Going underground: Tours into the subterranean

This paper explores the neglected topic of subterranean tourism and seeks to distinguish the particular factors that continue to lure tourists to underground attractions. Through a literature review and research of numerous sites, we identify three key themes through which underground tourism has remained alluring, namely an enduring desire to visit formerly inaccessible or forbidden spaces, the vivid depictions of subterranean worlds stoked by literature and film, and desires to enter realms of sensory alterity. We subsequently detail our tours to four very different human-fashioned underground sites: Margate’s mysterious Shell Grotto, West Wycombe’s scandal-plagued 18th century Hellfire Caves, Charing Cross disused Jubilee Line tube station, and Drakeford Nuclear Bunker. Each example exemplifies the general themes we have identified and yet every site has its own peculiarities and allurements, as we discuss in our conclusion.