The phrase “urbex” — short for urban exploration — didn’t always look like scaling graffiti-covered walls, hopping fences and running from the police. Urbex has roots dating back to the late 18th and early 19th century, when the Romantic movement, which emphasizes the beauty of ruins as the subject in artistic and literary pursuits, took off. Victorians called this frenzy with decaying man-made monuments “ruin lust,” from the German term Ruinenlust — meaning an irresistible attraction to ruins, decay and abandoned places.
Some of the first accounts of urbex take place in Paris, in the city’s famous underground Catacombs. The story of how Philibert Aspairt in 1793 wandered into the Catacombs and never returned became a cautionary tale that attracted many adventure-seeking visitors. These rebellious cataphiles became the earliest examples of what we consider urban explorers today.
The Bay Area has seen a rise in the urbex trend in recent years, specifically during and after the COVID-19 lockdown. This phenomenon has been fueled primarily by viral social media influencers who document their exploration with YouTube videos, TikToks and Instagram Reels documenting their exploration.
For sophomore Max Hernandez, his first memory of urbex was when he lived in Ithaca, New York and saw a TikTok of someone exploring abandoned subway stations in New York City. After moving to Palo Alto, he continued Googling abandoned placesin the Bay Area and discovered locations such as deserted asylums, schools, grain silos and more.
According to Hernandez, there are different branches of urban exploration that specialize in different locations such as tunnels, sewer and storm drains, construction sites and his specialty, abandonments.
“At first, I just really wanted to see these places,” he said. “It’s almost like an adrenaline rush because you’re not supposed to be in there. But it’s also this idea of, ‘well, I get to see this place that most people will never get to see.’”
Junior Julius Bach is also very motivated by the thrill of urbex.
“I’m a big adrenaline junkie, and I love doing things that give me that feeling of being on the edge,” he said. “You never know what’s going to happen, even in a slightly more controlled environment.”
In order to capture the unseen beauty and intrigue of his topics of exploration, Hernandez found interest in photography, immortalizing urbex memories on film.
“My favorite part of urban exploration is taking a look at places that most overlook and forget about,” he said. “You get to see these amazing, amazing views, even if some of them are heartbreaking. I remember when I was visiting an abandoned school in West Oakland, there were school assignments left on the ground and student science projects among the trash.”
Both Hernandez and Bach plan and execute these trips with friends and have made friendships through fellow explorers they’ve met.
“I like going solo — sometimes it’s a good way to clear your head and just get out of the house into the world,” Bach said. “But it’s always fun because there’s a really good social aspect to it. If you bring people who’ve never done it before, they might be like ‘Wow, this is actually really fun,’ and maybe they get into it as well.”
Even though urbex is often characterized by its spontaneity, there is a lot more happening logistically in a day of exploration than it may seem. The first challenge: finding a location. Since Hernandez’s urban exploration relies on finding abandoned places, it can be difficult to find locations that urbexers have both heard about but also remain secluded. For this reason, urbexers are reluctant to share locations for fear of them being vandalized or parts of the location being trashed and destroyed.
“Sometimes, many people prefer trading,” Hernandez said. “If I have a spot and they respond, I give them my location and they give me their location. The thing is, when I first started, I didn’t have any spots, so I would have to comb through Reddit threads, TikToks, Instagram, ChatGPT and anything I could think of.”
Once they’ve decided on the who, where and when, their next task is figuring out transportation, packing
supplies and attire.
For Bach, who has gotten cut by scrap metal on an expedition, he prioritizes wearing durable and protective articles of clothing like good walking shoes with thicker soles, working gloves, durable pants, a shirt layered underneath and hoodie over top. Other supplies to bring include a small backpack, flashlight, portable charger, first-aid kit, camera, granola bar and spare cash. Bach always makes sure he does his research about the location’s safety.
“You always want to be considerate of things like what the weather is going to be, what the risks are and how many sharp objects you’re going to be around that you would cut yourself on,” he said. “You just have to be very, very aware because anything can always happen.”
Despite the risks, teens around the Bay Area, and around the world, continue to participate in urban exploring.
“Urban exploring, to me, is amazing, heartbreaking, hopeful and scary,” Hernandez said. “But it’s really fun.”
