Remembrance Tourism, sometimes called war tourism or battlefield tourism, focuses on past conflicts as a point of interest on a trip.
Over the years, we’ve become more interested in Remembrance tourism, especially as we’ve started to learn the stories of our own family members who fought in Europe during the world wars.
Remembrance Tourism Posts
- Searching for Walter — An emotional visit to the WWI grave of Geoff’s great-great uncle Walter, who lied about his age enlist of the too-young age of 16. We travelled to Ypres, Belgium to visit the grave and remember Walter’s sacrifice.
- A Hilltop in Normandy — After visiting Geoff’s great-great Uncle Walter, Katie wanted to pay respects to some of her fallen family members, and we visited the WWII grave of her (maternal) grandfather’s brother, Ken, in Normandy.
- When in Europe, keep your eyes to the sidewalk in the hopes of seeing Stolperstein, or ‘Stumbling Stones:’ small monuments to individual victims of the Holocaust, located outside their former homes.
- Germany is a world-leader in coming to terms with the world wars, and has a number of exceptional sights worth visiting. Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial is a must-see. In Hannover, we found the small tributes to be most touching.
- We visited the eastern province of Gelderland in the Netherlands, and participated in the Sunset March, a moving tribute to soldiers killed during Operation Market Garden. We also visited the grave of Katie’s other great uncle at the Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery.
- In Spring 2017, we took a Battle of the Bulge tour through Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. The first post from that trip is about our tour — by American military jeep — around the Bastogne region of Belgium. More posts are coming soon.
