When Andrew Drury visited Uganda with his cousin Nigel Green, he unknowingly crossed the border into a war-torn nation, ending up at a Congolese banana plantation, where a knife-wielding farmer chased him.
"The chase went for a long time and the stress and danger made us realize there was more to the world than travel tours," Drury told Metro. "Coming back from there we knew we wanted to do it more."
Since then, Drury and his cousin have visited Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Mogadishu and Burma. At these places, they have been under fire, captured and on the sharp end of a Taliban surge, Metro reported.
Drury and his cousin aren't the only ones embarking on such trips. In fact, the adventure tourism sector is growing by 17 percent each year and is worth $89 billion, Metro reported. Afghanistan, Libya and other current conflict areas are becoming popular, according to Metro.
"We have more interest in coming to Libya from European countries since the [Libyan civil] war, particularly France and Germany," Lars Tisell of the Libya-based Sherwes Travel told Metro. "The clan-fighting makes security difficult but we can still help people to come in."
Dr. John Lennon, author of Dark Tourism and tourism professor at Glasgow Caledonian University told Metro, "Fascination with death and disaster has always been part of human nature - we know that people watched the Battle of Waterloo from their carriages as a spectator sport."
Despite the serious risk factors, Drury wants to continue these excursions to conflict zones. "Yes I could get hurt and I wouldn't recommend it to my children, but I want to go away again, now," he told Metro. "The storage freezer in Libya where Gaddafi's body was put on display is my number one goal."
Untamed Borders co-founder and lifelong adventurer James Willox told Metro that he keeps safety in mind when he organizes trips to conflict hotspots.
"We choose locations very carefully, and stay with locals in parts with no Western involvement," he told Metro. "But we avoid having armed escorts - that makes it much more dangerous."
He believes people choose to go on these trips for many reasons -- but voyeurism isn't one of them.
"Thousands of people are now having a chance to visit places they have only seen on TV - and they are having experiences that are very different from the negative image," Willcox told Metro.
Some "vacation" locations in conflict zones include the Cambodia Killing Fields, Sri Lanka and Soham, the British village that was home to two murdered schoolgirls, among others, according to Metro.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
