The strange allure of disaster tourism

Some people call me a disaster tourist. I’ve been to Afghanistan, Somalia, North Korea, Syria and Ukraine, to name just a few. I’ve been threatened by kidnappers and have been shot at, but it’s never seriously bothered me. A taste for danger is just part of who I am. That’s why I respect those five men who perished in the Titan submarine last week. They were prepared to descend into the crushing depths of the North Atlantic in a tiny submarine to look upon the most notorious shipwreck in the world, the Titanic. They wanted to experience a place so dangerous that only a handful of people on earth would ever dare go.

There’s an allure to danger that is difficult to explain. In Iraq, I travelled to the city of Kirkuk to witness the fight against Isis, one of the most depraved and evil enemies the world has ever seen.