in cars, trucks, and recreational vehicles and who rarely stray beyond the most convenient paths.2<\/a><\/sup> His complaint? \u201cIndustrial Tourism\u201d is a threat to the national parks. Why? Because <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

A weird, lovely, fantastic object out of nature like Delicate Arch has the curious ability to remind us\u2014like rock and sunlight and wind and wilderness\u2014that out there is a different world, older and greater and deeper by far than ours, a world which surrounds and sustains the little world of men as sea and sky surround and sustain a ship.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Industrial Tourism deadens us to the world out there. It disconnects us from the sublime. Industrial Tourists see beautiful things, but they miss the sublime, which is \u201cvast and mysterious, while the beautiful tends to be confined and groomed.\u201d3<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congress recognized that places without industrial tourism should be protected when it passed the Wilderness Act of 1964. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

In order to assure that an increasing population, accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization, does not occupy and modify all areas within the United States and its possessions, leaving no lands designated for preservation and protection in their natural condition, it is hereby declared to be the policy of the Congress to secure for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness. (Section 2(a))<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It defined wilderness as a place \u201cwhere the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain\u201d (Section 2(c)).4<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abbey proposed three principles to govern the future of national parks:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. No more cars in national parks.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. No more new roads in national parks.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Put the park rangers to work.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    He was confident that millions of citizens would embrace the \u201cadventure, difficulty, and challenge\u201d of parks in which visitors traveled only by foot, horseback, muleback, or shuttle. I admire the vision he describes, but I do not embrace it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    He dismissed those \u201cunwilling to crawl out of their cars,\u201d either forgetting or ignoring those whose abilities do not allow them to travel far from their car. He avoided the dilemma of simultaneously protecting wilderness for those who can enjoy it and providing access for those who cannot hike or climb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    1. <\/a>From that AI Overview that Google provides. ↩<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
    2. <\/a>Before going further, I should confess that I will soon be an industrial tourist. On Wednesday, my husband and I will fly to Salt Lake City. From there we will drive<\/em> to Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, and Arches National Parks. We will only drive through Capitol Reef on our way from Bryce Canyon to Moab, and we will spend no more than a day in each place. ↩<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
    3. <\/a>Marcus Willascheck, Kant: A Revolution in Thinking<\/em>, Harvard University Press, 2023. ↩<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
    4. <\/a>In 1964 even most scientists would probably have imagined that there were places in the world without human influence. We know better now. ↩<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      A Google search returns a list of sites that describe industrial tourism as \u201ca type of travel that involves visiting active factories, decommissioned industrial plants, craft workshops, and industrial heritage… Read more ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=974"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":980,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions\/980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}