In the darkest corners of the internet, people are choosing to get lost in places that don't exist—and they're finding something unexpectedly meaningful there. Lancaster University researchers have discovered that online spaces known as the "Backrooms"—fictional digital environments resembling endless corridors, empty basements, and uncharted office blocks—represent a entirely new form of dark tourism that defies traditional geography.
Unlike the dark tourism we've long known, which sends travelers to real locations haunted by tragedy or historical weight, the Backrooms exist nowhere and everywhere at once. They emerge from and circulate through the less visible, less regulated corners of the internet, where communities of what researchers call "legend-trippers" collectively build these worlds through videos, stories, diary entries, and creative content. The spaces feel immersive and unsettling, deliberately designed to keep their form and meaning elusive.
Dr. Sophie James, a lecturer in marketing at Lancaster University Management School, and her co-author Professor James Cronin have coined the term "para-terrestrial dark tourism" to describe this phenomenon. The prefix "para" captures something crucial: these are environments that exist alongside or beyond the familiar, accessible only through screens yet powerful enough to create genuine emotional resonance. People are drawn to them not for physical presence but for intense emotional experiences in spaces that feel place-like despite being entirely digital.
What makes this research timely is how the Backrooms are moving from niche internet subculture into the mainstream. A24, the production company behind acclaimed horror films, is bringing the Backrooms to the cinema—a milestone that signals how these once-obscure digital imaginaries are reshaping broader culture. The research, published in Annals of Tourism Research, suggests this shift reflects something deeper about how people now seek connection and meaning.
The findings challenge how we understand "destination" itself. Traditionally, a destination meant a geographically fixed point you could map and visit. But the internet, these researchers argue, functions as a destination in its own right. The platforms where online communities gather become participatory, self-contained spaces rather than mere simulations of the real world. A destination, in this view, is no longer fixed in space but malleable, creative, and digitally constructed.
Dr. James emphasizes that this isn't trivial: "Digital culture is transforming what it means to explore and to feel present somewhere, while also raising broader questions about how people engage with risk, ambiguity, and the unknown in digitally mediated worlds." The Backrooms show us that people hunger for experiences that unsettle them, that keep them guessing, that exist in creative uncertainty—even when those experiences take place entirely online.
This shift reflects something hopeful, too. Rather than tourism being confined to those with means to travel, the internet democratizes the capacity to explore, to feel present, and to belong to a community of fellow explorers. Whether that community gathers in fictional corridors or around shared stories, the human need to venture into the unknown—to feel genuinely present in a space of wonder and disquiet—remains constant. The Backrooms simply prove that need no longer requires a passport.