Log Out | Member Center    Where do tragedy tourists go?    •
Published Sunday, June 27, 2010, at 12:02 a.m.  No one wants to
be called a tragedy tourist. Not Van Badham, a London-based
playwright who spends her vacations visiting such places as
ground zero in New York and Nazi concentration camps in Germany.
"I travel to learn, and witness, and share," she said. "If it's
bad, I want to know how bad it is."  Any surprise then that next
on Badham's "to-do" list is the coast of Louisiana — site of the
largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history? "I will definitely
make a point of getting over there when I'm in the U.S. next,"
she told me.  As tens of thousands of travelers cancel their
beach vacations in the wake of the massive oil spill, a small
number of tourists will swim against the tide. Too bad it's just
a small number. If ever there were a time to visit the Gulf
Coast, it is now.  Some will go to volunteer, although most of
the organizations assisting with oil spill damage are requesting
only trained vol