Season 2 / Social
Opening Scene
Joe joins the tour because he wants to understand the “real” city. He read it in a review: it’s not touristy, it’s authentic.They tell him he can take photos, that it’s fine, that showing these realities is important.
From the van, he watches tightly packed houses, unpaved streets, glances that last barely a second. Everything happens quickly without getting out, without interrupting too much.
Origin
From reality to guided tour
You know how "poverty tourism" is a thing now? Well, it didn't actually start as a business or a way to make money.
In the late 20th century, it was more of a gesture. It started with universities and NGOs taking people to marginalized neighborhoods just to show the reality of extreme inequality. The original goal was honest: look at the world to understand it, and get close so you can't just ignore it.
Then, urban tourism exploded in the 90s and 2000s. Cities stopped just selling beaches and old monuments. Instead, they started selling the "real city" that raw, unequal side of life as an "alternative experience."
What used to take time and a lot of context suddenly got squeezed into 45-minute tours. Companies designed safe routes and wrote scripts to make sure visitors felt "aware" instead of guilty.
Eventually, review sites and social media did the rest. Suddenly, visiting these spots was "recommended" or "impactful." Looking at inequality basically became just another thing to buy and consume. It’s definitely something to think about next time we’re planning a trip.
The Phenomenon
You won't see them advertised as "poverty tours" anymore. Instead, they use terms like "cultural exchange" or "transformative experiences." It’s a clever way to rebrand the same old tours.
In Rio de Janeiro, favela tours are now just as common as going to the beach. This really took off around the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. It definitely brought in new hostels and souvenir shops, giving some locals a way to earn a living.
But honestly, the big picture didn't change much there. Even with tourists walking around, many favelas are still controlled by gangs or militias. The violence didn't just go away; it simply started living right alongside the gift shops. It’s a strange mix.
In Cape Town, visits to townships are bundled with fancy wine tours and safaris. In Mumbai, the Dharavi area is marketed as a hub of "entrepreneurship." The brochures focus on how hard-working and resilient people are, rather than how tough their living conditions actually are.
Then you have Medellín’s Comuna 13 (A topic we covered in one of the previous editions) This one feels a bit different because the tours are run by the people who actually live there. You’ve got local rappers and graffiti artists telling their own stories while you walk past the famous outdoor escalators.
In that specific case, the money stays in the community and it has actually helped lower the violence over the years. It shows that when the locals are the ones holding the mic, the impact can be much more positive.
What the World Says
For a lot of travelers, "poverty tours" aren’t just about sightseeing. They see it as a way to be more conscious. Instead of just hitting the tourist traps, they want to step out of their bubble and see the parts of a city that most people usually ignore.
If you check the reviews, you’ll see people using words like "powerful" or "eye-opening." There is this real desire to feel a deep connection or understand a complex place in just a couple of hours.
The companies running these tours say they are all about education. They claim they create local jobs, break down old stereotypes, and even put some of the money back into the neighborhood. It sounds like a win-win on paper.
Some locals actually agree. They see it as a chance to boost small businesses and get their community noticed. For them, it’s a way to tell their own story on their own terms while keeping local projects alive and well.
The Dark Side
Poverty basically becomes something you can just observe, walk through, and explain from the outside. The person looking can always leave, but the person being watched doesn't have that choice.
Even when operators promise a positive impact, the actual benefits are usually pretty small and uneven. A tiny fraction of the money stays in the neighborhood, while the rest disappears into the hands of outside companies, turning someone's life into "content" or "reputation."
For the people living there, this constant exposure can be exhausting. It’s hard to imagine living in a place that others treat like a museum exhibit. It creates a feeling of being watched that tourist brochures never mention.
There’s also a deeper contradiction in all of this. These tours promise to make you more "aware" but they rarely actually question why that poverty exists in the first place. It’s a heavy reality to process when you're just trying to be a good traveler.
📌 Curiosities
According to UN-Habitat, nearly 25% of the world’s urban population lives in informal settlements or slums.
Poverty tourism also exists in cities of the Global North: academic research documents tours focused on homelessness in places like Berlin and Toronto.
There are cases where residents organize and lead their own tours, but studies agree these remain a minority within the industry.
Visiting impoverished neighborhoods as an urban experience has historical precedents: slumming was documented in London and New York as early as the late 19th century.
Before the pandemic, tourism studies estimated that township tours in South Africa attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors per year, particularly in cities like Cape Town.
If empathy has a schedule, a route, and a price, is it still empathy?
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