Do y'all think there's an upper limit for how old a location can be before it's no longer considered "urban exploration" if you visit it? Like visiting an abandoned farmhouse from the colonial days of Virginia versus the Colosseum in Rome?

Half the stuff you see on here isn't really urban exploring, its tourism. If paying admission and taking a tour of Carlsbad Caverns is urban exploring then its like between 3 and 12 million years old isn't it?

I suppose we can have a debate over the term urban exploring before my post gets deleted. Why try to set a limit on the age of things to explore?

In my mind, if it's abandoned and not well known to the general public, it's urban exploration. If you have to pay an admission fee or it's marketed as a tourist destination, it's merely tourism. I know the line between the two can be blurry, but to me you can only really determine if it's exploration or tourism on a case by case basis.

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Posted by Aran In my mind, if it's abandoned and not well known to the general public, it's urban exploration. If you have to pay an admission fee or it's marketed as a tourist destination, it's merely tourism. I know the line between the two can be blurry, but to me you can only really determine if it's exploration or tourism on a case by case basis.

It can go even deeper than that. Urban exploration is more about getting into places not visited by the general public vs strictly abandonments. Going into storm drains, though not abandoned, is considered urban exploration. Same with rooftopping, climbing cranes, going into employee only areas, etc. So something like visiting the Roman Colosseum isn't urban exploration...it's not abandoned and is full of tourists. However, if you veer off the tour path and get into areas you aren't supposed to be, that could be urban exploration.

Long story short, the age of a place has absolutely no bearing on if something is considered "UE" when you visit or not. It's more about "are you in an area that's off limits to the general public"?

Posted by WarBird69 It can go even deeper than that. Urban exploration is more about getting into places not visited by the general public vs strictly abandonments. Going into storm drains, though not abandoned, is considered urban exploration. Same with rooftopping, climbing cranes, going into employee only areas, etc. So something like visiting the Roman Colosseum isn't urban exploration...it's not abandoned and is full of tourists. However, if you veer off the tour path and get into areas you aren't supposed to be, that could be urban exploration. Long story short, the age of a place has absolutely no bearing on if something is considered "UE" when you visit or not. It's more about "are you in an area that's off limits to the general public"?

If we stick with that definition of urban exploration as visiting places "off limits to the general public", does the reason something is off-limits factor into this?

Consider the examples you brought up, all these different disciplines of urban exploration: rooftopping, climbing cranes, draining.

Construction sites usually come with "authorized personnel only" or more vague "keep out" or "no trespassing" signs. Locations like these carry the most visible and outright displays of "off-limits", as they are private property; trespassing laws can be applied in these scenarios.

Rooftops, while depending on which buildings they're attached to, are also off-limits because the building is also considered private property. This is another example of off-limits by law.

Storm drains, on the other hand, exist in a more grey area. Depending on where you are and what the local laws are, they might be considered public right-of-ways. Therefore, in cases like these, they're off limits because of societal beliefs; most people wouldn't think of drains as something accessible, even on a technical level.

Whether a location is off-limits because of legal or societal reasons doesn't matter, I think. Thoughts?

Is this really the best thing you can think to do on a nice Saturday afternoon at 3pm? Seriously, who cares. UE is whatever anyone decides to think it is to them.

Posted by Turd Furgusen Is this really the best thing you can think to do on a nice Saturday afternoon at 3pm? Seriously, who cares. UE is whatever anyone decides to think it is to them.

These are the things I wind up thinking about when I'm not exploring, so yes! I find this fascinating!

I don't think age necessarily can determine if a location "counts" or not. A 150 year old building turned into a museum open to the public is much less a UE location than a 10 year old abandoned building.

In my mind at least, as someone that does rooftopping and other active sites much more than abandonments, it's a lot more complex than that. UE covers a lot more than just "old buildings"--construction sites and yet-to-open buildings, active buildings with rooftops, demolition sites, storm drains and tunnels, there's a lot of UE sites that have nothing to do with age. Exploring a 0 year old still-a-construction-site building is still urban exploration.

And then as far as access goes, poking around a building on a Tuesday that gives tours on weekends to the public is still exploring. Poking around a building at 2am when its closed is still exploring.

I think a good rule of thumb for if it's UE is if you were to be caught by a worker, owner, or police officer, how likely it would be to be asked to leave (or ticketed, escorted out, whatever strikes your fancy).

You forgot the "Older than 1,000 years", "Older than 10,000 years", "Older than 100,000 years", and "Older than 1,000,000 years" options.

its not about age. as long as abandoned.

what pisses me off is when some explorers post up "explores" that actually turn out to be museums or guided tours etc etc

Forgetting to mention this in the process and passing it off as a legit explore. Would not mind if they posted up what it was but they don't!

Posted by Turd Furgusen Is this really the best thing you can think to do on a nice Saturday afternoon at 3pm? Seriously, who cares. UE is whatever anyone decides to think it is to them.

The only sensible response in this thread.