I've compiled a favorite 10-ish list of the people/groups who I think have put out some of the most impressive work in urbex in the last couple of decades, some of whom are active on this site, some of whom I have met personally (or met close friends of).

This list is in no particular order.

*Some information may be dated/inaccurate, everything here is fake, urbex is not real according to Max Power (legal defense C, 1.543).

1 & 2. dsankt & the London Consolidation Crew

Consistently explored some of the hardest stuff to crack, from the drains behind Niagara Falls to The London Shard to lots of transit tunnels in between. And Bradley G. wrote a pretty neat book expounding on the history and philosophy of urbex.

3. Ninj

Where this site was born from, to an extent. A copy of Access All Areas is facing me from my bookshelf. A pioneer who explicated the idea of infiltration. Enough said.

4. Steve D.
A year before the peak of my exploring "career," Undercity came out and opened up a diverse new world of NYC exploration. I would have stuck to abandoned buildings, rooftops, and alleyways if this movie didn't open my mind to what else is out there. Who else can claim to have a photo of them making out with someone on top of the Brooklyn Bridge during sunrise like Steve does?

4. LTV Squad
The OG New York City explorer(s), one of the first to consistently log NYC tunnel excursions. To paraphrase a quote, "We know about places that even NYC transit workers don't!"

5. Shiey
Lithuanian dude who hits Cold War relics and infiltrates live factories and offices all over Eastern Europe, and has the GoPro footage to prove it. Catch him napping in his hammock along a smokestack while complaining that he only had 3 hours of sleep.

6. Ilia B.
He has ridden freight trains all the way across Russia (from east to west). One of my favorite scenes is his cat and mouse escape from Texas rail cops by hanging on the side of a moving double-stack train. Check out his Chernobyl series to watch a human get tantalizingly close to the reactor.

7. WTC Base Jumpers
I don't know a lot about these guys, and I'm sure they'd like it that way. They were able to get into one of the most high-profile locations in the world, BASE jump off the top, and elude capture for several months. Legendary. However, if they weren't caught, who knows if we'd ever see the video or even know who they are.

8. Dmitry G.

One of the creators of the Insiders Project. Came to this site years ago asking for funding for a video series and nobody knew who he was/what is was about. Ended up creating a series exploring Ukraine along freight trains, massive rusty cutter machines, the Kiev subway, tunnels under an active factory, and the space shuttles in Baikonur. If you have a VPN, give it a watch on Youtube - the cinematography is A1.

9. uLiveanduBurn

A more frequent UER contributor. Always impressed by the sheer variety of locations he and friends seem to reach, whether it's a mega-yacht or a place that involve rappelling.



Who are some of your favorite explorers?

Nice list but it's missing some important names. The Midwest community has a lot of big names who have been around a long time and have been very influential on urbex culture too, notably the Action Squad. Though Max Action himself has long since retired from urbex, several other members of the original group are still highly active in the community and are influential figures in the MSP community as a whole- which itself is a very influential community on the global urbex scene due to its size and ties with explorers all over the world. I personally have met explorers from Canada, England, and Australia through the MSP community.

Other notable international names;

- Diggers of the Underground Planet: One of the first urbex groups in Russia before they were coopted by the Russian government after leading soldiers through underground tunnels to resolve a hostage crisis.

- Australian Cave Clan: The largest and most well organized urbex community in the world, with a rich history and members who've traveled the globe for urbex.

- Chernobyl Stalkers: urban explorers who've monetized their hobby by becoming guides for illegal tours. As much as the concept of "selling out" is reviled in the wider urbex community their ability to capture the imagination of the general public ought to be acknowledged when considering the general rise of the urbex subculture.

- Philibert Aspairt: the first cataphile of Paris who got lost and died in the Catacombs in 1793 while searching for a liquor stash

- Nexus: the mysterious cartographer responsible for releasing a map of the Paris Catacombs every year- a map which can only be obtained from a cataphile who already has a copy.

- San Francisco Suicide Club: a mixture of pranksters, vigilant infiltrators, and urban explorers who operated out of San Francisco in the 70s.

Infiltration has a really good timeline of the early history of urbex up until 2005. While most of the people listed there are either dead or retired, a few are still active around the world and hitting spots most of us can only dream of- they're just good at keeping it offline.

http://www.infiltr...tory-timeline.html

Also Bradley Garret's book is not looked upon fondly. On top of a lot of pretentious sociopolitical stuff the release of his book ruined the lives of almost everybody involved. He got most of the people in his book arrested and the LCC was forcibly disbanded by a judge. He's generally regarded as someone who sold out the LCC for acclaim.

Mine aren't urban explorers but criminals who showed impressive infiltration skills or other tangential achievements.

-There was a civil service applicant who made remarkable use of infiltration techniques to try to pass the exam. He managed to get access to a major government building for multiple visits. His tactics included tailgating, stealing ID cards from the locker room, entering the code to an office door because it was written on the lock, and some computer stuff I don't understand. I hope the spy agency took note and offered him a job.

-And there was Excavator Vigilante. When a shadowy religious figure was arrested for corrupting the previous president, she uttered "I deserve to die for what I've done!" on her way into custody. So this guy on the far side of the country heard that, fired up his excavator, came to Seoul and attacked the prosecutor's office where he believed she was being held. When asked after his arrest why he attacked a public building in such dramatic fashion, he said "I came here to help Choi Soon-sil die." Now every time I go exploring and see an excavator parked there, I feel a bit of pride.

I've always had a special admiration for drainers... those looneys that go into drains for the hell of it.
there are like 57 ways to die doing that shit, so much respect.

anyways...

Posted by Samurai I've always had a special admiration for drainers... those looneys that go into drains for the hell of it. there are like 57 ways to die doing that shit, so much respect. anyways...

Honestly storm drains aren't that bad if you stay out when it's raining and wear boots with good traction. It's mostly a lot of walking. Now sewers on the other hand... I've heard stories from explorers who had to carry a member of their group out who collapsed while asphyxiating on methane, and another of escaping a chlorine gas cloud from somebody emptying their swimming pool. That stuff is insane

Posted by Aran Honestly storm drains aren't that bad if you stay out when it's raining and wear boots with good traction. It's mostly a lot of walking. Now sewers on the other hand... I've heard stories from explorers who had to carry a member of their group out who collapsed while asphyxiating on methane, and another of escaping a chlorine gas cloud from somebody emptying their swimming pool. That stuff is insane

I have some friends that got into the Victorian sewers under London. The photos of the brickwork are amazing. They were master craftsmen.

Abby

Posted by superphoenix ...

Whole heartedly agree with your 1,3,5 and 10. (you listed 4 twice so assuming the second 4(LTV) is #5)

Especially dsankt* and uLive.
* Undisputed king of urbex IMO.

My additions would be...

Goddog
Motts
NickSan (RIP)
Flurbex
Shane
Cave Clan
Action Squad.

I'm forgetting a few I'm sure.

Posted by superphoenix 1 & 2. dsankt & the London Consolidation Crew Consistently explored some of the hardest stuff to crack, from the drains behind Niagara Falls to The London Shard to lots of transit tunnels in between. And Bradley G. wrote a pretty neat book expounding on the history and philosophy of urbex.

Going to have to disagree with you on this one, excluding dsankt who is legendary in every circle.

Bradley L Garrett and the LCC in the UK are mostly considered laughing stocks (in the case of Bradley) or just outright criminals which is basically what they resorted to becoming in the pursuit of what they were doing. They were the ones behind the derailing of the Mail Rail train in the underground postal shuttle system which caused a huge drama and various court cases and fallout as well as tens of thousands of pounds worth of damage to the infrastructure.

Later after that one of the LCC members, who I used to actually explore with a couple of times when me and him were younger, came onto one of the forums and basically outright admitted the amount of B&E they were doing and tried to defend their actions, which didn't go down well at all and lead to the whole thing falling apart.

Away from that, I have recently started watching shiey's stuff on Youtube, which is rare for me as I usually hate watching exploring videos, but he hasn't fallen into the clickbait moronic stuff like so many do, and he does some legitimately awesome stuff without feeling the need to dress it up as something it isn't.

I like Bright Sun Films for some reasons.
- Their explainations of why it's abandoned are documented.
- We don't often see the guy behind the camera, that means it's more about the place and the exploration than the guy.
- The quality and image is kinda cool.

I don't like them because
- Sometime they burn places and entrances.


On your list, I really like shiey for its train surfing videos and for how he reacts chill when he's caught. I don't like him because he burn some cool places...

Max. Powers.

Did anyone mention Belov Blog? Each of their descents is probably crazier than anything anyone's ever done, not to mention inhuman physical fitness one must have for that kind of stuff. It ended tragically quite recently, but the videos are still up.

I might get some flack for this one, but his contributions are undeniable and his attitude towards "new explorers" is no worse than the attitude of vets now. Greg Brick. The man has written many great articles about the MSP underground that explain the history very thoroughly. He's always respected locations and worked hard to keep them preserved. I wish he had more photos but what can ya do.

People who climb the cranes and bridges..

Posted by randomesquephoto Max. Powers.

Whose name you'd love to touchhhhhh....but you mustn't touchhhhhh

Dawid Rajtak

Christoph Klinger(Mr, Monster) on flickr or formerly I believe idk.

Christiano Antognotti

sps( the underground quarry photos are just magnificent)

Michel Burton

Vincet Michel

Woven Eye

Posted by mookster Whose name you'd love to touchhhhhh....but you mustn't touchhhhhh

😂😆😅

Posted by Aran Nice list but it's missing some important names. The Midwest community has a lot of big names who have been around a long time and have been very influential on urbex culture too, notably the Action Squad. Though Max Action himself has long since retired from urbex, several other members of the original group are still highly active in the community and are influential figures in the MSP community as a whole- which itself is a very influential community on the global urbex scene due to its size and ties with explorers all over the world. I personally have met explorers from Canada, England, and Australia through the MSP community.

Lots of great stuff from MSP, I'm sure! I just haven't connected with anyone from there yet. It doesn't help that ------ Week is usually on one of the coldest weeks of the year lol.

Suicide Club, Diggers, and Cave Clan are all worth a mention, though not necessarily influential for my development in urbex.

On top of a lot of pretentious sociopolitical stuff the release of his book ruined the lives of almost everybody involved. He got most of the people in his book arrested and the LCC was forcibly disbanded by a judge.

That's news to me. What happened there? And how do you even "disband" a loose conglomeration of people?

N1Hawk

And Josh, although I heard he's fake.

To me some of the best explorers I've known or know of aren't the ones who get all the attention but continually come up with new and unique locations. They're not necessarily running to the latest flavor but putting in the work to actually discover new spots. A lot of now popular sites that everyone seems to need to go to were originally discovered by one of these guys. They would include: tmdtheue, DetroitUnseen, and TunnelBug. For overseas stuff I'd throw in Fun_Damian and Shirako_527.

Posted by superphoenix That's news to me. What happened there? And how do you even "disband" a loose conglomeration of people?

Read my first reply on this thread which has a bit more of an explanation as to why Garrett and the LCC are regarded as pariahs in the UK.