"Dark Tourist" - New Travel Series on Netflix

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From a nuclear lake to a haunted forest, journalist David Farrier visits unusual — and often macabre — tourism spots around the world.

Over the weekend I discovered a new series on Netflix that is of course right up my alley, Dark Tourist. (Not to be confused with the movie of the same name, which is also called The Grief Tourist.)

The movie is a psychological-thriller where a man spends his vacation time traveling to places of tragedy and disaster. It’s about his latest trip to New Orleans to indulge his obsession with a mass murderer.

The Netflix series is like that. It’s about a man traveling to similar places. But it’s a travel docuseries, not a scary movie.

The Host & The Episodes

David Farrier is the host. He’s a lot more adventurous in his jaunting than I am in mine.

Some of the places he visits I have been or would want to go to. Like Japan’s haunted forest, Milwaukee to take the Jeffrey Dahmer serial killer tour, or to New Orleans to dine with vampires. (I’ve been to Milwaukee and NOLA, but haven’t taken the Dahmer tour or indulged in any vampire dinners.)

But most of the places he visits? No thanks.

I’ve been to Colombia. Not for narco-tourism like David, though. Just to see it. It was too freaking hot there. I was glad it was via a cruise and we only stayed a day.

I would want to go to Japan (to see Aokigahara, aka the Suicide Forest), but not to tour Fukishima. David visits both in Episode Two.

I’ve also been to Southeast Asia (Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam), but not to Cambodia, Myanmar or Indonesia. I’m not sure I’d want to go do any of what he does in those places. (That’s Episode Six.)

Not sure I’d want to swim in a lake caused by a nuclear blast either. (“The Stans” episode.)

Africa (Episode Seven) might be okay. I haven’t seen that episode yet, but he attends a voodoo festival. That might be interesting.

I’ll definitely let him take the extreme haunted house tour (if it’s the Halloween kind of haunted house that I’m thinking it is in Episode Eight.) Real haunted houses with ghosts have never freaked me out like the ones inhabited by costumed humans.

Reviews So Far

So far Dark Tourist the Netflix series is getting mixed reviews. Which is about the same as the movie by the same name, maybe a little better. (The movie weighed in at a 5 on IMDB. It fared way worse on Rotten Tomatoes: 38% Tomatometer / 27% Audience Score.)

I only watched part of the first episode of Dark Tourist so far. What I saw was good. I’ll watch the rest. It might inspire a review post.

Have you added Netflix’s Dark Tourist to your watch list or started binging it yet?

Courtney Mroch

Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.

Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.

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