Hawaii Big Island, April 2009. My partner and I hiked across lava. A map on our GPS guided us along the invisible lines of streets buried beneath us. A school bus, trapped by lava, reminded us this is a disaster site where homes had once stood.
Disaster Tourism can be distasteful. I think of people getting in the way of rescue workers, taking selfies against a backdrop of distressed people, and consuming resources while locals go without.
September 2018. I had planned to visit Hokkaido this coming week. With the September 6, 2018 major earthquake in Hokkaido I’ve been reviewing the appropriateness of my plans.
I was going to fly into Tokyo NRT, then continue to Hokkaido’s New Chitose Airport CTS. I would spend the night at the Air Terminal Hotel before boarding an early morning flight to Nakashibetsu SHB.
Hokkaido air travel is largely back to normal: NRT-CTS flights resumed 2 days after the earthquake; CTS-SHB flights started after a further 3 days.
A headline in the Japan News blares “Hokkaido hotels hammered by 500,000 guest cancellations.” Hokkaido hotels are begging for guests, which would normally be an incentive for me to visit Hokkaido. But I would face challenges. The Air Terminal Hotel was damaged in the earthquake, and is currently closed. Some train lines are blocked; I can find no evidence the line from Nemuro to Kushiro (highlighted on this map) is operating.
My plans were fluid: apart from the Air Terminal Hotel, I had made no reservations. I was going to start my trip in Nemuro, then explore national parks in eastern Hokkaido.
I know my tourist dollars would be particularly welcome at this time. However, I just don’t want to spend time overcoming transit challenges and possibly getting in the way.
Plan B: Visit a Recovering Disaster Area
I’ll fly into Tokyo NRT from the USA, as planned, but will probably not board the flight to Hokkaido.
Abandoning the NRT-CTS and CTS-SHB flights is not a problem for me:
- The airline will generally cancel return flights if a flight on the outward journey is abandoned. This will not happen because I have separate outward and return reservations.
- The airline can cancel your frequent flyer account if they detect “hidden city ticketing.” Sometimes it’s cheaper to book a flight beyond your actual destination, then simply abandon that ongoing flight. However, this violates airlines’ conditions of carriage. In my case, there was no extra cost to fly to Nakashibetsu, Hokkaido, rather than just fly to Tokyo from the USA. With the earthquake, I anticipate no problems with the airline.
I’ll take a bullet train from Tokyo to a northern Honshu city, probably Sendai. I’ll explore the coastline highlighted on this map:
This coastline was heavily damaged by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Towns were scraped away. Just to the south of the highlighted area, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was permanently disabled. Tourists tend to stay away from this area.
I’ve learned that the highlighted coastline is stunning, so I’m going to sample stretches of the 700km Michinoku Coastal Trail. Much of this area is a national park: Sanriku Fukko (reconstruction) National Park.
I’ll return to Hokkaido in better times.