When Risk Becomes Content: Social Media, Dark Tourism and Travel Risk
Travel inspiration has changed significantly. A destination that once required hours of research can now appear on someone’s phone through a TikTok, Instagram Reel or YouTube video, giving viewers an immediate impression of its streets, food, people and attractions before they have even considered booking a flight.
For most destinations, this can be a useful way to discover new places and understand different cultures. But when the destination is politically unstable, affected by conflict or associated with serious security risks, there is another side to the story: what happens when a place that requires careful risk assessment is presented online as an ordinary travel experience?
This is where the discussion around dark tourism, social media and travel risk management becomes increasingly relevant.
What is dark tourism?
Dark tourism generally refers to travel connected to death, tragedy, disaster, conflict or human suffering. Examples include sites associated with the Holocaust, the Chernobyl disaster and historic battlefields. Visiting these places is not inherently irresponsible; it can help people understand history and engage with difficult subjects.
The issue becomes more complicated when the tragedy, suffering or danger becomes secondary to the experience of being there, particularly when social media turns that experience into content designed to attract attention.
Research into Chernobyl, for example, has examined how social media contributed to the site'‘s popularity and influenced how visitors presented their experiences online, including tensions around selfie-taking at a site associated with a major human tragedy.
This raises a wider question: what happens when the same social media effect is applied to a destination where the risk is not historical, but current?
When a high-risk destination starts to look normal
Afghanistan provides a recent example. In April 2026, Deutsche Welle reported on Western travel creators producing content from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Some of this content presented the country through familiar travel imagery, focusing on local interactions, food and unusual experiences, while the wider security environment received less attention.
A video can show that one traveller successfully visited a location in Kabul, but it cannot tell another traveller whether making the same journey is appropriate for them.
The UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office currently advises against all travel to Afghanistan, including organised tours, and highlights risks including terrorism, kidnapping and detention, as well as the limited ability of the UK government to provide assistance inside the country.
That does not mean every creator travelling to Afghanistan is irresponsible. It means that a positive personal experience should not be mistaken for a professional assessment of the destination’s risk environment.
There are also real examples of how serious those risks can be. In May 2024, three Spanish tourists were killed in a shooting in Bamyan province while visiting the area on a guided trip, while several other people were injured. A destination can therefore have tour operators, visitors and attractive cultural sites while still carrying significant security risks. Those two things can exist at the same time.
The problem with the “I went and it was fine” narrative
This is one of the biggest challenges created by social media travel content. A creator can say, “I went there and nothing happened,” and that may be completely true, but it does not mean the destination was safe or that another traveller should expect the same experience.
The audience sees the person who completed the journey, but it does not necessarily see the preparation, local support, security arrangements or contingency planning behind it.
Was there a professional security provider?
Was the itinerary risk-assessed?
Was secure transportation arranged?
Was there a medical evacuation plan?
Did someone monitor the journey?
What happened if the border closed?
What happened if communications failed?
What insurance exclusions applied?
And, critically, what would happen if something went wrong?
These are questions that a travel video cannot normally answer, but they are exactly the questions that matter when travelling in a complex environment.
Iran shows how quickly the situation can change
Iran provides another useful example because it demonstrates that risk is not always obvious at the beginning of a journey. In 2025, American cyclist Ian Andersen travelled across Iran as part of a much larger journey from Portugal to Japan and documented his experience online. He described positive experiences with Iranian people and culture, but the security environment changed dramatically when conflict between Israel and Iran escalated in June.
According to the Associated Press, Andersen sheltered during the strikes and eventually left Iran through Azerbaijan with emergency assistance from the U.S. Embassy in Baku. His experience is a useful reminder that a journey that is manageable today can become very different tomorrow.
The FCDO currently advises against all travel to Iran and warns that borders and airspace can close at short notice, while communications can also be disrupted. For travel risk management, this is a crucial distinction. A destination should not be assessed only on what happened to another traveller yesterday, last month or last year, but on the current environment and how quickly that environment could change.
Risk is personal
Risk is also rarely the same for everyone. Nationality, occupation, purpose of travel, public profile, route, accommodation and access to assistance can all change the risk picture. A creator who has built relationships with local contacts over several visits may also have resources that an ordinary traveller does not.
A traveller watching a video and deciding to recreate the same journey may therefore be entering the same country but not the same risk environment. Social media makes that difference difficult to see because the viewer sees the destination, but not necessarily the preparation behind the journey.
Where travel risk management comes in
Professional travel risk management is not simply about producing a list of dangerous countries. It is about understanding the journey in context and considering the destination, traveller, itinerary, transportation, accommodation, medical capability, communications and local conditions. It also means thinking about what happens when the original plan no longer works.
Borders can close, a flight can be cancelled, a protest can turn violent, communications can fail or a traveller can become ill somewhere with limited medical support. Good preparation cannot guarantee that nothing will happen, but it can give travellers a better chance of responding when circumstances change.
Social media is not the enemy
This is not an argument against travel influencers or social media. Creators can provide valuable perspectives that official travel advisories cannot, from showing everyday life and introducing local cultures to explaining customs and challenging stereotypes. The problem is when content becomes the risk assessment.
A creator provides a personal experience. An official travel advisory provides information about specific risks. A professional travel risk provider considers how those risks relate to a particular traveller, itinerary and organisation. These are different things, and travellers need to understand the difference.
Creators also have a responsibility to provide context when documenting complex destinations. A peaceful restaurant, beautiful landscape or friendly interaction does not necessarily represent the wider security environment, particularly when a country is subject to serious travel warnings.
From destination inspiration to destination confidence
Before travelling to a complex destination, people should look beyond social media and consider the current security situation, official travel advice and how those conditions could affect their particular itinerary. They should also consider what medical support is available, whether their insurance is valid, who can assist them if something goes wrong and what their contingency plan would be if the original route became impossible.
These questions are not designed to stop people from travelling. They are designed to help people make informed decisions based on more than someone else’ss experience on a screen. A destination can look completely normal in a video while the risk environment around it is anything but normal.
Social media can inspire the journey, but travel risk management helps prepare for the reality of it. In an environment where almost any destination can become content, understanding that difference is becoming an increasingly important part of travelling with confidence.