Travel Reference
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reinventing themselves to serve the increasing number of heritage trail
tourists who are retracing the way of Route 66 (DuVal, 2001; Wallis,
1992). Owing to Route 66's historic importance for the country, several
organizations have been established to help in its preservation. In 1999 US
Congress enacted a bill to establish the Route 66 Corridor Preservation
Program to help protect the deteriorating road and its associated landscape
features. It provides logistical support and small grants to help renovate
and protect historic properties along the road. The program is adminis-
tered by the National Park Service and based in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Similarly, the Route 66 Alliance is a non-profit organization that aims to
preserve, protect and promote the historic auto corridor. It assists the eight
states and communities to develop historic thoroughfare-based tourism
and economic development.
Dark migration trails
While most of the migration trails already noted have a dark historical
element to them, there are a number of forced migration routes that have also
come to commemorate dark heritage specifically. Dark tourism has become a
common buzzword in academic writing and in the tourism industry in recent
years (cf. Ashworth & Hartmann, 2005a; Hartmann, 2014; Lennon & Foley,
2000; Seaton, 1996; Sharpley & Stone, 2009; White & Frew, 2013). Dark tour-
ism rallies around sites and events of human suffering, and the related notion
of thanatourism fixates on death-related tourism. While there are murder
tour circuits, haunted hikes and ghost routes in Europe, the United Kingdom
(UK) and North America (Ashworth & Hartmann, 2005b), which would
qualify as dark tourism trails, they are more or less purposive and recently
designed tour circuits that aim to guide crime or supernatural enthusiasts
between places associated with a specific murder or other tragedy. This sec-
tion, however, describes more organic dark tourism trails that commemorate
events associated with human suffering and other dark histories.
Foremost among these are several forced migration routes that denote a
dark heritage. Deracination, or forced migration, occurs when groups of people
are violently coerced to leave their homelands and migrate to new areas.
Perhaps the most pervasive and best-known of these is the African slave
trade. While African slavery has existed for more than two millennia, the
most extensive and pervasive phase occurred during the 400 years leading up
to the 20th century and led from West Africa to European colonies in Asia
and the Americas. Others include the coerced relocation of Native Americans
by the US government in the 1800s. Several of these types of long-distance
migratory routes of darkness are now significant heritage trails.
The Slave Route was established by UNESCO in 1994 to document, com-
memorate and bring to light the sorrowful events of the trans-Atlantic slave
 
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