The tourism industry is constantly developing and improving, offering travelers new types of active recreation, rich in emotions and impressions and often associated with health risks. One of these types of tourism is extreme tourism, which involves traveling to potentially dangerous places or participating in dangerous activities for human health.
Extreme tourism has been actively developing in the late XX century, when acquired a wide popularity skydiving, rafting, mountain climbing and many other types of dangerous entertainment. Currently, extreme tourism is one of the most promising in the world as it demonstrates the fastest rate of growth.
It is generally accepted that the extreme tourism arose as a direction of sports tourism, involving competitions in routes that include overcoming obstacles in natural environments and on artificial terrain. Since many tourists are not satisfied with the consistency and the presence of strict rules characteristic of this type of tourism, over time, there was a separation of its non-regulated direction – extreme tourism.
It should be noted that at present there is no unambiguous interpretation of the concept of “extreme tourism”. Moreover, in the scientific environment there is no unity of views concerning the independence of this type of tourism. Many domestic researchers include extreme tourism as a part of adventure or sports tourism.
Extreme tourism is a type of active tourism, aimed at acute sensations associated with the risk to the life and health of the traveler.
Extreme tourism has a lot in common with sports and adventure tourism, but differs significantly in its main purpose and forms of implementation. As well as sports tourism, extreme tourism involves considerable physical exertion, but at the same time it is not aimed at achieving sports results and is not a type of competitive activity. As well as adventure tourism, extreme tourism is associated with unexpected events and incidents, but the main purpose of extreme tourists is not the adventure itself, but satisfaction of need for thrill, arising in the process of testing their strength and abilities, balancing on the edge of serious risk to human health and life.
It should be noted that determining the level of extreme is quite subjective and depends on training, accumulated experience, temperament, and psychophysiological qualities of the individual. In this regard, for many people any type of activity not found in ordinary life can be extreme, causing a surge of emotions and a kind of positive stress to the body.
Types of extreme tourism
Extreme tourism according to the medium of implementation is divided into five main types: water, land, mountain, air, exotic.
Water kinds of extreme tourism
- Wakeboarding is a combination of water skiing, snowboarding, skateboarding and surfing. The boat tows the raider standing on a short, wide board. Moving at 30-40 km/h. with extra ballast on board, the boat leaves behind a wave, which the person uses as a springboard. In the jump you can do a lot of different tricks.
- Windsurfing – a type of sailing and water entertainment, which is based on the skill of control on the water surface of a lightweight board of small size with a sail mounted on it.
- Water skiing – one of the most famous types of recreation. This is a worthy substitute for mountain and cross-country winter skis.
- Diving – is scuba diving with special equipment. Diving is divided into three classes: recreational diving – scuba diving for recreation, limited to a depth of 40 meters, professional diving (or commercial), freediving – diving on a breath hold, allows to be under water for several minutes.
- Kayaking – a sport and extreme tourism, which is swimming on the water in narrow long boats (kayaks), the average length of 2.7 to 5 meters and an average width of 50 to 80 cm. This sport is designed for one person. There are three main areas: slalom, rodeo and rafting.
- Slalom – is the ability to maneuver a kayak, feeling the boat and water, rodeo – performing various tricks on the boat due to the peculiarities of the river topography, rafting – water trip on a mountain river, often with elements of the game, where you must overcome obstacles in the form of barrels, water shafts and other obstacles.
- Rafting is rafting a group of people on a turbulent river on a special inflatable vessel called a “raft”, a canoe or kayak. Rafting tours can be day trips or multi-day trips. Multi-day tours take hikers to remote places with unspoiled wilderness, camping as they pass the river and exploring the wilderness surrounding the anchorages.
- Surfing – a water sport in which the athlete must catch a wave coming ashore and ride on its crest on a special flat board with a small keel (lying or standing).
Land-based forms of extreme tourism - Kiting – a type of recreation, the essence of which lies in the fact that a person accelerates with the help of a kite, a rope from which is in his hands. Kiting is an all-season sport, you can ride on the water, land or snow (so kiting can be attributed to the water types of extreme tourism.
- Mountain biking is an extreme type of land-based tourism, involving riding a mountain bike on various kinds of hills.
- Mountainboarding is a sport that involves descending from the mountains on a projectile called a mountain board. In this case, unlike snowboarding, the movement is not on the snow, and on solid ground. Therefore, a mountainboard is designed more for maneuvers and turns than for acceleration and riding at top speeds.
Moto- and auto-travel – it implies overcoming “impassable”, extreme areas (deserts, marshlands, mountain slopes) with the help of machinery. In particular, trophy-raids are competitions in overcoming impassability usually on four-wheel drive cars (off-road vehicles), special off-road motorcycles and quad bikes. As a rule, in trophy-raids, unlike road races, the speed of following the route is not so important, it is more important to successfully complete all the special sections and perform all the tasks of the competition stages.
Mountain kinds of extreme tourism
- Mountaineering is a kind of sport and active tourism, having the purpose of climbing to the tops of the mountains with subsequent descent by ascent or otherwise. Today mountaineering is a whole industry, which is actively developing.
- Climbing is a sport that consists in free climbing on natural (rock) or artificial (climbing walls) terrain. It is an independent sport that evolved from mountaineering and is inextricably linked with it. The difference between mountaineering and rock climbing is that in rock climbing, as a rule, there are permanent (static) points of support – hooks concreted into the rock, while in mountaineering, on the contrary, all points of support are usually temporary. In addition, mountain climbing, unlike rock climbing, allows climbing with the use of special tools and additional equipment.
- Skiing is one of the oldest types of outdoor activities. Almost every ski resort has slopes both for professionals and beginners who can always be taught how to ski by local instructors.
- Snowboarding – descending in the snow from the slopes on specially equipped boards. Extreme hobbies associated with skiing and snowboarding can be divided into several groups: freeskiing – descent on steep unprepared slopes with difficult terrain, helisking – the same, but with a helicopter as a means of delivery on the mountain, skitour – mountain tourism, using skis and special mounts to climb the mountain, ski mountaineering – climbing to the mountain in order to descend on skis or snowboard.
Air kinds of extreme tourism
- Bungee jumping – a type of extreme tourism, in which a person, tied to the base with an elastic rope, jumps from a height of several tens of meters and time is in free fall. When approaching the ground or water (usually the jumps are made over the water) the rope is pulled and the jumper flies up.
- Rope jumping – a relatively new trend of extreme tourism, which consists in making a jump from high objects of natural and anthropogenic origin using professional climbing equipment. The use of climbing equipment expands the range of objects that may be suitable for the implementation of rop-jumping, in contrast to other related types of extreme jumps. The implementation of a safe jump is based on the principle of “pendulum”. Due to the principle of “pendulum” and dynamism of climbing cords the dynamic load from the jerk is extinguished, which allows to ensure the safety of the jumper. Under certain conditions, rop-jumping makes it possible to perform acrobatic elements during the flight of the jump.
- Wingsuit is a type of extreme sport, in which a jumpsuit-wing is used to increase the surface area of the person, allowing her to plan in the air. During the flight the parachutist moves forward and downward. The flight speed can reach 200 km/h, and a parachute is used to land.
- Hang gliding – flying a hang glider, a special aircraft.
- Paragliding (paragliding) – a sport in which competitions are held using a paraglider (an ultra-light (5-7 kg) non-motorized aircraft).
- Skydiving is one of the aviation sports. It is subdivided into subspecies: classic, group acrobatics, skydiving, freefly, etc. Skydiving is a very popular sport and extreme tourism. As a rule, for a person who is not professionally engaged in parachuting, it is a free fall followed by a flight with a parachute released on their own or in a bundle with an instructor. Such types as aerial acrobatics, freefly and sky surfing are more related to professional sports.
Exotic types of extreme tourism
- Jailoo-tourism is one of the new types of tourism. Jailoo-tours are organized in remote areas inhabited by indigenous peoples, where civilization is practically untouched, where there is no electricity and no cell phone. Thanks to this urban residents have the opportunity to live for some time in medieval or even primitive conditions.
- Space tourism – the most expensive and perhaps the most exotic kind of extreme tourism – a trip to the orbit of the Earth. Today there are few space tourists, but it is obvious that this type of extreme tourism has a huge potential for growth. On February 16, 2022 Virgin Galactic began selling tickets for space travel. It is planned to sell 1000 tickets at a price of 450 thousand dollars.
Tourism at the North and South Poles. Cruises to the Arctic and Antarctica began relatively recently. More and more people want to visit the extreme climatic conditions and see exotic animals.
Recently, such types of exotic extreme tourism as a trip to Chernobyl or a trip to the jungle have also become popular.