At a certain point, one question always rises, no matter what the topic is. Does it really matter? In our modern society you will find a million curiosities and amusements, each with a transfixed audience, stories, and values. And each one, sooner or later, will have to explain itself. Urban Exploring warrants an explanation.

We are all born explorers. We gravitate towards astronauts and archeologists, pirates and fliers. We look up to the great explorers of history- Magellan and Drake, Scott and Amundsen, Lindbergh and Armstrong. Men who pushed beyond the known, into the darkness unafraid.

But what room can there be for explorers in a world of satellites and google earth? What mysterious islands can possibly escape the scrutiny of the International Space Station or the Internet? The corners of the map have all been filled in, the dragons have flown off the page. If mankind ever makes it to the stars then surely great adventures are in store, but those will have to wait. What we need is something here and now.

The world at large still harbors secrets, but what is that to the majority of us? We are not all world travelers. We are students, we are workers. We cannot always spin the world underfoot. We have commitments. We have homes. But we still need to explore.

What we need is something closer to home. And we have found it. What right do we have to complain of being born to late to explore the globe and too early to explore the galaxy when we haven’t even explored our own backyard?

Urban Exploration is not important because it is large (although at this point the activity numbers in the tens of thousands of enthusiasts- just uer.ca alone has several thousands of members)– it is important because it is so small. It is the Age of Discovery in the Maker Age. Urban Exploration is the reconquest of exploration for the curious masses. It is the search for mystery and intrigue in the local scale, only miles from home.

Urban Exploration is important because it is timeless. In our increasingly distracted, connected, materialistic world, new trends and fads come and go, but exploration is eternal. For just a few hours each week, we venture where the wifi and cell phone service dare not go. We make timeless memories and discoveries as we wade through decades and centuries of mud.

Urbex is a rebellion, but not in the way the world expected. It is not a loud hobby. While the world has its own ideas about why someone might seek out the darkness, most of which are distasteful, what it never expected was that we simply enjoy the peace and quiet.

We are not gangsters. We are photographers. We are rock climbers. We are history enthusiasts. We are cinematographers. We are hikers. We are waders. We are the curious. We are explorers.

So if hopping a few too many fences constitutes a rebellion, then we are rebels. But what the world tends to forget is that a revolutionary is an optimist. Walking through the beautiful decaying works of man changes a man. We are preservationists.

The ethos of the exploring community is based off of the collective benefit. If we pocket an artifact, it won’t be there for the next explorer. So we don’t. It’s that simple. There is no harm in hopping a few fences. The only harm is a selfish mindset- one not found in the vast majority of explorers.

So why does it all matter?

A few reasons, but perhaps the best is that it’s a hell of a lot of fun. I can’t think of any better way to spend a day than getting lost with my best friends, discovering unimaginably beautiful mysteries.

It has to do with the distinction between living somewhere and inhabiting it. If we’re here to inhabit the world, it must be first discovered. And what we’ve discovered is that it is far more beautiful that we had ever imagined.

This informal urbex club was born out of the passion of a pair of friends, one a writer, the other a photographer. We were both students in the Bay Area, obsessed with exploring. Over the years we brought in more and more friends, discovering more and more tunnels, ghost towns, abandoned cabins, towers, quarries, parks, ships, ruins, bomb shelters, farms, and islands, having adventures all the way.

I write this the day before we graduate, and head off to our respective universities. This is not an end by any means to our explorations, but it is at any rate the end of one chapter. This is a sign off of sorts, although I hope time makes clear it was a prologue, not an epilogue. I hope that you have enjoyed our stories.

Keep Exploring.

-No Neon Sundays