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Inside the Controversial World of Slum Tourism

People have toured the world’s most marginalized, impoverished districts for over a century.

Hundreds of shanty towns line the riverbanks, train tracks, and garbage dumps in the Filipino capital—the most jammed-packed areas in one of the world’s most densely populated cities. Around a quarter of its 12 million people are considered “informal settlers.”

Manila is starkly representative of a global problem. According to the United Nations , about a quarter of the world’s urban population lives in slums—and this figure is rising fast.

Rich cultural heritage brings visitors to Manila, but some feel compelled to leave the safety of the historic center sites to get a glimpse of the city’s inequality. Tour operators in the Philippines —as well as places like Brazil and India —have responded by offering “slum tours” that take outsiders through their most impoverished, marginalized districts.

Slum tourism sparks considerable debate around an uncomfortable moral dilemma. No matter what you call it—slum tours, reality tours, adventure tourism, poverty tourism—many consider the practice little more than slack-jawed privileged people gawking at those less fortunate. Others argue they raise awareness and provide numerous examples of giving back to the local communities. Should tourists simply keep their eyes shut?

Around a quarter of Manila's 12 million people are considered “informal settlers."

Rich cultural heritage brings visitors to Manila, but some feel compelled to leave the safety of the historic center sites to get a glimpse of the city’s inequality.

Slumming For Centuries

Slum tourism is not a new phenomenon, although much has changed since its beginning. “Slumming” was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in the 1860s, meaning “to go into, or frequent, slums for discreditable purposes; to saunter about, with a suspicion, perhaps, of immoral pursuits.” In September 1884, the New York Times published an article about the latest trend in leisure activities that arrived from across the pond, “‘Slumming’ will become a form of fashionable dissipation this winter among our Belles, as our foreign cousins will always be ready to lead the way.”

Usually under the pretense of charity and sometimes with a police escort, rich Londoners began braving the city’s ill-reputed East End beginning around 1840. This new form of amusement arrived to New York City from wealthy British tourists eager to compare slums abroad to those back home. Spreading across the coast to San Francisco, the practice creeped into city guide books. Groups wandered through neighborhoods like the Bowery or Five Points in New York to peer into brothels, saloons, and opium dens.

Visitors could hardly believe their eyes, and justifiably so. “I don’t think an opium den would have welcomed, or allowed access to, slummers to come through if they weren’t there to smoke themselves,” Chad Heap writes in his book Slumming: Sexual and Racial Encounters in American Nightlife , 1885–1940 . Recognizing the business opportunity, outsiders cashed in on the curiosity by hiring actors to play the part of addicts or gang members to stage shoot-’em-ups in the streets. After all, no one wanted the slum tourists to demand a refund or go home disappointed.

Smokey Tours does not allow participants to take photos, but this policy proves difficult to enforce.

The city of San Francisco eventually banned such mockery of the poor, the New York Times reported in 1909: “This is a heavy blow to Chinatown guides, who have collected a fee of two dollars each. The opium smokers, gamblers, blind paupers, singing children, and other curiosities were all hired.”

Tours also brought positive results, as Professor of History Seth Koven highlights in his research of slumming in Victorian London. Oxford and Cambridge Universities opened study centers in the late 19th-century to inform social policy, which was only possible by seeing the underprivileged neighborhoods firsthand.

Popularity waned after World War II with the creation of welfare and social housing—then rose again in the 1980s and 1990s as those state provisions declined and labor demands increased.

Presenting Poverty

Plastic arrives from all over India to the dark alleys and corrugated shacks of Dharavi in Mumbai —the second-largest slum on the continent of Asia (after Orangi Town in Pakistan ) and third-largest slum in the world. Ushered around by the company Reality Tour and Travel , tourists see a thriving recycling industry which employs around ten thousand to melt, reshape, and mould discarded plastic. They stop to watch the dhobiwallahs , or washermen, scrub sheets from the city’s hospitals and hotels in an open-air laundry area.

In a TripAdvisor review, one recent participant from Virginia appreciated the focus on community. “It was great to hear about the economy, education and livelihood of the residents,” she writes. “The tour group doesn't allow photography or shopping which I think is really important. It didn't feel exploitative, it felt educational.”

One traveler from London commented on the extremity of the scene. "Had to stop after about 20 minutes into it due to the overbearing nature of the surroundings. The tour is not for the faint hearted. I would've liked a few more disclaimers on the website to warn us about the nature of it." Another guest from the United Kingdom expressed disappointment over the so-called family meal. “This was in the home of one of the guides and, whilst his mum made lunch a delicious meal that we ate in her house, she didn’t eat with us so it wasn’t really what I had expected from a family lunch (or the photos promoting such on the website).”

Smokey Tours enters the Manila North Cemetery, inhabited by some of Manila's poorest people.

Children jump from grave to grave in the city’s largest cemetery.

Reality Tours hopes to challenge the stereotypical perception of slums as despairing places inhabited by hopeless people. The tour presented slum residents as productive and hardworking, but also content and happy. Analyzing more than 230 reviews of Reality Tour and Travel in her study , Dr. Melissa Nisbett of King’s College London realized that for many Dharavi visitors, poverty was practically invisible. “As the reviews show, poverty was ignored, denied, overlooked and romanticized, but moreover, it was depoliticized.” Without discussing the reason the slum existed, the tour decontextualized the plight of the poor and seemed only to empower the wrong people–the privileged, western, middle class visitors.

With good intentions, the company states that 80 percent of the profits benefit the community through the efforts of its NGO that works to provide access to healthcare, organize educational programs, and more. Co-founder Chris Way spoke to National Geographic after his company surged in popularity from the sleeper hit Slumdog Millionaire . “We do try and be as transparent as possible on our website, which does allay many people’s fears.” Way personally refuses a salary for his work.

No Two Cities Alike

The main question should be: Is poverty the central reason to visit?

Other cities take different approaches to slum tourism. In the early 1990s, when black South Africans began offering tours of their townships—the marginalized, racially-segregated areas where they were forced to live—to help raise global awareness of rampant human rights violations. Rather than exploitation inflicted by outsiders, local communities embraced slum tourism as a vehicle to take matters of their traditionally neglected neighborhoods into their own hands.

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Some free tours of favelas in Rio de Janeiro provided an accessible option to the crowds that infiltrated the city during the World Cup and Summer Olympics, while most companies continue to charge. Tour manager Eduardo Marques of Brazilian Expeditions explains how their authenticity stands out, “We work with some local guides or freelancers, and during the tour we stop in local small business plus [offer] capoeira presentations that [support] the locals in the favela. We do not hide any info from our visitors. The real life is presented to the visitors.”

Smokey Tours in Manila connected tourists with the reality facing inhabitants of a city landfill in Tondo (until 2014 when it closed) to tell their stories. Now the company tours around Baseco near the port, located in the same crowded district and known for its grassroots activism. Locally-based photographer Hannah Reyes Morales documented her experience walking with the group on assignment for National Geographic Travel. “I had permission to photograph this tour from both the operator and community officials, but the tour itself had a no photography policy for the tourists.” With the policy difficult to enforce, some guests secretly snapped photos on their phones. “I observed how differently tourists processed what they were seeing in the tour. There were those who were respectful of their surroundings, and those who were less so.”

All About Intention

Despite sincere attempts by tour operators to mitigate offense and give back to locals, the impact of slum tourism stays isolated. Ghettoized communities remain woven into the fabric of major cities around the world, each with their individual political, historical, and economic concerns that cannot be generalized. Similarly, the motivations behind the tourism inside them are as diverse as the tour participants themselves. For all participants involved, operators or guests, individual intentions matter most.

The Baseco neighborhood is located on the Pasig river near the city port, but lacks access to clean drinking water.

Better connections between cities allow more people to travel than ever before, with numbers of international tourists growing quickly every year. While prosperity and quality of life have increased in many cities, so has inequality. As travelers increasingly seek unique experiences that promise authentic experiences in previously off-limits places, access through tours helps put some areas on the map.

Travel connects people that would otherwise not meet, then provides potential to share meaningful stories with others back home. Dr. Fabian Frenzel, who studies tourism of urban poverty at the University of Leicester, points out that one of the key disadvantages of poverty is a lack of recognition and voice. “If you want to tell a story, you need an audience, and tourism provides that audience.” Frenzel argues that even taking the most commodifying tour is better than ignoring that inequality completely.

For the long-term future of these communities, the complex economic, legal, and political issues must be addressed holistically by reorganizing the distribution of resources. While illuminating the issue on a small scale, slum tourism is not a sufficient answer to a growing global problem.

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Inside the Very Real World of 'Slum Tourism'

Hurricane Katrina left physical and emotional scars on New Orleans, and America, but nowhere was its impact more devastating than the city’s Lower Ninth Ward. Three years after the storm, in October 2008, the district was still pockmarked with half-demolished homes and patches of overgrown grass. It was also dotted with artworks, site-specific installations by the likes of Wangechi Mutu and her Ms Sarah House . Those works formed part of the city’s inaugural art biennial, Prospect New Orleans , bringing tourists to drive and wander through the area in droves. But visitors were caught in an uncomfortable paradox, their art viewing underpinned by the backdrop of one of America’s poorest neighborhoods—or what was left of it.

Locals stood by as various VIPs peered at Mutu’s work. When one of the arterati mustered up courage enough to ask if she minded the influx of gawkers, she shrugged and dodged the question. “It’s nice to have the art here, because it means people are coming to see more than just our ruined homes.” Not everyone reacted to the incomers with such neutrality, though—take one hand-painted sign erected in the neighborhood post-Katrina, that read:

TOURIST Shame On You Driving BY without stopping Paying to see my pain 1,600+ DIED HERE

Both reactions are understandable, and spotlight the uneasy distinction locals in the area might have drawn between being viewed rather than feeling seen. Is it wrong, though, to go beyond the sightseeing mainstays of somewhere like the French Quarter and into a corner of the city that might be blighted or underprivileged as these visitors did? It’s an awkward, but intriguing, question, and one that underpins a nascent niche in travel. It has been nicknamed ‘slum tourism,’ though it’s a broad umbrella term travel that involves visiting underprivileged areas in well-trafficked destinations. Such experiences are complex, since they can seem simultaneously important (bringing much-needed revenues, educating visitors first hand) and inappropriate (a gesture of misunderstanding fitting for a modern-day Marie Antoinette).

Indeed, even those who operate in the field seem to struggle to reconcile those divergent urges. Researching this story, there was resistance, suspicion, and even outright hostility from seasoned slum tourism vets. Deepa Krishnan runs Mumbai Magic , which specializes in tours around the city, home to what’s estimated as Asia’s largest slum; here, about a million people live in ad hoc homes a few miles from Bollywood’s glitz (it’s now best known as home to the hero of Slumdog Millionaire ). "The Spirit of Dharavi" tour takes in this settlement, a two-hour glimpse into everyday life aiming to show that the squalor for which it’s become shorthand is only part of Dharavi story. It’s also a hub of recycling, for example, and home to women’s co-op for papadum-making. Organized as a community project, rather than on a commercial basis, all profits are ploughed back into Dharavi. Yet pressed to talk by phone rather than email, Deepa balked. “I’ve been misquoted too often,” she said.

The organizer of another alt-tourism operation was even more reluctant, and asked not to be quoted, or included here, at all. Its superb premise—the formerly homeless act as guides to help visitors see and understand overlooked corners of a well-trafficked city—seemed smartly to upend tradition. Rather than isolating ‘the other,’ it shows the interconnectedness of so much in a modern city. The fact that both of these firms, whose businesses fall squarely into such non-traditional tours, are so squeamish about the topic is instructive—and reassuring for the rest of us when we’re conflicted about whether or not it’s ethical to treat deprivation as a distraction.

Call it poorism, misery tourism, poverty tourism—it still smacks of exploitation.

The contemporary concept of slum tourism dates back about 30 years, according to Ko Koens, Ph.D., a Dutch academic who specializes in this field and runs slumtourism.net . The South African government began bussing municipal workers into townships like Soweto in the 1980s, he explains, intending to educate them on no-go areas within their fiefdom. “International tourists, mostly activists, who wanted to show their support [for township-dwellers] started doing these tours, too. And after apartheid ended, the operators who were running them for the government realized they could do them commercially.” (It’s now a vital part of the country’s tourism economy, with some estimates that one in four visitors to the country book a Township Tour. )

Simultaneously, tourists were beginning to explore the slums or favelas of Rio de Janeiro. These are the shantytowns that six percent of Brazil’s population calls home. Bolted to the steep hills overlooking the waterfront mansions where wealthy Cariocas chose to live, these higgledy piggledy shacks perch precariously, as if jumbled in the aftermath of an earthquake. From here, the idea of slum tourism began spreading across the world, from Nairobi to the Dominican Republic, and of course, India. Mumbai Magic isn’t alone in operating tours of Bombay’s Dharavi slums—there are countless tours available of areas that now rival the Marine Drive or the Gateway of India as local attractions.

Yet though it’s a thriving new niche, many travelers remain squeamish about the idea. In part, of course, it’s thanks to the words "slum tourism," yet none of the alternatives seem any less confrontational. Call it poorism, misery tourism, poverty tourism—it still smacks of exploitation. There are also safety concerns, too: After all, Brazil supplied almost half the entries in a recent list of the world’s 50 most dangerous cities , not to mention that the world’s latest health crisis is headquartered in the stagnant waters on which the favela residents rely. The sense of being an interloper, or that such deprivation is Disneyfied into a showcase solely for visitors, is an additional factor—especially when spoofish ideas like Emoya’s Shanty Town hotel , a faux South African slum that offsets discomforts like outdoor toilets with underfloor heating and Wi-Fi, turn out not to be Saturday Night Live skits.

Muddled motivations add to the discomfort; one in-depth study found it was pure curiosity, rather than education, say, or self-actualization, that drove most visitors to book a trip around the Dharavi slums. One first-hand account by a Kenyan who went from the slums of Nairobi to studying at Wesleyan University underlines those awkward findings. “I was 16 when I first saw a slum tour. I was outside my 100-square-foot house washing dishes… “ he wrote. “Suddenly a white woman was taking my picture. I felt like a tiger in a cage. Before I could say anything, she had moved on.” He makes one rule of any such trips all too clear: If you undertake any such tours, focus on memories rather than Instagram posts.

Suddenly a white woman was taking my picture. I felt like a tiger in a cage.

The biggest challenge, though, is the lack of accreditation. It's still a frustratingly opaque process, to gauge how profits made will directly improve conditions in that slum, admits Tony Carne, who runs Urban Adventures , a division of socially conscious firm Intrepid Travel. His firm is a moderated marketplace for independent guides—much like an Etsy for travel—and offers a wide range of slum tours around the world. Carne supports some form of regulation to help reassure would-be clients of a slum tour’s ethical credentials. “The entire integrity of our business is sitting on this being the right thing to do,” he says, though he also predicts a shift in the business, likely to make such regulation unnecessary. Many charities have begun suggesting these slum tours to donors keen to see how and where their money is used, outsourced versions of the visits long available to institutional donors. He is already in to co-brand slum tours with several major nonprofits, including Action Aid via its Safe Cities program; Carne hopes that such partnerships will reassure travelers queasy about such tours’ ethics and finances. “Everyone from the U.N. down has said poverty alleviation through tourism can only be a reality if someone does something,” he says. “It will not solve itself by committee. It will solve itself by action.”

Carne’s theory was echoed by my colleague Laura Dannen Redman, who visited the Philippi township in Cape Town under the aegis of a local nonprofit. It was a private tour, but the group hopes to increase awareness to bolster the settlement’s infrastructure. She still vividly recalls what she saw, half a year later. “The homes were corrugated iron, but tidy, exuding a sense of pride with clean curtains in the windows. But there was this one open gutter I can't forget. The water was tinged green, littered with what looked like weeks’ worth of garbage—plastic wrappers and bottles and other detritus. It backed the neighborhood like a gangrenous moat," she says. "They deserve better. It does feel disingenuous, shameful, even if you’re there to learn and want to help. But the end result was motivating. We did feel called to action, to pay more attention to the plight of so many South Africans.” In the end, perhaps, it isn’t what we call it, or even why we do it that matters—it’s whether the slum tourism experience inspires us to try to make a change.

Slum tourism: What is it and how does it work?

Slum tourism is, believe it or not, a real type of tourism . Yep, you got that right- people go to slums whilst on holiday. But, why? In this article I will introduce you to the concept of slum tourism and tell you what it’s all about. Interested to learn more? Read on…

What is slum tourism?

Slum tourism definitions, what is white saviour syndrome, what does a slum tour involve, positive impacts of slum tourism, negative impacts of slum tourism, the ethics of slum tourism, slum tourism in south africa, slum tourism in brazil, slum tourism in india, slum tourism in indonesia, slum tourism in africa, slum tourism: conclusion, further reading.

Slum tourism is essentially when people visit slums – or, more widely, poverty stricken areas – as a form of tourism. This will generally be in a foreign country, one they are visiting as a tourist on holiday or on a business trip. It has also been referred to as ghetto tourism and poverty tourism.

In ‘ Theorizing Slum Tourism ’, researchers Eveline Dürr and Rivke Jaffe described slum tourism as follows: 

‘ Slum tourism involves transforming poverty, squalor and violence into a tourism product. Drawing on both altruism and voyeurism, this form of tourism is a complex phenomenon that raises various questions concerning power, inequality and subjectivity. ‘

While this describes slum tourism, it doesn’t necessarily define what it actually is. Bob Ma of the University of Pennsylvania says this:

‘ Slum tourism is one of the fastest-growing niche tourism segments in the world, but it is also one of the most controversial. The United Nations defines a slum as, “a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security” (UN, 2007). Slum tourism is the organization of tours in these areas. As a niche segment, slum tourism is distinguished from developmental tourism, which is a broader term that includes tourism in any region that is undergoing development. ‘

Slum tourism as charity tourism

Some people engage in charity tourism – visiting slums or areas of high poverty with the intention of ‘making things better’. This is also sometimes called volunteer tourism . You can see this on Children In Need in the UK, for example, where we see videos of people heading to various underdeveloped areas of Africa to build schools or install wells for fresh water access etc. You can pay (a lot of) money to do this yourself through various organisations.

People do this as it is within human nature to want to help people who have less than we do. But it is also, of course, a chance to see somewhere new and explore a different culture . It can also be a great way to boost your CV. This means that taking part in slum tourism isn’t a purely selfless act, and this is why it can sometimes be frowned upon.

Studies show that slum tourism can have negative impacts on local communities – the use of unskilled labour, for example, and the taking of jobs that could ultimately have gone to local people. There is also usually no long term commitment involved, and of course there is the concept of white saviour syndrome.

The following extract comes from De-constructing the ‘White Saviour Syndrome’: A Manifestation of Neo-Imperialism by Felix Willuweit:

‘With the recent widespread of protests for black civil rights and against racism across the Western world, the topic of white prejudice has risen to the centre of public attention, of which one manifestation is the so-called ‘White Saviour Syndrome’.   Whether it is Ed Sheeran posing for ‘Comic Relief’ with a number of black children (Hinsliff, 2019), Madonna adopting children from Malawi (Hinsliff, 2019), or students going on adventures advertised for ‘young philanthropists’ within a multi-million dollar gap-year industry (Bandyopadhyay, 2019), numerous cases of altruistic acts of ‘White Saviours’ can be found throughout popular culture in the global North.’

Whereas these practices follow an altruistic narrative, they are commonly criticised as serving to satisfy a ‘White Saviour Syndrome’, the phenomenon in which a white person “guides people of colour from the margins to the mainstream with his or her own initiative and benevolence” which tends to render the people of colour “incapable of helping themselves” and disposes them of historical agency (Cammarota, 2011: 243-244).

So what does slum tourism involve? Many tour operators offer literal ‘slum tours’ as part of their packages, and of course you can visit slum areas alone as they are just parts of various areas. AfricanTrails.co.uk, for example, have a page discussing slum tours and they state that some of their packages do offer slum visits in Kenya, Uganda, Namibia and more.

Reality Tours and Travel are another company offering slum tours. As the company name suggests, they hope to offer a ‘realistic’ side to the places tourists visit. Based in India , a country with a lot of poverty, their slogan is ‘USING TOURISM TO CHANGE LIVES’. They say: Our ethical and educational Dharavi slum tours give visitors a unique glimpse into everyday life for many Mumbaikars while breaking down the negative stereotypes associated with slums. 80% of the profits from every tour are invested back into the community through the programs of our NGO, Reality Gives , and most of our guides are from the community.

Slum tourism has some positives to it. It gives people an insight into how poverty can affect people – humans are curious by nature, and if you are not living in poverty yourself, or never have, then it can be hard to imagine what it is really like. Visiting a slum whilst on holiday is like opening a window to another life, however briefly. 

It is also a chance to provide an income to people living in slums, if the tour involves some sort of opportunity to purchase goods or donate money. And with some tours, as you can see from Reality Tours and Travel above, the booking cost goes into improving the community.

Of course, there are negatives impacts associated with slum tourism too. The main one is that it treats those who live in slums as though they are in a zoo, dehumanising them so tourists can see what it’s like before swanning off back to their hotel and other luxuries. Some would go so far as to argue that they are a form of ‘ human zoo ‘. These tours portray poverty as something exotic, rather than a very real danger to the lives of the people impacted by it. It is also questionable how far the money trickles down. With people paying for organised tours, how sure can we be that real people are accessing the money?

Looking at the pros and cons it is clear that there is an ethical question surrounding slum tourism . People who live in poverty and live in slums are real people. We need to ask ourselves whether it is fair for them to be paraded around in front of us as part of an organised tour that we are paying a company to go on.

Some questions we should ask ourselves when looking to engage in slum tourism, courtesy of slumtourism.net, are:

• To what extent does slum tourism provide an income and positive visibility for people in deprived areas? 
• Which stakeholders are involved in slum tourism and who profits most? 
• How are guided tours organised or composed?  
• What are the geographical scopes of slum-tourism and which place does it occupy in the new mobility system? 
• Where does slum tourism fit in a globalised world of tourist consumption?

It is similar to visiting remote tribes, in a way, just as I explain in my article about the long neck tribe in Thailand . Tourists coming in from outside to view life in a slum through a western lens for a few minutes… does this paint a fair picture of slums?

Slum tourism destinations

There are various places around the world where slum tourism is prevalent. Here are some examples-

Slum tourism exists across South Africa . Here it is also known as township tourism – in SA, townships are the underdeveloped urban areas, generally populated by people of colour as a fall out from the Apartheid era. Apparently, around 25% of visitors to Cape Town engage in township tours. This city alone has around 40-50 township tour operators.

Slum tourism in Brazil equates to ‘favela tours’. Favelas are slums or shanty towns built on the outskirts of major cities across Brazil, and many people visit them for tourist purposes while on holiday in this beautiful country. Favelas are known to be dangerous areas. They are rife with crime, violence and drug dealing, but thousands of tourists every month visit these areas with curiosity.

As mentioned above when I spoke about Reality Tours and Travel, India is a prime spot for slum tourism due to the high levels of poverty here. The film Slumdog Millionaire put Indian slums onto the screens of millions of people, many of whom became keen to see it for themselves on a trip to India. There are around 15,000 people visiting the Dharavi slum each year alone.

Jakarta is home to a slum where families of 5 squeeze into ‘houses’ no bigger than the average western bathroom. They survive on pennies, and welcome tourists into their homes to see what it is like. Jakarta Hidden Tours is run by Ronnie. He’s a charity worker who donates half of his profits to the local community in an attempt to improve their lives.

Across Africa there are poor and underdeveloped communities. Slums tend to exist in Kenya and Uganda, for the most part. AfricanTrails say:

Going on an Africa slum tour is a great way to see what life is like for the majority of residents in a specific African town or city. Visitors can see how people live and the work they carry out in order to provide for their families. Slum tours are not purely filled with misery, the towns often have vibrant communities with shops, schools and market stalls.

I t is easy to forget that there are people living in these conditions, as it is not something you see every day, so for many, Africa slum tours are a real eye-opening experience. Visitors leave the area with the intention of donating to charities, helping those living in these places. Slum tours give the chance for tourists to interact with others from different backgrounds and see the true beauty of Africa and its people.

To conclude, slum tourism occurs around the world, and has done since Victorian times in England. Back then, the aristocracy would visit the capital’s poorest areas for voyeuristic and/or philanthropic purposes. And still it continues. People are, of course, eager to see another way of life. Often they believe that they are helping, and visiting people at their lowest can be a great way to remind you that really, you don’t have it all that bad. The ethics are questionable, but there are definitely ways you can visit a slum without it being a negative thing.

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More From Forbes

Slum tourism: how it began, the impact it has, and why it became so popular.

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Looking for something different than the usually dose of museums, beach resorts, and restaurants, many foreign tourists are now turning to places that may at first seem to be the antithesis of the typical vacation destination: slums. Far from being viewed as off-limits, no-go-zones that outsiders would be wise to avoid, some slum-like areas in cities like Mumbai, Johannesburg, and Rio de Janeiro have now become bonafide tourist attractions, bringing in tens and even hundreds of thousands of curious visitors each year.

This photo taken on March 19, 2015 shows an Indian man bathing in an open area at Dharavi in Mumbai. ... [+] (PUNIT PARANJPE/AFP/Getty Images)

A brief history of slum tourism

Whether called a township, a favela, a barrio, a slum, a shantytown, or a ghetto, outsiders recreationally visiting these typically impoverished places is nothing new. There are records of middle and upper class Londoners heading over to the East End to gawk at the poor in the 19th century, which grew in such popularity that the colloquial term for this endeavor — “slumming” — was included in the 1884 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Meanwhile, curious visitors began venturing into the Lower East Side of Manhattan. More recently, following the global attention paid to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, many tourist began traveling to see the places where this struggle first arose, as “slum tourism” developed into a formalized commercial offering.

Today, slum tourism has grown into a legitimate global industry, bringing in over a million tourists per year. Tour operators are now offering visits to places like the townships of Cape Town and Johannesburg, the favelas of Rio, the slums of Mumbai and New Delhi, or even the skid rows of LA, Detroit, Copenhagen, and Berlin.

SALVADOR, BRAZIL- FEBRUARY 8: Hundreds of thousands of Afro-Brazilians live in flavelas like this ... [+] one on the edge of Salvador, Brazil February 8, 2005. (Photo by David Turnley/Getty Images)

Why visit a slum?

“For me, there were many factors that initially drew me to visiting what locals refereed to as “slum areas,” said David Ways, a travel writer at TLWH who often visits disadvantaged urban areas around the world, although never as a part of a formal tour. “I enjoy urban exploration, was researching the topic of the homeless in developing countries, and I found the contrasts of the wealthy urbanites living next to “slums” curious.”

However, Ways was quick to qualify what he meant by curiosity: “This curiosity is not about ‘how do they live’ but more about their life stories and oftentimes the discrimination they face from local governments and from those with permanent housing.”

This interest in social issues and concern for the general human condition was one of the main motivations for slum visits that was identified by Fabian Frenzel, a professor at the University of Leicester and author of the definitive book on the topic, Slumming It: The Tourist Valorization of Urban Poverty .

“In slum tourism, what I find clearly is that people are interested in this fact of inequality," Frenzel said. "Whatever you can say about it otherwise, the tourists will have some interest to deal with this question of inequality in the cities or the places they visit.”

However, there is another, perhaps more fundamental, attraction of visiting some slum-like areas. Frenzel pointed out that the initial rise in interest in local slums in New York and London coincided with the advent of a new technology: photography. Seeing images of some of these areas provoke the desire in many outsiders to go and see them for themselves.

This sentiment has been continuously amplified over time as more and more visuals of the human condition around the world become more readily available.

“So instead of just consuming these pictures at home and then trying to do something there, people are increasingly trying to follow those images back to their source, trying to see for themselves,” Frenzel explained. “Every mediated picture seems to create more desire to actually see for yourself.”

Two Indian boys walk in a back alley in the recycling district of Mumbai's Dharavi slum on December ... [+] 12, 2012. (ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)

According to tour operators, the effect of that the film Slumdog Millionaire had on attracting visitors to Mumbai’s Dharavi slum has been massive. Although the tours existed long before the movie, the film increased their popularity and became a reference point for what people expected to see there.

“Then you have people using media themselves, as they write about travel, as they rate places, generating these places by electronic word of mouth,” Frenzel explained. “An attraction can be made simply by people referring to it on TripAdvisor.”

What actually happens on slum tours?

“What you see is life, urban life,” Frenzel said. “Which of course is complicated, limited in some ways. Often there is clear evidence of neglect, when sewage or rubbish or all these basic services of a city don't really function. But at the same it's often very lively, vibrant.”

Most slum tours will usually consist of visits to various project sites, where NGOs or similar organizations are working in the community -- places like schools, educational centers, projects like a bathroom that composts feces to produce gas for cooking, and, of course, orphanages. Often, these sites are chosen to show tourists what’s being done to better the community, and sometimes include suggestions as to how they can lend their support, if they so choose.

One of the major impacts of slum tourism is the change of perception they often facilitate.

“You might have certain ideas about Dharavi, maybe from Slumdog Millionaire , but we show you a very different side,” Frenzel said. “We show you how this is a place of business, how people work, how people make small but very successful businesses, how there's a variety of aspects here. That . . . is the classical, educational aspect of tourism.”

A French family looking at Rocinha, one of the 752 'favelas' (shantytowns) in Rio de Janeiro, ... [+] Brazil, 17 July 2007 during a visit called 'Favela-Tour'. (M.CHARGEL/AFP/Getty Images)

The local reaction?

What about what the local people in slum areas think of groups of relatively moneyed tourists from countries far away suddenly showing up and poking about?

“My sense has always been that there's more or less a curiosity, surprise, maybe a sense of puzzlement,” Frenzel said. “I remember walking through a neighborhood in Mumbai with a fairly large group of tourists and the people were like ‘Why are you here? This is not the Gate of India.’ Sometimes you find hostility. I think it's particular when people feel you've stepped onto their toes. That's like a phenomenon you find with tourism everywhere, though.”

The University of Pennsylvania study found that “ambivalence” was the most common reaction in Dharavi.

While David Ways has found that even people living within slum areas often repeat the same, common warnings:

“No matter what “slum” I've visited there's always been a concerned citizen warning me away from that area for genuine fear of my wallet or life. Strangely, this happens inside the “slums” too. In Sabah, Malaysia, for example, a nice Indonesian man warned me to stay away from the Filipino community there, the Pakistani shop keeper told me to avoid the Indonesian areas, and the Filipinos told me to avoid everyone. In all cases, I've never had any criminal issues other than a few bored youths whom I usually try to avoid anywhere in the world.

The controversy

As slum tourism grows in popularity it has become an increasingly polarizing and controversial topic.

“Slum tourism is happening,” Frenzel began, “people are actually going on three hour tours in flavelas, then many more politically inclined travelers would say ‘That's horrible, how can you do this? Obviously that's voyeuristic,’ and so on. [But] if you decide to do this you are at least showing some interest in the fact that there's inequality, and that is something that, fundamentally, is a good thing in comparison with people who go to Rio and say, 'I will not look at this,' even though it's clearly there.”

What is the real impact?

As far as who makes the money from these tours, Ways claims that, “Tour operators promise they give money to the people there but in comparison to what they themselves are earning, it's a pittance.” Frenzel concurred that the direct economic stimulation in the communities from these tours is negligible.

“What adds to that is that these tours are often combined with some notion of charity. So the tour operator will say some of the money you give us will flow into a project here in the neighborhood, or we'll do this, or we'll do that with some of your money. Or we employ local guides," Frenzel explained. "[But] so very little of the money that is spent on these tours actually ends up in the places being visited.”

However, there is another, potentially much larger, impact of slum tourism: connectivity. Tourists going into urban areas that are often regarded as no-go zones, as places that are conceptually severed off from the rest of the city, drives home the fact that these areas exist, that they serve a function, that there is something of value there that shouldn’t be ignored. In other words, it can put them on the map.

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - JUNE 25: Tourists were parking in an area where homes once stood. The ... [+] favela has seen many homes leveled ahead of the World Cup. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images,)

“So I think when you look at the details you can tell some of these stories of how the tourists entering these spaces kind of creates connectivity and maybe new opportunities for setting up little businesses or maybe a whole new level of connectivity,” Frenzel posited.

Frenzel explained how this has been especially evident in Rio, where tourists have blazed trails into previously taboo areas, which subsequently opened them up for better-off expats and locals, facilitating cross-class encounters to a new extent.

“It does enable getting out of the rigid value regime which says that an area basically doesn't exist, it's not really part of the city, don't go there, it doesn't matter,” Frenzel said. “I think it's a first step in recognizing these areas and you can build on it, hopefully. . . I think that's where tourism can come in helpful, in making that connection.”

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Slumming it: how tourism is putting the world’s poorest places on the map

Lecturer in the Political Economy of Organisation, University of Leicester

Disclosure statement

From 2012-2014 Fabian Frenzel was a Marie-Curie Fellow and has received funding from the European Union to conduct his research on slum tourism.

University of Leicester provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

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Back in Victorian times, wealthier citizens could sometimes be found wandering among London’s poorer, informal neighbourhoods, distributing charity to the needy. “Slumming” – as it was called – was later dismissed as a morally dubious and voyeuristic pastime. Today, it’s making a comeback; wealthy Westerners are once more making forays into slums – and this time, they’re venturing right across the developing world.

According to estimates by tour operators and researchers , over one million tourists visited a township, favela or slum somewhere in the world in 2014. Most of these visits were made as part of three or four-hour tours in the hotspots of global slum tourism; major cities and towns in Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro and Mumbai.

There is reason to think that slum tourism is even more common than these numbers suggest. Consider the thousands of international volunteers, who spend anything from a few days to several months in different slums across the world.

The gap year has become a rite of passage for young adults between school and university and, in the UK, volunteering and travel opportunities are often brokered by commercial tourism operators. In Germany and the US, state sponsored programs exist to funnel young people into volunteering jobs abroad.

International volunteering is no longer restricted to young people at specific points in their lives. Volunteers today are recruited across a wide range of age groups . Other travellers can be considered slum-tourists: from international activists seeking cross-class encounters to advance global justice, to students and researchers of slums and urban development conducting fieldwork in poor neighbourhoods.

Much modern tourism leads richer people to encounter relatively poorer people and places. But in the diverse practices of slum tourism, this is an intentional and explicit goal: poverty becomes the attraction – it is the reason to go.

Many people will instinctively think that this kind of travel is morally problematic, if not downright wrong. But is it really any better to travel to a country such as India and ignore its huge inequalities?

Mapping inequality

It goes without saying that ours is a world of deep and rigid inequalities. Despite some progress in the battles against absolute poverty, inequality is on the rise globally . Few people will openly disagree that something needs to be done about this – but the question is how? Slum tourism should be read as an attempt to address this question. So, rather than dismissing it outright, we should hold this kind of tourism to account and ask; does it help to reduce global inequality?

My investigation into slum tourism provided some surprising answers to this question. We tend to think of tourism primarily as an economic transaction. But slum tourism actually does very little to directly channel money into slums: this is because the overall numbers of slum tourists and the amount of money they end up spending when visiting slums is insignificant compared with with the resources needed to address global inequality.

But in terms of symbolic value, even small numbers of slum tourists can sometimes significantly alter the dominant perceptions of a place. In Mumbai, 20,000 tourists annually visit the informal neighbourhood of Dharavi , which was featured in Slumdog Millionaire. Visitor numbers there now rival Elephanta Island in Mumbai – a world heritage site.

Likewise, in Johannesburg, most locals consider the inner-city neighbourhood of Hillbrow to be off limits. But tourists rate walking tours of the area so highly that the neighbourhood now features as one of the top attractions of the city on platforms such as Trip Advisor . Tourists’ interest in Rio’s favelas has put them on the map; before, they used to be hidden by city authorities and local elites .

Raising visibility

Despite the global anti-poverty rhetoric, it is clear that today’s widespread poverty does benefit some people. From their perspective, the best way of dealing with poverty is to make it invisible. Invisibility means that residents of poor neighbourhoods find it difficult to make political claims for decent housing, urban infrastructure and welfare. They are available as cheap labour, but deprived of full social and political rights.

Slum tourism has the power to increase the visibility of poor neighbourhoods, which can in turn give residents more social and political recognition. Visibility can’t fix everything, of course. It can be highly selective and misleading, dark and voyeuristic or overly positive while glossing over real problems. This isn’t just true of slum tourism; it can also be seen in the domain of “virtual slumming” – the consumption of images, films and books about slums.

Yet slum tourism has a key advantage over “virtual slumming”: it can actually bring people together. If we want tourism to address global inequality, we should look for where it enables cross-class encounters; where it encourages tourists to support local struggles for recognition and build the connections that can help form global grassroots movements. To live up to this potential, we need to reconsider what is meant by tourism, and rethink what it means to be tourists.

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Slumming It At Dharavi: What Are Our Intentions With Slum Tourism?

With cities like Mumbai, Johannesburg, and Rio de Janeiro now becoming bonafide tourist attractions, bringing in hundreds and thousands of curious visitors each year, Slum Tourism has also seen a rise in popularity. It takes outsiders through the most impoverished, marginalised districts of the city to get a glimpse of the city’s inequality. 

Filled with hundreds of shanty towns lined by the riverbanks, train tracks, and garbage dumps, “Slumming” has become the key to capturing the attention of the wanderlust, experiential, thrill-seeking traveller. Spending time at a slum through one’s own curiosity or for the charitable purpose of pro-poor tourism, there are benefits and detriments. 

Slum tourism does spark a considerable debate around an uncomfortable moral dilemma. Is the practice in line with privileged people gawking at those less fortunate or do they raise awareness and provide numerous examples of giving back to the local communities? Yet to further look into this travel practice, we need to set out the basics of the same.

Slum Tourism, Poverty Tourism, Ghetto Tourism or Reality Tours Defined:

Slum Tourism also known as Poverty tourism or ghetto tourism is a type of city tourism that involves visiting impoverished areas. Originally focused on the slums and ghettos of London and Manhattan in the 19th Century, Slum tourism is now prominent in South Africa, India, Brazil, Poland, Kenya, Philippines and the United States. Whether called a township, favela, a barrio, a slum, a shantytown, or a ghetto, outsiders recreationally visiting these typically impoverished places is nothing new.  

What began in the mid-80s, ‘Slumming’ was first used in the Oxford English Dictionary, as people in London visited slum neighbourhoods such as Whitechapel or Shoreditch in order to observe life in this situation. In the 1980s, South African communities organised township tours to educate the whites in local governments on how the black population lived. Similarly, in the mid-1990s, international tours were organised with destinations in the most disadvantaged areas of developing nations, thus starting the trend of slum tourism, attracting thousands across the globe.  

Motivated by the ‘out of the ordinary’ experience , tourism is in itself the exploration and experience of the reality of a particular place. Therefore slum tourism actually returns to this practice, it allows the tourists to get a sense of real-life for the poorest communities, creating a path to development and poverty alleviation- funnelling tourists dollars into slums, or installing exploitative practices that enhance the western travellers need to ‘feel good’. 

Reality Check with Slum Tour and Travel.

A study in 2012 by the University of Pennsylvania showed that tourists in Mumbai’s Dharavi slum were motivated primarily by curiosity, as opposed to several competing push factors such as social comparison, entertainment, education, or self-actualization. The study also found that most slum residents were ambivalent about the tour, with interest and intrigue as the most commonly cited feelings. Take Reality Tour and Travel of Mumbai, India. Often ushered by this slum tour operator, tourists get to see a thriving recycling industry which employs around ten thousand people, to melt, reshape, and mould discarded plastic.

Also, followed by dhobi wallahs, or washermen in open-air laundry areas, tourists get to connect with locals for memorable cooking experiences, presenting the residents as productive and hardworking yet content and happy with their lifestyle and socio-economic status. However, Dr, Melissa Nisbett in her study of Slum Tourism found that the concept of poverty to these Dharavi visitors was practically invisible. She added:

“As the reviews show, poverty was ignored, denied, overlooked and romanticized, but moreover, it is depoliticized. The tours decontextualized the plight of the poor and seem only to empower the wrong people- the privileged, western, middle-class visitors”. 

The primary accusation here is that slum tourism takes away the poverty from poverty tours, often turning hardship into entertainment- something that can be momentarily experienced and then escaped from. Yet the tours do provide employment and income for guides from the slum and an opportunity for craft-workers to sell souvenirs, allowing them to re-invest in the community and motivating tourists to help such economies. 

View this post on Instagram Join us in Kumbharwada and get hands-on with pottery making! Last week we had our inaugural Pottery Tour. Here's a sneak peek. #mumbai #bombay #kumbharwada #dharavi #slum #pottery #workshop #travel #travellove #travelworld #traveller #travelling #explore #wanderlust #neverstopexploring #incredibleindia #adventure #adventuretravel #indiatravel #passionpassport #exploreindia #travelbug #neverstoptravelling #india Picture @bunny_mayur A post shared by Reality Tours (@realityindia) on Jan 8, 2018 at 1:35am PST

Now Let Us Talk Numbers:

Considered to be one of the world’s largest slum, Dharavi in Mumbai, India is spread over 2.1 square kilometres (520 acres) with a population of somewhere between 700,000 to a million. With an active informal economy in which numerous household enterprises employ many of the slum residents- leather, textiles and pottery products are among the goods made inside Dharavi. The estimated total annual turnover for this informal economy is over USD 1 billion . 

An estimated 5000 businesses and 15,000 single-room factories operate in the area. The per capita income of the residents, depending on estimated population range of 300,000 to about 1 million , ranges somewhere between USD 500 to USD 2000 per year. The slums were also named by travel website TripAdvisor.com as the 2019 top visited experiences in India and also one of the 10 most favourite tourist sites in Asia. 

After being featured in award-winning films like Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire and much-appreciated Gully Boy, Dharavi has gained a lot of popularity, growing footfall in the area. Due to lack of data, one cannot determine the actual tread of visitors to the area. However, Reality has reportedly had about 15,000 visitors annually for the year 2016, with an expectation of the same growing further in the next 5 years. 

View this post on Instagram From #oxford to the slums of #slumdogmillionaire #dharavi #mumbai #india … only 9 of us were brave enough to try it ?? @oxfordsbs @oxford_uni A post shared by R U D I N A ? (@rudisuti) on Dec 4, 2019 at 10:30am PST

What About Your Intention? 

However, with tour operators trying to mitigate offence and give back to locals, the impact of slum tourism stays rather isolated. Fabian Frenzel, Author of the definitive book, Slumming It: The Tourist Valorization of Urban Poverty. , writes “ In slum tourism, what I find is that people are interested in this fact of inequality”.  Images of these areas create a sense of sentiment that amplifies over time as more and more visuals of the human condition around the world, especially within these slums surface. 

So, instead of consuming these images at home, people are increasingly trying to follow those images back to its origin, in order to “see it themselves” and then try and do something about it. According to the tour operator, the effect of such desire is massive. Take movies based around the areas. Slumdog Millionaire- an oscar winning movie that portrays the journey of two brothers in the slums of Mumbai to riches. Might it be a mere representation of the slums in its entirety, the actual essence of the “slum life” is something that creates this need to rate the place, see the place, feel the desperation of poverty?

View this post on Instagram #streetphotography #dharavi #oldhomes A post shared by bunny (@dharavi__17) on Dec 11, 2019 at 8:15am PST

“What you see is life, urban life”, as Frenzel puts it. Even though limited in many ways, might it be the lack of basic sanitation or all basic services of a city, there is a sense of vibrancy that has fantasised poverty. This is where the issue starts. Yes, the intention behind slum tourism itself is diverse in nature, but they all are pushed from a place of empathy, that adds personal value to the visitor rather than the actual settlement. It does help educate us about inequality in the world, but it takes away the poor in poverty by depoliticizing and romanticising life in slums. 

Is there something good that comes from ‘Slumming’. 

Regardless of your intention, slum tourism does open our eyes to inequality. It takes poverty and inequality and commodifies it in the sense of tours educating (might it even be a small group of people) about a global issue. While it might illuminate the issue on a small scale, slum tourism is not a sufficient answer to a growing global problem. 

But as Frenzel puts it “if you want to tell a story, you need an audience, and slum tourism provides that audience”.  

Yes, slum tourism can provide a way to challenge the stigma that represents slum life something dangerous. Take Reality Tours and Travels , for a mere INR 900 per person (USD 12.72), you can get a 2-hour eye-opening tour of ‘one of the largest slums in Asia’ and learn about the very vibrant life of Dharavi and its people. The best part, 80 per cent of the profit goes back into the slum to organise programs and run a community centre that houses many NGOs – including what Reality Tours gives to help better the conditions of the area.

Thus to conclude, what I would like to say is, yes slum tourism has many implications, but what matters is what your intentions are. Are you indulging in pro-poor tours to make yourself feel better? Or is it because you want to be educated about inequality and poverty?

Ask yourself this the next time you or someone you know goes on a slum tour.  

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Slum Tourism: What Is It, and Is It Okay?

Slum tourism, also sometimes referred to as "ghetto tourism," involves tourism to impoverished areas, particularly in India , Brazil, Kenya, and Indonesia. The purpose of slum tourism is to provide tourists the opportunity to see the “non-touristy” areas of a country or city.

While slum tourism has gained some international notoriety in recent years, it is not a new concept. In the mid-1800s, rich Londoners would travel to the squalid tenements of the East End. Early visits began under the guise of “charity,” but over the next few decades, the practice spread to the tenements of U.S. cities like New Yorkand Chicago . With demand, tour operators developed guides to tour these impoverished neighborhoods.

Slum tourism, or seeing how the other half lived, died off in the mid-1900s, but regained popularity in South Africa due to apartheid. This tourism, though, was driven by the oppressed Black South Africans who wanted the world to understand their plight. The success of the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" brought India’s poverty to the world’s attention and slum tourism expanded to cities like Dharavi , home to India’s largest slum.

Modern tourists want an authentic experience, not the white-washed tourist zones that were so popular in the 1980s. Slum tourism meets this desire, offering a look into the world beyond their personal experience.

Safety Concerns

Like it is in all areas of tourism, slum tourism can be safe, or not. When choosing a slum tour, guests should use due diligence to determine if a tour is licensed, has a good reputation on review sites and follows local guidelines.

For instance, Reality Tours and Travel , which was featured on PBS, takes 18,000 people on tours of Dharavi, India each year. The tours highlight the slum’s positives, such as its infrastructure of hospitals, banks and entertainment, and its negatives, such as the lack of housing space and bathrooms and mounds of garbage. The tour shows guests that not everyone has a middle-class home, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a vibrant life. Further, 80% of proceeds from the tours are pumped back into community improvement projects.

Unfortunately, other companies, taking on similar names and logos, offer “tours” that don’t showcase the positives and negatives but exploit the community. They don’t pump funds back into the community, either.

Because there is no standard for slum tour operators yet, tourists need to determine for themselves whether a particular tour company is acting as ethically and responsibly as it claims.

Brazil’s favelas , slum areas that are typically located on the outskirts of big cities like  São Paulo , draw 50,000 tourists each year. Rio de Janeiro has by far the most slum tours of any city in Brazil. Slum tourism of Brazil’s favelas is encouraged by the federal government. Tours provide an opportunity to understand that these hill communities are vibrant communities, not just drug-infested slums portrayed in movies. Trained tour guides drive tourists to the favela by van and then offer walking tours to highlight local entertainment, community centers, and even a meet with people who live there. Generally, photography is prohibited on slum tours preserving respect for the people who live there.

The government goals for touring favelas include:

• explaining the economy of a favela (employment, welfare, rental markets and more)
• highlighting the infrastructure of the favela (hospitals, shopping, banking, fashion, and entertainment)
• touring schools and community centers
• touring community projects
• interacting with the citizens and visits to their homes
• enjoying a meal at a local restaurant

While Brazil has carefully structured its program for slum tourism, concerns remain. Despite regulations and guidelines, some tourists take photos and share them on social media. Whether for shock value or in an effort to enlighten the world to the plight of people in slums, these photos can do more harm than good. Some tour operators, likewise, exploit tourists, claiming that their tours support local businesses without actually giving back to the community. Perhaps the greatest concern, though, is that when slum tourism goes wrong, real lives are impacted.

Responsible slum tourism depends on government guidelines, ethical tour operators, and considerate tourists. When these come together, tourists can have  safe travel experiences, gain a wider worldview and communities can benefit.​

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Slum and Pro-Poor Tourism

Slum tourism is becoming increasingly popular amongst international travel visitors, but is it an ethical or socially acceptable travel experience many would argue no. here is some background on the controversial travel trend..

Posted on : 2020-02-05 09:43:22

Slum tourism: what is it?

The United Nations defines a slum as a ‘run down area of a city characterised by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security’.

The popularity of slum tourism has rapidly increased in recent years, with slums around the world seeing millions of visitors each year. While slum tourism is nothing new, it’s grown into a legitimate global industry. Tour operators now promote visits to places like the favelas of Rio, the barrios of Medellín, the townships of Cape Town and Johannesburg, the sprawling slums of Mumbai and New Delhi, and even the skid row areas of Detroit, LA and Berlin. A slum tour may contain a variety of components, from visits to schools, community projects and orphanages, to a jaunt around a local market. Some tours may even include a cookery lesson at an inhabitants home. Much of the time, a slum tour will focus on sites that show betterment to the community and include suggestions on how you can lend your support. Slums are often known as being vibrant and hectic areas, rife with small businesses and trade. Many tours will capitalise on these aspects, presenting a slum as an area of development and urban life. Slum tourism has the potential to be a contributor to economic and social growth in local communities. However, it’s often difficult to judge whether this type of tourism truly benefits impoverished areas. Who truly makes money from these tours? How do local people feel about moneyed tourists coming into their communities? These are key question that need considering.

Why is it so popular?

Post-Conflict

Post conflict, or ‘phoenix’ tourism, is tourism that takes place in a country after political unrest, war, or damaging weather events. Often, after a major conflict, policy makers will look for ways to rebuild the economy. One way this has been done is by development of tourism in poorer areas, including undocumented tours, small business enterprise development and simple accommodation startups.

An example of this can be seen in post-war Rwanda. Despite having a violent past, the country is known for its beautiful national parks and diverse wildlife. After the civil war ended, the government made a commitment to developing tourism within the country. They began utilising natural resources and provided wildlife tours, as well as opening hotels and accommodation in poorer areas. They implemented policies that improved the business environment and involved private sector investments and local guides. Small private tour operator – New Dawn Associates (NDA) established tours of Mayange village (part of the UN Millennium Villages project) and, Kigali’s poorer suburb. Both tours ensure that a fixed percentage of the benefits goes into a Community Development Fund and focus on sharing the country’s developmental challenges. This was successful because the government viewed tourism as an instrument to reduce poverty by directly involving local communities.

What are the benefits?

Economic benefits.

While controversial, there are many potential economic benefits to slum tourism. Increased foot traffic in communities where people make a living selling traditional crafts helps them to see a higher profit. In the Dhavari Slum, much of Mumbai’s waste paper and plastic is recycled to support the craft industries, and tourists are encouraged to buy local wares. When locals are directly involved in the tours being given, it provides them with a source of income and security. Some tour operators contribute profits directly into the slums as well. However, in comparison to what they are earning themselves, it may only be a very small fraction. This unfair distribution of profit means that some marginalised communities may never see the benefits of tourism in the area they call home.

Another matter of contention is that often slum tours are heavily associated with charity. Many operators will promote tours as a means of local development, promising that an excerpt of the money you give will end up going to community projects or local guides. Even so, it is doubtful that the money actually ends up in these places and if it does, it may not be a lot.

Increased Local Development

In 2018, over 1 billion people lived in slums or informal settlements (UN). Many of these areas have become infamous for being unsafe or having a reputation for crime, much like Medellín, Columbia or the ‘a murder capital’ as it was once called. Some might say that by visiting these slums, it helps to promote awareness and puts more marginalised communities on the map. It could increase local development and social mobility. But some would say these visits overly-romanticise and trivialise slums; places where there is overburdened infrastructure, poor sanitation, unplanned urbanisation and lack of access to clean water and waste services.

Often it is the case that many tourists feel uncomfortable ‘touring’ around somebody else’s home or neighborhood, especially when the dynamics of wealth and power are severely imbalanced.

Questions to ask

If you do want to visit a slum it is worth asking yourself some hard questions:

Who runs the slum tour?

Is it run by an external company?

Are they in partnership with those who live in the slum?

Do they have permission to be there?

Does the local community benefit?

The issue of slum tourism remains controversial, despite valid arguments on both sides. Ultimately, the only way for slum tourism to be ethical is if it directly involves and benefits the people living in these communities, and is for the purpose of education and acceptance, not only monetary gain.

What Is Slum Tourism?

By: Author The Drivin' & Vibin' Team

Posted on January 24, 2023

Wandering off into the unknown places of the world sounds like quite an exhilarating adventure for many people. And it should be. A trek across Antarctica, a Tasmanian expedition, even a Mongolian Shaman tour — many people seek this type of travel instead of a trip to Paris or London.

It’s understandable that people are seeking different vacation experiences, but should slum tourism be the same? An off-the-beaten-path adventure? What exactly is slum tourism?

 If you’ve never heard of this term, it’s time to learn more because it could be the next big thing for tourists, and that might not be good at all.

What Is a Slum?

A slum got its name in London in the early 1800s as an area of ill-repute. The United Nations has long since redefined slums as “a contiguous settlement where the inhabitants are characterized as having inadequate housing and basic services.” 

In some of the world’s largest slums, you’ll find deplorable conditions. These areas lack waste management and running water. Many places even have sewage running down the streets.

The people have limited, if any, electricity; tin roofs and walls balanced precariously against each other, offering very little privacy. You’ll often find no formal toilets and no land or house titles. 

Additionally, the people here have limited access to healthcare, schools, and almost everything many of us take for granted.

These areas are also not deemed a part of a city, resulting in continued decay and a lack of basic services. And with millions of people residing in slums across the globe, slums are in fact, cities.

Three of some of the largest slums in the world include Orangi Town in Karachi, Pakistan, with 2.4 million inhabitants, and Neza, Mexico, with 1.2 million persons. Third, we have the Dharavi slum in Mumbai, India, with 1 million residents. 

Additionally, Khayelitsha in Cape Town, South Africa, has 400,000 residents, and Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya, with 700,000 people.

According to Habitat for Humanity, low estimates report that around 900 million people live in slums worldwide.

It’s easy to think that anything with the word tourism in it equates to a vacation — one filled with adventure and excitement. And slum tourism might be that way, too, just not quite how you may envision it.

Slum tourism at the very heart of those two words is exactly what it sounds like — tourists visiting slums. This growing trend involves traveling to these impoverished areas. 

Slum tours typically focus on the stark realities of living in such areas with little access to basic amenities, such as housing and sanitation. 

However, some argue that slums can also offer cultural vibrancy. After all, slums are home to many local businesses, such as banks, hospitals, and entertainment venues. 

Slum tourists need to approach this in a dignified manner by viewing these areas through the lens of what makes them unique instead of being judgmental about other people’s lives and poverty.

Why Is There Slum Tourism? 

And maybe that is why there is slum tourism. If done ethically and with integrity, traveling to a slum to visit a different place can allow people to see what life is like outside of their own. 

Slum tourism has become increasingly popular as a form of unconventional tourism, providing those interested with an often very real view into the conditions experienced by poorer populations in developing nations. 

This type of tourism can prompt people to open their eyes and become more aware of social inequalities around the world. And it can educate individuals about economic hardship and encourage reflection and conversations about poverty. 

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How Did Slum Tourism Begin?

An article published by National Geographic helps explain the origin of slum tourism. Beginning around the mid-1800s in East London, wealthy citizens gave the impression that they were visiting struggling neighborhoods for charitable work. Instead, they just wanted to see what life was like “on the other side of the tracks.” 

Spreading to cities outside of England, this became a regular practice for tour operators to bring tourists into poverty-stricken neighborhoods so people could experience the “real” side of cities such as New York, Chicago, and even San Francisco.

Not wanting to disappoint the tourists, some groups even went so far as to hire paid actors to act as though they were drug addicts or gang members. They didn’t want the tourists to feel disappointed if they didn’t experience the expected poverty-stricken activities.

Slum tourism dissipated during the mid-1990s until it became popular again in South Africa due to apartheid. Communities chose to share their neighborhoods in hopes of creating increased awareness of the effects the apartheid had on them. 

In this way, they took control, telling their own stories, and helping to promote education and service instead of gawking and possible exploitation.

Since then, slum tourism has flourished, with many charities that claim to assist. However, many don’t provide what the residents need or want or keep more for themselves.

Are There Any Benefits to Slum Tourism? 

This type of tourism can provide an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of different cultures and lifestyles in ways going beyond just visiting tourist hotspots. 

It can open people’s eyes to real issues like poverty and bring awareness worldwide. 

Perhaps most importantly, slum tourism can provide funds that could manifest as job opportunities, businesses, and resources for those living within the slums, helping them to improve their lives.

Therefore, we don’t want to write off slum tourism completely. With proper guidelines and research ahead of time, it can benefit those seeking an understanding of unfamiliar living conditions.

What Are the Impacts of Slum Tourism?

The trend of slum tourism has grown in recent years, but many people debate its impacts. On the one hand, some argue that slum tourism can bring economic benefits to locals and create jobs and income for guides and other area businesses. 

On the other hand, slum tourism could have a negative impact on its visitors. Critics argue that tourists may not understand the local culture and customs, which could result in insensitive behavior toward residents. 

Additionally, slum tours can exploit the people and their conditions. Some tourists don’t wish to improve living conditions and only take pictures from afar. 

Also, certain tourism agencies say the money spent will flow back into communities when in reality, it only goes into the pockets of the scammers.

Slum tourism carries many complex considerations that one should take seriously before considering this type of travel.

What Are the Arguments Against Slum Tourism? 

As was mentioned previously, slum tourism can be a meaningful way to engage individuals from all backgrounds in important conversations. These conversations can help to create more understanding between different social strata while potentially providing some benefit to those living in slums.

But many argue against slum tourism. Slum tours often devalue certain cultures or destigmatize poverty by providing a movie-like version of a reality that millions of people face. 

By capitalizing on slums and their inhabitants, this type of travel has seen pushback from locals and other groups who argue that it problematically portrays slums as an attraction to be experienced and monetized. 

Furthermore, the income that slum tourism brings isn’t evenly distributed. The residents in these areas often receive very little benefit. 

Overall, slum tourism can present complex ethical dilemmas and raise uncomfortable questions about how we represent, understand, and ultimately engage with poverty in our world.

Should Slum Tourism Be Discouraged? 

Slum tourism is a complex and often polarizing issue. You can find valid arguments on both sides of the debate surrounding its impact on the people who reside in slums. 

However, it ultimately falls upon tourists to make informed decisions about whether or not this type of tourism is something they feel comfortable supporting.

In the end, you’ll have to decide for yourself if slum tourism is an ethical and responsible way to experience a new culture. 

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Travel Research: Slum Tourism in South Africa

Last updated: July 13, 2022 - Written by Jessica Norah 10 Comments

Today I would like to focus on the topic of slum tourism in South Africa, also known as township tourism. Slum tourism is defined as the practice of travelers visiting poor urban areas of the Global South to view its impoverished conditions and understand more of the lifestyles of local inhabitants.

Organized slum tourism tours exist around the world in cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Cairo, and Mumbai. Slum tourism is a controversial issue and I have written about the different viewpoints and potential pros and cons of this practice in a previous article that focused on research about slum tourism in Cairo, Egypt .

This post will specifically focus on the research of a fellow researcher and blogger, Jeanett Andrea Søderstrøm who runs a blog called The Gipsy Giraffe , writing about her travels, passions, life, and research.

Although born in Norway, her holiday travels to South Africa and a township tour in Cape Town made her wonder about the impact of slum tourism and led her to later study this issue from an academic point of view.

Since that time, Ms. Søderstrøm has received a Master’s degree in Responsible Tourism Management in which she completed her final research on township tourism in Cape Town. If you want to learn more about slum tourism in South Africa, read on!

Table of Contents:

A Brief Overview of Slum Tourism in South Africa

While slum tourism is not a completely new phenomenon, organized slum tours have become steadily more common and popular since the 1990’s. Currently, there are an estimated 40 to 50 township tour operators in Cape Town alone and it is estimated that at least 25% of international overseas tourists to South Africa take a township tour.

Slum tours in South Africa are typically called “township tours” because in South Africa the term “township” generally refers to impoverished and underdeveloped urban areas. The division and segregation of people according to race during apartheid —the political system that ruled in South Africa from 1948 to 1994—led to very segregated townships with most colored people being forced to live together in impoverished conditions.

Ms. Søderstrøm’s research focuses on Langa in Cape Town since it is currently one of the most commonly visited townships during the commercial tours. Small and located near the center of Cape Town, Langa is the oldest township in South Africa, created in 1927 as an area for non-Whites to live (often forcibly) in racially-segregated South Africa—a forerunner to apartheid.

The majority of residents in Langa are Xhosa people (former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela was a Xhosa-speaking Thembu person) and the level of unemployment and poverty is extremely high.

The Research Study: Responsible Township Tourism in Cape Town

Research study : Søderstrøm, J. A. (2013)  Responsible practice for township tourism: An exploration of Stakeholders’ opinions, commitments, actions and expectations in the township of Langa, Cape Town . Master’s thesis.

The current research takes a three-prong approach in gathering qualitative data from tour operators, Langa residents, and government officials. The researcher interviews four tour operators of township tours in Langa and then takes three township tours by these same operators. She also interviews 39 Langa residents, including 17 residents of homes where household visits occur during tours. Lastly, the researcher also interviewed four people involved in responsible tourism planning within the local government in Cape Town.

Research Findings: Township Tourism in Cape Town

In the course of her research on township tourism in Cape Town, Ms. Søderstrøm developed a list of 14 guidelines for tour operators she wanted to explore further with her research. These guidelines were based on what has been suggested by past research and stakeholders as ways to ensure that tours are operating as responsibly as possible, particularly emphasizing social and economic benefits for the local communities.

Below are each of these guidelines and the findings related to the research on each one about whether it is being adhered to by the tour operators participating in the research project.

1. Walking tours over driving tours

Why? : Walking tours can allow for more meaningful connections between tourists and residents, allow tourists to purchase products/make donations, and help avoid the more voyeuristic nature of looking at people from a car or bus.

Findings? : Overall, most companies offer walking tours, although some companies do offer tours that are partially or primarily driving tours. Locals reported that they would like it if tour operators facilitated more conversation and meaningful interactions with tourists such as more time for conversation, more visits to local businesses, and more time to stay in homes such as stopping to have a chat over tea.

2. Small rather than large tour groups

Why? : Smaller groups can more easily visit homes and businesses and feel less intrusive to residents. It also can help facilitate more interaction between tourists and the locals and between the tour operators and the tourists.

Findings? : Most responsible companies in Cape Town do appear to be adhering to the responsible practice of providing small group tours rather than large group tours.

3. Provide behavior guidance to tourists

Why? : For most travelers, they have never been on a slum or township tour before and do not know what to expect. For many, this may be their first time encountering such poverty and living conditions and they may not know how to behave, especially when entering people’s homes.

It is the responsibility of the tour operators and guides to ensure that tourists do not make a negative impact on the local community by communicating proper dress codes and behavior, as well as encouraging curiosity about residents’ customs through general respectful interaction. Many tourists also have ethical concerns about whether or not to book such a tour.

Findings? : Some companies provide general guidelines concerning behavior on their websites and some also talk about ethical concerns tourists may have. Most tour operators give some guidance as well about “good behavior” during the tour. But more could be done on some tours.

4. Photography policies

Why? : Obviously, most visitors want to take photographs or videos to remember their tours. However, being constantly photographed can be very annoying and feel quite intrusive by local residents. Many residents do not mind being photographed and visitors should ask residents before taking photographs of actual people.

Findings? : Companies appear to be providing photography guidelines at the beginning of tours to tourists about asking residents before taking pictures of them. Some also advise tourists not to photograph children.

While all tour leaders appear to be providing guidance, some tourists may be disregarding this advice and still taking photographs anyway without asking. Among the interviewed residents many claim it can be annoying in certain situations, hence is it crucial that guides always repeat what is expected from the visitors in this regard and discourage this behavior.

5. Provide fair salaries to guides

Why? : Providing a fair salary to tour guides and other staff avoids exploitation of cheap labor in impoverished communities, gives back to the community, and generates staff goodwill that hopefully also leads to more satisfied clients.

Findings? : Unfortunately, there are no good guidelines of what constitutes a “fair salary” and many guides are not well paid. Most of the guides depend on tips and were even observed discouraging donations to local residents on the tour in order to attempt to receive a larger tip themselves from tourists at the end of the tour.

6. Tipping policies

Why? : To encourage professional behavior by guides, tour companies should communicate that tipping the guides for good services is welcome. This should help supplement their typically small salaries and result in further professionalism among guides. Most importantly this could also lead to guides allowing more of the tourist donations to end up in the hands of the communities visited.

Findings? :  It was found that most companies do not communicate a tipping policy to tourists, as tour operators reported that most tourists decide to give tips anyway. However, tour operators saw the information about unfair redistribution of tourist donations as interesting and may not have previously considered that this issue was related to having an established tipping policy.

7. Provide compensation to visited households

Why? : Most tour companies visit at least one local household during their tour and this is generally one of the promoted highlights of the tour. These households should therefore be compensated for their time and value as a tourist attraction. Such compensation not only makes sense from an ethical business perspective but also avoids exploitation of the local residents.

Findings? : Very few tour companies have formal agreements concerning compensation with the local households they visit. Most receive nothing (or very little) directly from the tour operators. For most they only receive donations or tips left by tourists; however, most guides do not appear to talk about or encourage donations so tourists are often unsure whether it is appropriate to leave donations or not.

Sadly, some local households reported that they used to receive regular visits from tours, which provided tourist tips and/or food, but for unknown reasons, the tour operators have stopped visiting them which has made their economic situation even worse. Even if tour operators do not directly provide money to households, regular committed donations of food, clothing, school supplies, etc. would significantly help these households.

8. Promoting local purchases

Why? : One of the ways that tourists can help the local communities they visit is by spending money within that community. These may include buying local handicrafts, purchasing local services, staying at local homestays, or eating in local eateries.

Findings? : While it seems that almost all tour companies provide an initial opportunity to purchase crafts at the beginning of the tour, most tour companies do not promote local purchase throughout the tour.

Many tour guides seemed to avoid lingering around local businesses, making it more difficult for tourists to stop and buy something. Tour operators said they did not want the tours to feel too commercial, had to adhere to their schedule, or said that tourists were not very interested in purchasing goods.

Locals want tourists to visit their businesses, but felt that getting tourists to their stands daily is difficult since they have very little power over the tourist groups which are directed by the tour guides.

9. Provide ways tourists can donate to the local community

Why? : Many people take township tours in order to learn more about the culture of the people, and after taking these tours many have a desire to give back to the community. While purchasing items or services may be one way tourists can give back, some may instead want to donate money to local community projects (e.g., schools, construction projects, churches). This is another way that tour operators can provide to those tourists who want to give back.

Findings? : Some tour operators discuss this as an option during tours, but often only when tourists verbally express interest. Some tour operators reported that they did not want people to see the township as a charity and do not mention this; however, tourists themselves often expressed gratitude for being given information about how to donate if they would like to do so.

It should be noted that some residents whose homes are visited during tours stated that they felt that encouragement of donations to local schools or other projects has hurt them by leading to decreased tips and donations to their household.

10. Involvement/donations by tour operators

Why? : An ethical and responsible tour operator should give back to the local communities through community involvement or donations, and many tourists may in fact expect this of slum tourism companies.

Findings? : Whereas some tour operators do become directly involved and donate to local projects, others reported that they are a business and give back indirectly by bringing tourists into the township. Among those who did report giving back, it was not always clearly stated or communicated for tourists to find this information, nor was it proven to the researcher.

11. Provide evidence of responsible claims

Why?: Given that many tourists have ethical concerns about these tours, companies should clearly state and detail what specifically they do to give back to local communities and how the community benefits. Such practices provide transparency and help better inform potential clients.

Findings? : While many companies do responsibly give back to the local communities, whether indirectly or directly, these claims are often vague and not well communicated.

12. Create linkages with local enterprises

Why? : The more connections that slum tourism operators create with local companies, the more widely they can benefit the community.

Findings? : Most tour companies do try to include at least one local business in each tour, whether it be a local dining establishment, craft store, or homestay. However, more of such local businesses could be utilized to not only help benefit the community but also enhance the tourist experience of the local culture.

13. Seek residents’ feedback

Why? : It is vitally important that to maintain responsible tourism practices, tour operators seek feedback from residents and that they continue to seek feedback over time. This not only helps avoid exploitation of the local population, but enhances good will, cooperation, and local participation.

Findings? : Tour operators all claim to seek resident feedback; however, it is clear from interviews with locals involved in the visited homes that tour operators and guides often have poor communication or unclear agreements with the local residents.

Some residents reported that they had questions, requests, or suggestions for tour operators, while others seemed apathetic about actually communicating their opinions and wishes to the tour operator or guides. This suggests that residents may not feel empowered to voice their opinions and it is the responsibility of the tour operators to ensure that residents, especially those involved in the tours, are given a voice.

14. Assure that all tour staff have the same responsible aims

Why? : The majority of township tour operators in Cape Town report that they follow responsible tourism criteria; however, while having such criteria set in principle is great, these also need to be clearly communicated and followed by all staff members, particularly the guides.

Findings? : While most interviewed companies claim to be responsible, the actual practice depends largely on who is guiding the tour and the company’s emphasis on staff cooperation, transparency, and reporting.

Conclusions of the Research on Slum Tourism in South Africa

So what do these research findings mean? What are the conclusions drawn by the researcher?

This research supports the complex nature of slum tourism in Cape Town, South Africa. While there are certainly benefits for the local people and most locals feel that things are better with tourism than without it, tourism companies do not appear to be doing as much as they could to make an impact on local communities.

While most tour operators, in general, appear to be friendly, professional, and adhere to general ethical policies, they seem more apathetic regarding issues such as encouraging donations to local hosts, providing fair pay to guides, and promoting tourist purchases and donations.

The issue of not compensating local households visited during tours was highlighted as a particular problem as some of these households get up to ten visits on average per day—often with no compensation!

There appear to be a number of ways that tour operators in Langa, Cape Town can better improve their responsible tourism practices and the first step would be to facilitate better communication with local residents. Further, more support and oversight is needed by the local government. Although the local government encourages township tours and have created policies on responsible tourism, they do not seem very involved in enforcing such policies.

How Can I Find Out More about Slum Tourism?

If you have specific questions about this research project, you can connect with the researcher, Jeanett Andrea Søderstrøm, by visiting her personal blog The Gipsy Giraffe . Here you can find ways to contact her as well as more articles on slum tourism.

Want to know more about slum tourism? I wrote a prior post on research on slum tourism in Cairo, Egypt , which looks at the thoughts and feelings of slum residents, tour operators, and local stakeholders.

We also wrote a follow-up post to this one that comes up with a set of 17 proposed slum tourism guidelines for travelers . The article helps travelers decide if they should take a slum tour, how to choose the most responsible tours, and how to behave on a tour. It provides a lot of tips for travelers who want to take a slum tour. That post also includes an overview of the history of slum tourism , slum tourism research, and how to find more information and resources on the topic.

What do you think about slum tourism in South Africa or slum tourism globally? Have you taken a township tour in South Africa or taken a slum tour in another country?

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There are 10 comments on this post.

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Indiphile Post author

February 9, 2020 at 4:31 am

Are slum tourism a legitimate form of tourism or another neoliberal exploitative endeavor?

Jessica & Laurence Norah Post author

February 10, 2020 at 3:18 am

Hi there Indiphile,

Slum tourism has been around for a fairly long time (originating in Victorian London), so it is nothing new. Most of the original slum tours in the Global South have political or social justice roots. However, many tours now are designed and run by for-profit companies and little of this money may go back to the community. As noted it can certainly be an exploitative form of tourism. But some are led by non-profits with the money going to try to help the community. And some tours are going to be more responsible than others.

I definitely encourage you to read some of the research and policy papers on the subject so you learn more about the practice and come up with your own opinion in terms if it is a legitimate form of tourism or not.

Best, Jessica

Mark Post author

February 9, 2014 at 6:21 pm

Interesting Piece.. Whatever the rights or wrongs, slum tourism is definitely growing very quickly in many places

travelcats Post author

February 9, 2014 at 7:59 pm

Yes, it sure had been growing in popularity. My hope is that if people are going to do it, they do it as responsibly as possible.

Emilie Hagedoorn Post author

December 28, 2013 at 12:59 am

With regards to your future post regarding how to choose a responsible tour may I recommend checking Fair Trade Tourism (FTT)? FTT has certified several tourism businesses offering tours into townships in SA. Great examples are AWOL Tours, Uthando (both in Cape Town), Calabash Tours (in PE) and Lebos, Fundani and Moratiwa (all in Joburg/Soweto).

Any other questions please get in touch with FTT.

Thanks, Emilie

December 28, 2013 at 10:52 am

Thanks Emilie, this information is very helpful! In regards to my future post, it will focus more generally on slum tourism worldwide, but checking out responsible tourism trade organizations is a good idea. Thanks for stopping by.

Val Post author

December 26, 2013 at 11:20 am

Hi, I would like to mention, not to take anything from the author or yourself, it is a very complex situation and can have catastrophic consequences for its residents. As mentioned this is only one township this study was done on. Each area and tribal group have differing dynamics. This article therefor in my opinion is a relatively small indication of township or squatter camps as they are in fact called in South Africa. One cannot generalize this in all the countries as mentioned. I kindly refer you to the research paper authenticated by University Of Pretoria, by OG Mengich on Slum Tourism in particular to page 65 of this citation. Also would like to draw your attention to the article by Ross McGuiness A cynical cash cow or a helping hand on the website of metro.co.uk/slum_tourism Thanks and Regards Val

December 27, 2013 at 8:14 am

Hi Val, thank you very much for your comment. As noted this research was specifically done on township tourism in Langa, Cape Town and may not generalize to other areas of South Africa or other countries. However, it should be noted that empirical research in this area often demonstrate similar complex findings suggesting that there may be both potential great harm as well as potential benefits from slum tourism. Almost all advocate for responsible tourism practices similar to those suggested by the author. Thank you for the additional info on slum tourism, we will take a look. I suggest that you visit the featured researcher’s website as well for more information on her research.

Mary Belle Post author

December 23, 2013 at 10:16 pm

Hi Jessica! For a Tourism student, I haven’t heard of Slum Tourism. Shame. But thank you so much for sharing! Now I’ve got something to share to my friends back in school too! 🙂 And expect me to be a frequent visitor! <3

December 23, 2013 at 11:01 pm

Welcome Mary, thanks for taking the time to comment. Glad that you learned about slum tourism and hope that you will inform others. You should check out my other post on slum tourism and the Gipsy Giraffe blog. Look forward to having you as a follower!

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Mumbai Slum Tour to Dharavi Slum – The Positive and Unique Side of Slum Tourism

Categories Asia , India

What comes to mind when you think of a Slum Tour?

Precariously walking along small lanes between people’s houses whilst they stare up at you and you feel awkward making eye contact back because you’re walking through their home, staring. The smell of sewage and urine.

The fear of stepping in said sewage and urine if you misplace your foot but the awkwardness of trying not to care as these are people’s home and you’re a privileged white person walking through, staring.

This is what came to mind whenever I thought about a ‘Slum Tour’ in India. Despite having already done a very positive Slum Tour in Manila a few years ago.

I have been thinking about Slum Tours in India for quite some time because visiting India and doing a Slum Tour whilst there has been of interest to me for many years. Maybe it’s the books I’ve read which describe the slums very well- Shantaram & Behind the Beautiful Forevers .

However at the same time, as much as I wanted to do a Slum Tour, I had a feeling participating in Slum Tourism in India was the wrong thing to do, not ethical or responsible, and after all I didn’t want to go and stare at thousands of people’s poverty, feel helpless and then leave back to my privileged life.

But that all changed when I arrived in Mumbai and heard about the Mumbai Slum Tour to Dharavi Slum with Reality Tours which I then went on and it changed my outlook on Slums, or at least on Slum Tourism, and this is why:

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Dharavi Slum

There are more than 2000 slums in Mumbai and Dharavi Slum is the biggest slum in India (not just Mumbai, India!) with an estimated 1 Million people living there , and by ‘biggest’ it’s the biggest in terms of numbers, not by size. It’s also 178 years old, which is older than Canada as our guide Tavy pointed out.

Over half of the people who live in Mumbai live in Slums and there are a mixture of legal slums, which Dharavi is, and illegal slums.

Dharavi is different and unique to many other slums due to its productivity, you could say it’s a working slum, with a range of industries and companies producing, fixing, making, recycling and cooking products from inside the slum every day.

Because Dharavi is a legal slum it is recognised by the government, it receives water and electricity from the government. It has a school and a mixture of religions live there. It’s residents also do not have to fear about being told to get up and leave which is what happens in illegal slums. With that being said, it of course still has many of it’s own issues.

Should Tourists Visit Slum’s in India?

As I said at the start of this post, I had doubts about whether to visit a slum and participate in slum tourism. I wanted to but I didn’t know if it was right, and if there’s one thing we need to be conscious of these days with so much tourism is not doing something for the ‘gram, for the picture or for the story, just because we want to even when we know it’s bad, because it creates demand, it influences others and it may just be ‘one time’ to us, but everyone’s ‘one time’ creates a lot of one times.

With that being said I knew there must be a company that works alongside a slum in Mumbai that gives back and educates .

In my first few days in Mumbai I was told by a few Indian people who are from or live in Mumbai that I should go to the Dharavi Slums and was recommended Reality Tours   as a Mumbai Slum Tour Company to go with.

As they had told me to go I figured it must be unique, the people around here must know what’s happening and after looking into Reality Tours who put 80% of their profit back into the slum, have a NGO called Reality Gives and consider Dharavi as Mumbai’s Heart, I knew going with them would be a good decision and I would be contributing to Slum Tourism in a positive, and not a negative way.

Due to this I’m glad I went on a slum tour in Mumbai and on this one. I really recommend a Dharavi Slum Tour with Reality Tours if you are visiting Mumbai.

As for any other slum tours in Mumbai, India or the rest of the world, be sure to research the company well, ideally get the opinion of locals, and only go if you are very sure they contribute in a positive way and it is well organised.

Reality Tours Slum Tour to Dharavi Slum

I took part in the 2.5 hour slum tour that Reality Tours offer for 900Rs (just over £10.00) which I booked online 2 days in advance.

There’s the option to meet a guide at Churchgate train station which is the closest station to where I was staying in Colaba at Backpacker Panda Colaba Hostel (which I really recommend if you are looking for a Hostel in Mumbai by the way).

Tavy, one of the Reality Tour guides was waiting there for anyone who wanted to get the train, as it turns out it was just myself, he purchased the ticket for me and we went to meet the others at the train station closest to Dharavi Slum.

Reality Tours seem to have a lot of tour guides working for them and I really liked that our tour was only small, 4 people and 2 guides with Tavy being the main guide. This way when we were walking around we could stay out of people’s way and we didn’t draw as much attention to ourselves had there been 10 or so of us.

Tavy gave us some information as we entered the slum via the bridge that crosses the train tracks. This was our first and last time to take photos due to the no photo policy in the slum to respect the locals privacy and I’m really glad that photos are not allowed (the 2 photos below are the one’s I took and there are more photos of Dharavi Slums below which belong to Reality Tours and are provided via email after the tour).

Tavy explained the many jobs that happen in the Slum and our first stop and most of our stops on the tour was to see these.

We started at the plastic recycling area . There was masses of plastic everywhere and all over the floor but mostly in neat piles and a lot had already been grouped together, there was plastic from the back of TV remotes, toys, and from so many more things. We were told that the plastic sorters get paid between 300-350Rs a day (£3.00-£3.50). The plastic is then melted, these people get paid a little more, and then turned into plastic pellets which are sold by the kilo.

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I always use Booking.com to book my hotels in India and Hostelworld to book my hostels . India has a great range of accommodation with brilliant hostel chains like Moustache, Zostel and Backpacker Panda as well as homestays to luxury hotels.

GUIDED TOURS IN INDIA

Many cities in India are best seen with a guide , even if it’s just a half day tour on your first day . Cities in India are chaotic and complex and what better way to taste the food and get to know the city than with a local. I recommend Get Your Guide & Viator for the best tours in India!

We then continued to see the tin recycling workshops where tins of old paint get burned to remove the outer signage, cleaned inside and then refilled and resold. They can be recycled like this only 4 times because they become too thin but after those 3-4 times they are opened out and used as tin tiles on the sides of houses.

I quickly realised everything had a use in the Slum.

We saw many women working between the men although there are more men than women. In Dharavi Slum women get paid the exact same as men per day although they are allowed to work less hours, this again was really positive and a unique factor to Dharavi.

There are more men as many people who live in Dharavi Slum are from villages around Mumbai and India, it’s hard for whole families to move into the slum , there is not much room and it’s actually quite costly for a despot and rent on a room which I believe comes down to the fact that Dharavi Slum is a legal and safe slum rather than an illegal one with no certainty.

Whereas men come and look for work. Employers have houses where the men can live (usually above where they work) and that way than men do not need to get extra accommodation, just the job. They tend to come here for 6 months in the Winter when the jobs to do with agriculture in their Village lessen and they’ll leave when the Monsoon season starts.

This of course sounds like a hard life and I’ll fully admit that seeing the men work in such hot, small and hard conditions is hard, but it’s better than feeling sorry for them because they have nothing. They are earning money, they have money to send home and they have a purpose.

Tavy also explained that people who are illiterate have jobs making things, they have other skills even though they can’t read or write and these jobs are available to them in Dharavi, which again was really positive to see and hear.

To me, Dharavi Slum felt  more like a village , it’s not all small, dark lanes. It has a main road running through it, it has wider roads with taxis and motorbikes going along it, there is a market, a school, a playground, and a river (although the river is filthy and this goes straight into the ocean as there is no filter and this is why the people in Mumbai have been advised by the government not to go in the Ocean).

We saw goats, dogs, cats, chickens and one baby rat!

Dharavi Slum is located between 2 major railways and a river so it cannot expand in width, if it expands it needs to expand up. Because of its prime location it’s also very sought after by property guru’s. Some of the people of Dharavi have been provided with flats which surround the slum in order to home more people however people do not want to live in them which is something I had heard before.

Firstly once you are in a flat, you cannot make more space, whereas if you have a house in the slum you may have the possibility to add a story on if you child gets married etc, secondly the flats have been badly made with cheap materials, we saw some that looked filthy from the outside and very old but Tavy told us they were only 14 years old. People do not want to live in them and I can understand why, although privacy is lacking in the slum lanes I can imagine the sense of community is high and suddenly decreases if you were to move into a flat.

Although we mainly saw the working side of Dharavi Slum as we wound through the lanes, we did have the chance to walk through one really small lane which was a residential area. Dharavi Slum is also famous because it’s where Slumdog Millionaire was filmed , a film which locals do not like. The first scene has the boys running through a small alleyway and this is where we walked down.

It’s small enough for only one person to walk down and you do have to be careful where you step but not because of faeces as I had imagined but because of the possible lose slab. This lane was hot, cramped and pretty claustrophobic but it was clean, there were no bad smells and the doorways to the concrete houses were covered well so people did have some privacy.

Overall I felt very uplifted by seeing Dharavi Slum and learning about it, I know that’s easily said by a White, British person who went to see it and the left, but the tours are not designed to make you feel sorry for the people who live there and they wouldn’t want that either.

No one was begging and everyone seemed happy to see us. We were stared at occasionally (but this is India where staring is normal) but a little smile back made them smile back, especially the women and children.

People were well dressed and as I had read in the books I have read about Slums in India, despite the small size of their houses and not the most ideal conditions, people are proud and this showed .

Tavy seemed well-known and respected by the slum locals and we finished the tour by seeing the school and the classroom that Reality Tours rents for its own NGO Reality Gives which gives lessons including computer classes to the locals, and then we went into the Reality Tours office on the edge of the Slum which fully showed how much of a place they have here.

Side note , if you do the tour, the office has really nice bags, t-shirts, and photos for sale so bring some extra money if you think you may want to purchase something and Reality Tours offer other tours around Mumbai and in Delhi. Make sure you wear covered shoes, cover your legs to your knees at least and your shoulders.

HELP WITH YOUR INDIA ITINERARY

I’ve spent many months travelling India in the last few years visiting over 50 places around the country, here are my recommended itinerary posts for India to help you plan your trip!

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Now don’t get me wrong, I know that not all of the slums in Mumbai and in India are like this and what we saw, despite being positive, was very one-sided but Dharavi Slum is unique and that’s why tourists are given the chance to see it.

I’m sure life is much harder for people in other slums, and it is still hard for these people but I’m glad I was able to get an insight into this side of Mumbai and see with my own eyes that Slum Tourism can be positive and our privileged money can go to good use.

I hope this has given you a good insight into a Slum in India and convinces you to go on a tour with Reality Tours or has changed your opinion on Slum Tourism. 

For more posts on Mumbai and India see:

All India Posts

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Tuesday 16th of October 2018

waw its really awesome article thank you so much for posting this on your blog. it was mine pleasure to show you slum.

TheWanderingQuinn

You’re welcome, I’m glad you liked it, and thank you for being so great :)

What is a slum?

Building the right  definition of a slum  is key to properly understand and tackle the problem of these unsafe informal settlements. Before looking at what a slum is, let’s review  the facts  behind the growing global housing crisis:

• 1.6 billion people  live without adequate shelter.
• 1 in 7 people on the planet currently lives in a slum.
• 1 in every 4 people will live in a slum  by 2030, according to current estimates.
• 1 in 3 urban residents live in slums in developing countries.
• In some countries, as much as 90% of the urban population live in slums.

Life in informal settlements

Slums represent one of the main types of housing in many growing urban cities from Kibera in Nairobi, to New Delhi and Manila.  The effects of poverty  related to the growth of slums span everything from poor health to education.

As informal (and often illegal) housing, slums are often defined by:

• Unsafe and/or unhealthy homes  (e.g. lack of windows, dirt floor, leaky walls and roofs)
• Overcrowded homes
• Limited or no access to basic services : water, toilets, electricity, transportation
• Unstable homes:  weak structures are often blown away or destroyed during storms and earthquakes
• No secure land tenure  (i.e. the land rights to live there).

As such families living in slums lack the crucial conditions they need to live decently and thrive as human beings. Children are very often unable to do their homeworks due to leaks and the lack of available light and electricity. Therefore these children tend to perform much worse at school and their drop-out rates are much higher than anywhere else.

Finding a definition of slums: a growing problem

Today, the current population growth is outpacing the rate at which cities can respond to the need for housing. This is the very condition under which slums thrive and grow out of control.

As the world urbanises, many low-income families are often  evicted by force  and pushed to the edge of cities to unplanned and poorly serviced areas.

This is why we campaign for  land reforms  in dozens of countries around the world. As climate change is starting to affect everyone, and poorer tropical countries first, many families living in slums have to cope with an increasing number of typhoons and thus are forced to rebuild their homes every year – sometimes several times a year.

Many governments refuse to see slums as such or to recognise their existence, since technically those families’ homes aren’t registered on any documents. To others, certain settlements deserve more attention because the living conditions and quality of the buildings are much worse than in other areas (which, nonetheless, still match the definition of a slum).

What is a slum: facts and risks

To better understand the living conditions in slums, it’s essential to look at the health hazards that people are faced with. Life in the slums is far from glamorous as families are cut off from the most basic services and often have to deal with violence.

Health & well-being

Because unplanned settlements are typically not connected to basic services such as clean water, sanitation and hygiene facilities, residents are at great risk of contracting water-borne and respiratory diseases (e.g. due to the lack of windows and air vents).

High population density, lack of proper toilets and close proximity of homes allow  diseases to spread quickly . This creates a real risk for large populations who are often unable to access adequate health facilities to get treatment in time.

Safety & violence in slums

Emergency and law enforcement vehicles have difficulty navigating through unplanned settlements due to tightly woven pathways and few signs, resulting in difficulties monitoring and controlling crime and providing health services.

Poor community planning and structurally unsound construction create hazards for inhabitants, which are exacerbated in many unplanned settlements by floods, fires and landslides.

Perpetuating the cycle of poverty

High rates of illness within slum communities cause a decline in productivity and prevent children from attending school normally. For those who can, studies have shown a clear decline in performance at school and a much higher drop-out rate due to poor health. The lack of space and light to do their homework is also at cause.

On top of that, workers are often marginalised from the formal economy, as the lack of a formal address is an obstacle to gaining employment. Working in the black market only exacerbates their situation, making them more vulnerable to exploitation and work-related accidents.

Disasters and evictions

As people attempt to meet their immediate need for shelter, many low-income urban dwellers end up with poorly constructed shelters in locations that are unsafe and highly vulnerable to disasters and other types of environmental degradation.

Without  secure land rights , many people living in poor urban conditions are discouraged from investing limited financial resources into improving their housing or adapting it to be energy efficient, given the ever-present risk of eviction.

Habitat for Humanity have become good at persuading governments to provide the small sums that will help slum-dwellers improve their homes with such things as indoor toilets. The Economist

How we tackle the growth of slums

On top of  our current activities  to rehabilitate slums worldwide, we are building up a global team in our offices worldwide to advocate for better land rights for the most vulnerable.

As our volunteers and local teams work to renovate and rebuild informal settlements in the  Philippines , in  Bulgaria  or in  Botswana  (to name but a few), we’re creating new partnerships with global partnerships with the United Nation’s Habitat programme and the European Commission as well as corporate partners all over the world.

Our solutions include:

• Slum upgrading , not eviction, is critical as the world urbanises. This means improving living conditions of informal settlements in a responsible manner, providing access to decent housing in the short term and the long term.
• Solid Ground , our global advocacy campaign, is working to fight forced evictions by securing land rights for slum dwellers and advocating for policies that improve access to basic sanitation services.
• Bringing together access to land and security of tenure, access to credit, and provision of basic services are critical components of an urban planning framework.
• Because secure land rights are essential for accessing land, capital, and basic services, assuring tenure security is crucial for slum upgrading.

Disclaimer:

This post was produced with the financial support of the European  Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of Habitat for Humanity GB and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

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14 Things to Know Before Visiting Dharavi Slum

Are you planning to visit Dharavi? Keep these things to know before visiting Dharavi Slum in mind to make the most of your trip.

Dharavi Slum, located in Mumbai is among the largest slums in Asia , with over a million people living in an area of approximately 2.1 square kilometers. Despite its reputation as a poverty-stricken area, Dharavi is a place where a world of culture, community, and commerce collide.

If you plan to visit Dharavi, it’s essential to keep a few things in mind before embarking on your adventure. These tips include respecting local customs, engaging in ethical tourism practices, and ensuring a meaningful and responsible experience.

Here are the 10 things to know before visiting Dharavi Slum;

Things to Know Before Visiting Dharavi Slum

Table of Contents

1. Understand the History and Context of Dharavi

To truly appreciate and understand Dharavi, it’s important to know its history and context and for this, taking a guided tour is highly recommended.

Dharavi was originally a fishing village that evolved into a thriving industrial area in the mid-19th century. Over time, it became a hub for small-scale industries and informal economies.

Today, it’s a melting pot of cultures and a vibrant community that contributes significantly to Mumbai’s economy. Understanding the area’s past and present can help you appreciate its complexity and resilience.

2. Respect the Community and its Way of Life

Dharavi is not a tourist attraction, but a living community. Therefore, it’s crucial to respect the community and their way of life. This means being mindful of the residents’ privacy and refraining from taking photos without permission.

Also, it’s essential to be respectful of their customs and traditions. Dressing appropriately, covering your shoulders and knees, and avoiding revealing clothing show respect for the conservative culture.

3. Dress Appropriately

As mentioned earlier, dressing appropriately is crucial when visiting Dharavi. Wearing comfortable clothes that cover your body is a great way to show respect for the community and stay comfortable in the hot and humid climate.

Additionally, wearing closed-toe shoes is advisable as the streets can be dirty and uneven. What to wear while exploring Mumbai’s heart and soul is undoubtedly one of the top things to know before visiting Dharavi Slum.

4. Take a Guided Tour

Taking a guided tour is a fantastic way to explore Dharavi and learn about its culture and history. Local guides can provide valuable insights into the area and give visitors a unique perspective on the community.

They can also help navigate the narrow streets and alleys, making the experience more comfortable and enjoyable.

5. Understand the Challenges and Opportunities for Development

Dharavi is not without its challenges, including overcrowding and inadequate infrastructure. However, the community is vibrant and resilient, and many opportunities for development exist. 

Understanding the challenges and opportunities for development in Dharavi can help visitors appreciate the community’s determination and hard work. It’s important to be mindful of these challenges while exploring the area and engaging in responsible tourism practices.

6. Support Local Businesses

When you visit Dharavi, you’ll see that it’s home to many small businesses that contribute to the local economy. From street vendors to small shops, the community has created a unique entrepreneurial spirit.

By supporting these businesses, you’ll be making a positive impact on the local community.

Try to buy locally-made products and souvenirs to help the local economy grow. By doing so, you’ll be able to take home a piece of Dharavi with you.

7. Be Aware of Your Surroundings

It’s always a good idea to be aware of your surroundings when traveling, and this is especially important when visiting Dharavi.

The area can be crowded and chaotic, but if you pay attention to your surroundings and stay alert, you’ll be able to enjoy your visit safely.

Walking around with expensive items and jewelry is one of the critical things to avoid while exploring the slum area. You should be cautious when using your phone or camera in public places.

8. Plan Your Visit at the Right Time

It’s essential to plan your visit to Dharavi at the right time. Try to explore Dharavi during the day to avoid peak hours and get a better experience. The best time to visit is during the day when you’ll be able to witness the daily hustle and bustle of the community.

Also, keep in mind that some businesses may be closed on certain days, so it’s always best to check beforehand.

9. Learn about the Community’s Social Initiatives

Dharavi is a community that is actively involved in social initiatives to better the lives of its residents. You can learn about these initiatives and how you can contribute to them during your visit.

There are many organizations that support the community, and you can also donate your time or resources to help these initiatives grow.

10. Engage in Responsible Tourism Practices

When visiting Dharavi, it’s important to engage in responsible tourism practices. This means respecting the community and its way of life, being mindful of your impact on the environment, and supporting local businesses.

You can also seek out responsible tourism organizations that prioritize sustainable tourism and ethical practices. By doing so, you can have a meaningful and responsible visit to Dharavi that benefits both the community and the environment.

11. Follow Local Customs and Traditions

Dharavi has its own unique culture and traditions, and it is important to respect them.

Things like removing your shoes before entering someone’s home, asking for permission before taking photographs, and being mindful of local customs can go a long way in showing respect for the community.

By following these customs, you can also learn more about the local way of life and gain a deeper understanding of the people who call Dharavi home.

12. Learn Some Basic Hindi or Marathi Phrases

While many people in Dharavi can speak English, knowing some basic Hindi or Marathi phrases can help you communicate better with the locals and show that you are making an effort to connect with them.

Simple phrases like “Namaste” (hello), “Shukriya” (thank you), and “Aap kaise ho?” (how are you?) can help break the ice and make your interactions easier.

13. Stay Hydrated and Carry Snacks

Dharavi can be a busy and crowded place, and it’s easy to get caught up in exploring without taking care of your basic needs.

It’s important to stay hydrated by carrying a water bottle and taking regular breaks to rest and rehydrate. Additionally, carrying some snacks can help you stay energized and ready to explore the sights and sounds of Dharavi.

14. Leave a Positive Impact

As a responsible traveler, it’s important to leave a positive impact on the places you visit. In Dharavi, this can mean supporting local businesses, being respectful of the community, and engaging in responsible tourism practices. 

By being mindful of your impact, you can help ensure that Dharavi remains a vibrant and thriving community for generations to come.

Final Words – Things to Know Before Visiting Dharavi Slum

Dharavi may be a slum, but it’s so much more than that. It’s a vibrant community with a rich history and culture, and there’s so much to learn and experience here. By following these tips and being a responsible and respectful visitor, you can have a truly meaningful and eye-opening experience in Dharavi.

So, what are you waiting for? Pack your bags, book a guided tour, and come see for yourself what Dharavi is all about. Remember these things to know before visiting Dharavi Slum and be prepared to be amazed by the resilience, creativity, and warmth of the people who call it home. You won’t regret it!

Want to Explore Dharavi without any Hustle? Check Out These Best Slum Tours .

FAQs – Things to Know Before Visiting Dharavi Slum

1. is it safe to visit dharavi slum.

Yes, it is safe to visit Dharavi. However, like any other densely populated area, you should take care of your belongings and be aware of your surroundings. It’s always a good idea to take a guided tour to explore the area safely.

2. What should I wear while visiting Dharavi?

It’s recommended to dress modestly and wear comfortable clothing and shoes. Avoid flashy jewelry or expensive accessories. Also, try to cover your arms and legs to respect the local customs and traditions.

3. Can I take pictures in Dharavi?

Yes, you can take pictures, but always ask for permission before taking someone’s photo. Some locals might not feel comfortable with their pictures being taken. Respect their privacy and their way of life.

4. Can I buy souvenirs in Dharavi?

Yes, you can buy souvenirs from local shops and support the community. It’s always better to buy from small businesses than from big chain stores. However, remember to bargain politely and pay a fair price.

5. What are the social initiatives in Dharavi?

Dharavi is a hub of social initiatives and NGOs that work towards the betterment of the community. Some of the initiatives include education programs, health camps, skill development programs, and women empowerment projects. You can learn more about them during your visit and even volunteer if you’re interested.

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Visit A Slum And Find Out Their Basic Problems

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION:

A slum is a remarkably inhabited urban residential sector consisting mostly of carefully packed, decrepit housing units in an exceedingly situation of deteriorated or incomplete infrastructure, colonized primarily by impoverished persons. While slums differ in size and different characteristics, most lack reliable sanitation services, the offer of unpolluted water, reliable electricity, law enforcement, and various essential functions. The lake receives more water from sewage other than natural bodies because of slums wastes.

Today, the present population growth is outpacing the speed at which cities will answer the necessity for housing. This is often the very condition underneath which slums thrive and grow out of management.

Dharavi is vicinity in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It is regarded as one of the biggest slums in Asia. Dharavi has a neighborhood of merely over 2.1 sq. Kilometers (0.81 sq mi; 520 acres) and a population of concerning 700,000. With a population density of over 277,136/km2 (717,780/sq mi), Dharavi is one of the densest areas within the world.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES:

The objective of this project is to determine the fundamental problems of any slum. We have chosen the slum of city Mumbai: DHARAVI.

Objectives:

• To gather information about slum living.
• To be aware of the livelihood of the slum people
• To understand the necessities of slum people.
• To recognize fundamental problems that slums face in day to day life.
• To spread awareness about the fundamental slum problems.

METHOD AND METHODOLOGY:

The technique used to make this project is a reporting method. A report is built on the issues faced by the slum of Mumbai. To make this report, we have used the internet to do our research. By using the internet, we came across a great deal of data that helped us make the best report on the slums. The internet provided us with real-life experiences of people who lived in slums at a point. The story is created based on various interviews, videos on the reality of slums, a survey made by some people on slums, etc. The report covers the following problems:

• Sanitation problem
• Unemployment
• Poor housing conditions
• Safety and violence
• Health and well being
• Overcrowded homes

DETAIL REPORT OF PROJECT:

The Dharavi slums face tons of issues like noise, water, and air pollution; it additionally has no waste or drainage systems.

Dharavi has severe issues with public health. Also, with the clogged toilets they need, they’re very filthy and weakened to the point of being unsafe. Mahim Creek is a natural watercourse that’s wide utilized by residents for urination and defecation, inflicting the unfold of contagious diseases. The open sewers within the town drain to the creek inflicting a spike in water pollutants, unsanitary conditions, and foul odors. Because of the air pollutants, diseases like lung cancer, TB, and respiratory disease are common among residents. There are government proposals concerning improving Dharavi’s sanitation problems. The residents have a neighborhood where they wash their garments in water that individuals defecate in. This spreads the quantity of illness as doctors need to cope with over 4,000 cases of infectious disease daily. there’s also an average of one bathroom per 500 individuals

Dharavi has toughened a long history of epidemics and natural disasters, generally with a vital loss of lives. The primary plague to devastate Dharavi, alongside different settlements of Mumbai, happened in 1896, once nearly 1/2 the population perished. A series of diseases and various epidemics continued to have an effect on Dharavi, and Mumbai generally, for the subsequent 25 years, with high rates of mortality. Dysentery epidemics are frequent throughout the years and explained by the high population density of Dharavi. Various outbreaks reported embodying infectious disease, cholera, leprosy, meiosis, and poliomyelitis, through recent years. As an example, in 1986, youngster’s infectious disease epidemic was reported, wherever most patients were residents of Dharavi. Typical patients to arrive in hospitals were in late and necessary care conditions, and therefore the mortality rates were abnormally high. In recent years, cases of drug-resistant T.B. are reported in Dharavi.

Due to a lack of skills and education also as competitive job markets. Several slum dwellers face high rates of unemployment. The limit of job opportunities causes several of them to use themselves within the informal economy, within the slum, or in developed urban areas close to the slum. This can typically be the licit informal economy or illicit informal economy while not operating a contract or any social insurance . A number of them are seeking jobs at an equivalent time, and a few of these can eventually realize jobs in formal economies once gaining some professional skills in informal sectors.

Examples of licit informal economy embody street peddling, home enterprises, product assembly, and packaging, creating garlands and embroideries, domestic work, shoe sharpening or repair, driving manual rickshaws, construction employees, or manually driven provision, and handicrafts production. In some slums, individuals sort and recycle trash of various types (from house garbage to electronics) for a living – merchandising either the odd usable merchandise or denudation broken product for components or raw materials.

Examples of illicit informal economy embrace banned substance and weapons trafficking, drug or moonshine/change production, vice crime, and gambling – all sources of risks to the individual, families, and society.

Poor infrastructure forces the poor to adapt to terms on the far side his or her management. Low-income families that can’t afford transportation, or those that merely lack any cheap public transport, typically end up in squat settlements within walking distance or close enough to the place of their employment. Poor quality, unpaved streets encourage slums; the tenth increase in made-up all-season roads reduces slum incidence rate by regarding 0.35%. Cheap conveyance and economic infrastructure empower sick individuals to maneuver and think about housing choices apart from their current slump.

Urban poorness encourages the formation and demand for slum with a fast shift from rural to urban life; poorness migrates to urban areas. The urban poor arrives with hope and exceptionally very little of anything. He or she usually has no access to shelter, essential municipal services, and social amenities. Slums are typically the sole choice for the urban poor

Some suggest that crime is one of the most concerns in slums. Empirical information suggests crime rates are higher in some slums than in non-slums, with slum homicides alone reducing the life expectancy of a resident in a Dharavi slum by seven years than for a resident in close non-slum.

In some cases, officers have sent within the military to regulate slum criminal violence involved drugs and weapons. Rape is another severe issue associated with crime in slums. In slums, as an example, one-fourth of all young women are raped every year. Instead, crime is one of the symptoms of slum dwelling; therefore, slums incorporate more victims than criminals.

Consequently, slums altogether don’t have consistently high crime rates; slums have the worst crime rates in sectors maintaining the influence of illicit economy – like drug traffic, brewing, vice crime, and gambling –. Usually, in such circumstances, multiple gangs fight for management over revenue. Often, police can’t scale back crime because, due to ineffective urban planning and governance, slums set inefficient crime interference system. Such issues aren’t primarily because of community indifference. Leads and knowledge intelligence from slums are rare, streets are slender, and possible death traps to patrol, and lots of within the slum community have an inherent distrust of authorities from worry starting from eviction to assortment on unpaid utility bills to general law and order. Women in slums are at more significant risk of physical and sexual violence. Slums are usually non-secured areas, and ladies typically risk sexual abuse once they walk alone in slums late in the dead of night

Because unplanned settlements are generally not connected to essential services like clean water, sanitation, and hygiene facilities, residents are at high risk of acquiring water-borne and metabolism diseases.

High population density, lack of correct bathrooms, and shut proximity of homes permit diseases to unfold quickly. This creates a real risk for significant populations UN agency are typically unable to access adequate health facilities to induce treatment in time.

Overcrowding is another characteristic of slums. Several dwellings are single space units, with high occupancy rates. Multiple families also cohabit every home. Five and more persons might share a one-room flat; space is employed for cookery, sleeping, and living. Overcrowding is additionally seen close to sources of drinkable, cleaning, and sanitation where one bathroom could serve dozens of families.

However, the density and neighborhood effects of slum populations may provide a chance to focus on health interventions. There are also lots of adverse effects on the environment because of festivals .

ANALYSIS OF DATA:

The conditions in slums are unacceptable. The settlements are inbuilt tiny, engorged areas, close to airports, railway lines and industries , rivers and different water bodies, and markets. This is often not solely insanitary; however, it also creates complications throughout monsoon once there’s flooding throughout significant rains. There is no regular provider of water through pipes. Used and dirty water isn’t properly disposed of through coated pipes but is roughly directed far away from the Settlements. Since there’s no correct sewerage or waste disposal system, garbage is accumulated close to the slums or thrown into the water bodies just in case the slums are close to a water body. There aren’t any correct sanitation facilities, and people tend to defecate publicly. There’s no regulated provider of electricity in slums, creating living conditions deplorable. Finally, the quality of living is inferior. The existence of such conditions makes it easier for individuals living here to contract diseases and unfolds infectious diseases because many people sleep in shut quarters.

CONCLUSION:

After analyzing the data, the conclusion of it is drawn that slums’ fundamental problems are severe.  The basic need of a person is not met. And every year there’s a significant increase in the slums. The government should make significant decisions about the slum and poverty of the country. They should provide tenements with the very least of a hygienic habitat to survive in. The visit to the slums of Mumbai made me realize she is to how lucky we are to have a decent living. We should take measures to eradicate the slums by helping the government make some proper living conditions for the slum people.

The primary issue, which is the heart of the creation of slums, is POVERTY. The visit to slums gave an insight into the worst living conditions ever witnessed. And also gave us an insight into the level of poverty that is still there in the country.

Lastly, the conclusion of this visit and this report has made us realize the darker side of the world and its horrible problems. The best way to conclude this project is actually to start working towards improving the conditions of the slums.

DISCUSSION:

The discussion about this project with teachers, friends, peers, and family was severe.

The discussion about this yielded lots of different solutions and suggestions. The outcome of these discussions with various members was the same. The majority of reviews surrounded the points of unhygienic living conditions, poverty, and crime. The debate on a topic like a slum is earnest and heart-wrenching at the same time.

SUGGESTION:

There were a lot of ideas made, opinions given, and solutions.

A few of them are mentioned below:

• The government ought to think about providing a legitimate answer to the poor. Most of the days, it’s seen that the rehabilitation takes place at a location that is much far from the core areas, and employability is zero.
• Easy finance and disposition choices at cheap interest rates for upgrading, building an extension of the present shelter should be created accessible.
• New strategies for making land provide should be tried. Liberating up the unused land lying with government establishments are used to produce cheap homes.
• If the prevailing homes are being upgraded, municipal authorities ought to upgrade the provisions from time to time

ACKNOWLEDGMENT :

My profound gratitude to all the faculty members of the Department, for their timely assistance and encouragement throughout my research work.

I duly acknowledge the encouragement and support from the research scholars in the department, and all my colleagues and friends.

It gives me immense pleasure to take the opportunity to all the people who are directly or indirectly involved in the completion of my project based on Visit A Slum And Find Out Their Basic Problems

With deep reverence, I offer my deepest gratitude _____, without whom this project could not have been fulfilled.

Lastly, I thank Almighty, my parents, family members, friends, and teachers for their constant encouragement and support, without which this project would not be possible.

Name of School/College

BIBLIOGRAPHY / REFERENCE :

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharavi
• https://www.habitatforhumanity.org.uk/what-we-do/slum-rehabilitation/what-is-a-slum/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slum
• http://theriskyshift.com/2012/07/mumbais-largest-slum-more-than-meets-eye/
• https://www.proptiger.com/guide/post/10-step-strategy-to-eradicate-slums
• https://www.gktoday.in/gk/article-on-problem-of-slums-in-india/
• https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-basic-problems-of-slums-in-India-and-the-solution-on-them
• https://dharavislumindia.weebly.com/dharavi-problems.html

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How to Visit Kibera Slum For Free Without a Tour

By: Author Zachary Friedman

Posted on Last updated: January 22, 2024

Categories Kenya

Home » Africa » Kenya » How to Visit Kibera Slum For Free Without a Tour

Kibera slum is a suburb of Nairobi that is often considered to be the largest slum in Africa. As many as 1 million people live here in extreme poverty. Most live on less than $1 per day. Crime and disease are common. Fresh water is scarce. The locals live in small shacks. Most of which do not have electricity. Unemployment is high. As is substance abuse.

Several companies sell tours of Kibera for around $30 per person. You can also easily visit the slum independently for free. No guide is necessary. This guide explains, step-by-step, how to tour Kibera slum for free. I’ll cover transportation, costs, things to do, staying safe, and much more.  I’ll also explain how to take a tour of Kibera and recommend a few tour companies.

I have visited Kibera on two occasions. First, I visited independently with some friends. On a later trip, I took a tour. In this guide, I’ll share my experience. Hopefully, this guide makes your visit to Kibera as smooth and safe as possible.

Key Takeaways

Kibera is the largest slum in Nairobi, Kenya with an estimated population of around 800,000. The area suffers from extreme poverty, disease, lack of clean water, unemployment, and crime. Kibera is located 4 miles from Nairobi city center. You can get there by Uber, taxi, or matatu. If you’re going on a tour, your guide will pick you up from your hotel. When you take a tour of Kibera, you may visit a local Kibera home, a bread factory, the Kenya-Uganda Railway, an orphanage, a local school, the biogas center, and a local market. You can visit Kibera independently for free or you can take a tour for around $30. Kibera is a dangerous neighborhood. Violent crime, theft, pickpocketing, and kidnapping are all crimes that exist there. To stay safe, it’s best to visit with a guide. Never visit at night. Don’t carry any valuables. Never accept an invitation into anyone’s home.

Table of Contents

• About Kibera
• How to Get to Kibera

Things to Do in Kibera

• How to Stay Safe While Visiting Kibera
• How to Take a Tour of Kibera
• The Ethics of Visiting Kibera
• Volunteering

A Bit of Info About Kibera

Kibera is a division of Nairobi. The area sits around 4.1 miles or 6.6 kilometers from the city center. Kibera is considered to be the largest urban slum in all of Africa. It covers an area of around 2.5 square kilometers. The area is divided into a number of different villages. The Uganda Railway passes directly through the center of Kibera.

Depending on the source, population estimates range from 170,000 to well over a million people. There are estimates that as many as two million people live there. Most live in extreme poverty on less than $2 per day. This makes Kibera the poorest slum in Nairobi. Most of Kibera’s population is living well below the poverty line. Many families living in Kibera cannot afford food.

Most of the shacks in Kibera have mud walls with a corrugated tin roof and a dirt or concrete floor. They measure around 12′ x 12′. Up to 8 people can live in each house. Rent costs around 1700 kes or $12 per month.

Even though Kibera is part of Nairobi, it is considered to be an informal settlement. This means the government is not obligated to provide services or build infrastructure there. The Kenyan government does not provide schools, sanitation, clean water, clinics, etc. The residents also have no rights to the property where their homes are built. The land where Kibera is built belongs to the Kenyan government. Kibera isn’t the only slum in Nairobi. It’s just the largest.

The neighborhood suffers from a multitude of problems. Mostly stemming from poverty. The unemployment rate is around 80 %. Drug and alcohol addictions are common. Education is also poor.  Most Kibera residents can’t afford to send their children to school. There are also many young orphans living in Kibera.

Diseases from unclean drinking water and poor sanitation are also common. There are few toilet facilities. Garbage collection is also an issue. Trash piles up on the sides of the streets. The infrastructure is poor as well. Only around 20% of the homes have electricity. Most do not have running water. They collect water from polluted streams that pass through the area. For many years, Kibera residents sourced water from Nairobi Dam.

HIV and AIDS rates are also extremely high. It is estimated that as much as 20% of the population is infected with the virus. Healthcare options are limited.

Violent crimes including robbery, rape, and assault are a serious issue. There are even cases of organ harvesting in Kibera. Crime is a serious issue here. It is a dangerous place to live.

Even though education here is generally very poor, most people living in Kibera speak fluent English. While you’re walking around, you can interact with pretty much anyone in English. Even the kids. This makes it easy to get around and have a cultural exchange.

Currently, it is estimated that around 900 million to 1.6 billion people or around 1/4 of the world’s urban population lives in slums or informal settlements like Kibera. This lifestyle is a reality for millions of people around the world.

How to Get to Kibera from Nairobi

The Kibera slums lie just 4.1 miles (6.6 km) from Nairobi CBD. The neighborhood is easily accessible from anywhere in the city. The main road leading toward Kibera is Ring Road Kilimani. There are several ways to get there including:

• Uber- The ride from downtown costs just a few dollars. Your driver will drop you off right in the center of the neighborhood. This is probably the most stress-free way to get to Kibera. My friends and I took an Uber from our hostel on Milimani Road. Our driver seemed to think we were crazy for going and didn’t seem too happy about driving us there, but he did it anyway. The roads entering the slum are rough and crowded. He gave us his number so we could call him to pick us up but he didn’t answer when we wanted to return.
• Taxi- You can simply flag down a cab and tell the driver that you want to go to Kibera. Be sure to bargain hard with the driver. Some drivers won’t budge on price and some simply don’t want to take their cars over the rough roads in Kibera. If that happens, just find one that actually wants the fare. 
• Matatu (shared minibus)- There are matatus running on the main roads alongside Kibera. I’m not sure of the exact route, but you could easily find your way by asking around.
• Walk- Because Kibera is so close to the city center it is possible to just walk there. After our Uber driver didn’t answer when we wanted to be picked up, we decided to just walk back to the hostel. It took just over an hour. We were staying a little bit west of the CBD so the walk wasn’t so bad.

Kibera is kind of built on a hill. It extends out in all directions. The slum sprawls over a pretty huge area. The first thing I recommend you do is to walk to the highest point and take in the view. The size of the slum is really impressive. It’s sprawling. This will also help you get the lay of the land. The area is kind of a maze. There is no urban planning here. It is pretty easy to get lost if you’re not paying attention to where you’re going.

Next, you can begin just wondering around. Dirt roads and paths wind throughout the whole neighborhood. Some are busy and full of people, traffic, and businesses. Some are quiet and residential. You’ll see children playing with homemade toys and people going about their lives doing laundry, cooking, etc. 

Make your way to the low point in the slum where you’ll find a small stream. Here, you’ll see slum dwellers washing their belongings and collecting water. Several rickety old wooden bridges cross the stream. Watch your step when crossing.

Tip: While wandering around, try not to be too intrusive. People are just living their lives. It’s best not to bother them. Try not to take too many photos or loiter around too much. The local people don’t like it, which is understandable. I don’t like random people nosing around my home either. 

The final place that is worth checking out is the Uganda railroad. It runs directly through the center of Kibera. I am not sure if the line is still in use. Here you find some shops with people selling all sorts of items. I saw everything from food to ancient looking electronics. 

While wandering around, consider buying a drink or snacks from one of the vendors. Small convenience shops can be found all throughout the area selling a variety of items. We bought some sodas. One of my friends bought a can of beer. This is also a nice way to support the local community. 

Is Kibera Slum Safe? Avoiding Crime and Scams

Kibera is not the safest place to visit. At the same time, it’s not as dangerous as you may assume. There is some rule of law here. You’re unlikely to encounter any issues if you take some basic precautions.

That said, the crime rates in Kibera are high. Theft, mugging, murder, pickpocketing, assault, kidnapping, rape, and organ harvesting are all crimes that exist here, unfortunately.

Theft is extremely common in Kibera. If anything is left unattended, there is a good chance that it will get stolen quickly. For example, building materials cannot be left unattended here. This makes improving the infrastructure incredibly challenging. If a home is damaged, the owner has to camp on the remaining materials so they don’t get stolen.

As a visitor, your biggest risk is pickpocketing or theft. Someone could snatch your phone or camera while you’re walking around if you’re not careful. Mugging is also a risk but the likelihood is lower. If you’re here after dark, the risk increases substantially.

Kibera is safe enough to spend an afternoon walking around. I never felt in danger. To limit your risk of becoming a victim, you will want to take a few precautions.

How to stay safe while visiting Kibera Slums

• Don’t visit Kibera at night- During the day, Kibera is relatively peaceful. After night falls, things change. Most crime happens at night. You become an easier target for criminals. Multiple people including our Uber driver encouraged us to leave well before dark.
• Go in a group if possible- There is safety in numbers. It’s harder for a criminal to victimize a group of people than an individual. I visited Kibera with two friends that I met in the hostel where I was staying in Nairobi. Even though I would feel comfortable enough going alone, it is best to be in a group if it is an option.
• Don’t carry any valuables- Just bring your camera and enough cash for transport and some food. Leave your passport, jewlery, expensive electronics, and other valuables locked up at your hotel. Carrying valuables can make you a target for thieves.
• Never accept an invitation into anyone’s house- It might be tempting to take a look inside someone’s home if they invite you in but this is extremely dangerous. You could be robbed, assaulted, or worse. Only go inside someone’s home if you visit Kibera with a reputable guide who knows the people who live there.
• Don’t stay too long- The longer you say, the more risk you expose yourself to. You can get a good feel for the area in just a couple of hours. There is no need to spend a full day here.
• Respect everyone- Don’t go around pointing a camera everywhere and acting like a stereotypical tourist. Treat the area like any other neighborhood.  Generally, the people living here are friendly but they could get aggressive if they feel that you are invading their privacy. Some people are embarrassed to live in the slum. They do not want to be photographed.
• Don’t hand out anything- Don’t hand out money, candy, toys, pens, etc. Giving stuff away attracts attention and can create chaos. You could attract a group of people, which can get dangerous. It also teaches the people that tourists equal gifts, which is dangerous for future visitors. If you wish to make a donation, donate to a reputable charity.
• Watch where you step- The roads and pathways are not paved. Some are very steep and treacherous. There is garbage blanketing the ground in places. There could be broken glass or rusty pieces of metal that you could step on. There are also deep potholes, trenches, and ruts. This makes walking difficult in some places. When it rains, the streets also become muddy and slippery. Be careful not to fall. To stay safe, wear closed tow walking shoes and watch where you step.
• Don’t get lost- There doesn’t seem to be any urban planning going on in Kibera. Streets and paths go in all directions. It would be pretty easy to get lost if you aren’t paying attention to where you are going. If you do get lost, try to walk uphill so you can reorient yourself with the land.
• If you want to take a photo of someone, ask first- Many people here don’t want to be photographed. They are not exactly happy to be living here. Also, I have found that people in this part of the world generally don’t like it when you take a photo or video of them. Kenyans are extremely friendly and welcoming but they are suspicious of cameras. If you take a photo of someone without asking, they could simply ask you to stop or they could get aggressive.

To me, the best argument for taking a guided tour of Kibera rather than visiting independently is safety. You are safer with a guide. The guide has a better idea of where it is safe and where isn’t safe to walk. They will also have friends and contacts living in the area if something goes wrong. If you are alone, you may not feel comfortable walking around Kibera. It is a lot to take in and is a bit risky.

Just a few days after my visit, one of my friends found an article online about a recent crime in Kibera. Five mutilated bodies were found near the railroad tracks. It is believed that they were victims of organ harvesting. Check out the article here. 

For more general information on safety, check out my guide: Is Travel in Africa Safe? Avoiding Crime, Disease, Injury, and Scams

Taking a Tour of Kibera

If you’re not comfortable visiting Kibera on your own, there are tours available. A couple of companies offer tours of the slum.

Kibera Tours : This tour delves into the community’s daily life and culture. They try to focus on the positive sides of Kibera. You’ll visit a typical Kibera home, a bread factory, the biogas center, an organization for women with HIV, the railway line, and various markets and shops.

Explore Kibera Tours: This tour visits all of the main points of interest in Kibera including the main commercial area, markets, the Kenya-Uganda Railway, local breadmakers, a school, an orphanage, and more.

Tours cost around $30 and last 2-3 hours. You can also hire a guide and take a private tour if you choose.

Why Opt for a Tour?

Venturing independently is great, but taking a guided tour in Kibera does offer some advantages. Most guides either grew up in Kibera or spent a significant amount of time living there. The guide can offer insights that only a local can provide. For example, they can tell stories of their experience living in Kibera. They can also take you to places you wouldn’t discover alone.

A significant concern for many is safety. With a guided tour, you don’t really have to worry. Walking alongside someone who knows the area and the people provides security.

In addition, taking a tour helps to uplift the local community. A portion of the funds goes directly into local projects. For example, Kibera Tours donates a percentage of each tour to the Hope and Shine Center. This is a school for the children of Kibera.

You’ll also learn more when you take a tour. The guide can share some history of Kibera, explain some local challenges, and talk about plans for the future. This can give you some more appreciation for this unique Nairobi slum.

Is it Ethical to Visit Kibera?

Slum tours have become pretty popular for adventure tourists over the past decade or so. You can tour the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Dharavi Slum in Mumbai, townships in South Africa, and Kibera in Nairobi. Those are the main slum tours that I am aware of where organized tours are offered.

Some travelers hold the belief that it is unethical to visit a slum for tourism purposes. The argument is that tourists are exploiting the people living in the slum and treating their home as a zoo. Basically, they are viewing someone’s misfortune for the purpose of entertainment. Slum tourists may gawk and take photos of people who are suffering. This is a valid argument. Slum tourism is a type of dark tourism.

On the other hand, t ouring a slum can benefit the people living there. Slums have their own economy. They are full of shops and restaurants. By making a purchase, you are adding to the economy and helping out in some way.

In addition, most organizations that run slum tours give back to the community in some way. When you pay for a tour part of the money goes toward some type of charity. For example, when you take a tour of Kibera, your money may go toward providing education for children or building infrastructure to improve the lives of people who live there.

Slum tours can also be educational. Visitors will learn about the lifestyle of the people living in the slum. People may be inspired to make donations or help in some other way. These visits can also raise awareness about the issue of poverty.

Another argument is that s lums are just parts of cities. They are neighborhoods. Taking a stroll through a slum is no different from taking a walk in the city center. These are public areas where, legally, you have the right to walk, although it may not be safe in all cases.

Personally, I see no ethical problem with touring a slum. The people are not being exploited or harmed in any way by tourists visiting. Most tourists are simply interested in learning about the lifestyle of the people living there. They aren’t trying to exploit anyone or earn any money.

Of course, you should be respectful of the residents just as you would in any other neighborhood. Don’t vandalize their property or invade their privacy by shoving your camera in their face.

One thing that you should not do is give money to people who beg. While walking around Kibera, most likely someone will approach you and ask for money. In the long run, it does much more harm than good. If you wish to make a donation, there are legitimate charitable organizations that can put the money to good use.

For more info, check out my guide to dark tourism ethics and criticisms .

Volunteering or Donating Money in Kibera

Visiting a slum like Kibera can be a profound experience. This may be the poorest slum in the world. If, after your visit, you have the desire to volunteer or make a donation, it is possible. Several nonprofit organizations do work in Kibera.  For example, UN-Habitat and a few other agencies are working in Kibera.

I am not familiar with any of the specific organizations but one piece of advice that I can give is to be very cautious of which organization you decide to work with or donate to. This is true not only in Kibera but in all of Africa.

Most volunteer organizations are corrupt or simply not efficiently run. There are cases where less than 5% of donations actually go toward helping the people in need. Officials pocketing donations while the needy starve is a real problem. Some of these organizations operate as businesses where the volunteer is the customer. Oftentimes volunteers end up accomplishing nothing or in some cases do more harm than good.

With that being said, there are charitable organizations do a lot of good in the Nairobi slum. The most reliable way to find legitimate volunteer work in Kibera and in East Africa, in general, is to travel there and seek it out. By actually being there you can see with your own eyes what the organization is accomplishing

My Experience Visiting the Kibera Slums

When I arrived in Nairobi, I didn’t even know Kibera existed. A guy I met at the hostel told me about it and invited me along to check it out with him. In the afternoon, we ordered an Uber to Kibera. The driver wasn’t very keen on going there and didn’t understand why we wanted to go but he took us anyway.

During the drive there, our driver warned us that it was a dangerous place to go. He gave us his number and offered to pick us up in a couple of hours.

When we arrived, the first thing we did was walk uphill to get a view of the area. The view was pretty incredible. There were rusty corrugated metal roofs as far as the eye could see.

Next, we started wandering through the slum. We walked through some quiet residential areas. We saw some kids kicking around a homemade soccer ball made from string and garbage. There were also some people hanging their laundry to dry.

Next, we walked down to the stream and walked across a couple of wooden bridges. There were some kids playing near the water. The water was absolutely filthy.

We then wandered along the railroad tracks until we found a market. There, we looked around at some shops and bought some drinks. I noticed a guy selling old electronics such as TV remotes and random cables.

After that, we walked back to the main road. We tried to call our Uber driver but he didn’t pick up. We ended up walking back to our hostel. If we wanted to, we could have taken a matatu or called another Uber but we decided to walk instead.

When I returned to Nairobi a couple of years later, I decided to take a tour of Kibera to get a little bit more information about it. The tour was interesting but not really necessary.

A Bit of History About Kibera

The land where Kibera is located has been occupied since the city of Nairobi was founded in 1899. In the early 20th century, during British colonial rule, Nubian soldiers, who were loyalists to the British army, were allocated this piece of land as a reward for their services in the King’s African Rifles (KAR).

Originally, Kibera was a forest located on the outskirts of Nairobi. This area was originally referred to as ‘Kibra’ meaning ‘forest’ in the Nubian language. As the city grew, the transformed from an expanse of woodland to a bustling settlement.

With time, various ethnic communities from different parts of Kenya migrated to Nairobi in search of better opportunities. They rented land in Kibera from the Nubians. This resulted in the area evolving into a melting pot of diverse cultures, languages, and traditions.

Over time, the population grew. Kibera experienced massive population growth from births as well as migration. People moved from rural areas of Kenya into the city to look for work. Many people moved from neighboring developing countries of Somalia, South Sudan, and Uganda. Makeshift houses sprouted up, shaping Kibera’s unique landscape.

The city of Nairobi also grew to surround the informal settlement. Originally, Kibera was on the edge of Nairobi. Now it’s near the center of it. Currently, around 15% of Kibera is occupied by Nubians who originally migrated from the Kenya-Sudan border. The majority of the shacks are owned by Kikuyu (these are the Majority tribe in Nairobi).

During the 1920s and 1930s, proposals were made to relocate the families living in Kibera and demolish the slum. Residents objected and the slum remains to this day. More recently, there were proposals to build high-rise apartments for the urban poor to move into.

Final Thoughts

While it is incredibly heartbreaking to see so many people living in such extreme poverty, it is, at the same time, fascinating to see. As you walk through the narrow streets of the slum you that life here can be pretty normal. People run small businesses such as convenience stores and barber shops. Children run around laughing and playing with balls made from nothing but trash wrapped in string. People are just living their lives the best way they can under the circumstances. People can live relatively happy lifestyles with very little.

It’s also interesting to note that not everyone living in Kibera is there out of necessity. Some people live there by choice. People choose to move to a Nairobi slum from other parts of Kenya while they’re looking for work in the city. Some young people choose to live there to save money. Not everyone is living in extreme poverty.

of course, there are plenty of people suffering in Kibera. There is crime, disease, poverty, and malnutrition. Many people are unemployed. Many kids aren’t receiving any education. The area has many problems.

How do you feel about the ethics of touring a slum like Kibera? Share your thoughts and experience in the comments below.

More Africa Guides from Where The Road Forks

• How to Plan a Cairo to Cape Town Trip
• 21 Best Things to Do in Nairobi
• Why Nairobi is the Best African City
• The Travelers Guide to Malaria Prevention, Treatment, and Tablets in Africa
• How to Safari in Kenya for Less Than $200: Maasai Mara on a Budget
• The Ultimate African Bus Guide
• 23 Best Cities to Be a Digital Nomad in Africa

Zachary Friedman is an accomplished travel writer and professional blogger. Since 2011, he has traveled to 66 countries and 6 continents. He founded ‘Where The Road Forks’ in 2017 to provide readers with information and insights based on his travel and outdoor recreation experience and expertise. Zachary is also an avid cyclist and hiker. Living as a digital nomad, Zachary balances his professional life with his passions for hiking, camping, cycling, and worldwide exploration. For a deeper dive into his journey and background, visit the About page. For inquiries and collaborations, please reach out through the Contact page. You can also follow him on Facebook.

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