The urban exploration community has grown precipitously in recent years. /r/urbanexploration on reddit has more than 100,000 subscribers; uer.ca has tens of thousands of members all over the world, even with their steep membership requirements and tacky flash animations. Even this blog itself has reached an audience of several thousand enthusiasts, from the United States, Canada, the UK, Russia, Australia, Germany, Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands, France, New Zealand, Norway, Ireland, Denmark, Japan, Hong Kong, and more than twenty five other countries.

Clearly, the world was looking for something like Urbex. But there is a problem, a breakdown of communication and confusion. Outside journalists have trouble understanding the urbex community– they either characterize the activity as the pastime of daredevils, madmen, and the pathologically reckless, or they make it seem like something that can be done from the comfort of an armchair. Urbex is difficult to get a grasp of because it is composed of a variety of loosely interconnected activities. The important thing to realize is that urbex is the natural development of a certain philosophy.

What the urbex community needs is a manifesto. A calling card, an answer to the question, “What is urban exploration?” This should be an open discussion, and I by no means speak for all the thousands and thousands of curious explorers in the world, but here is my idea of what it is all about.

Urbex is for people who have always wondered what it would be like to look at the world from the bottom of a ladder they were never meant to climb down. It is for people who were promised adventure as children, but when the world handed them the SAT, 9 to 5’s, and google maps directions, they felt betrayed. These are people who frequently leave their house not really knowing where they’re headed. These are people who take shortcuts that end up doubling the distance.

Urbex is for people who disagree with, at least partly, the way the world is headed. They think that fences are something meant to be hopped, that shoes are meant to get muddy, and that a flashlight is meant to shine in dark places.

Urbex is for the curious. It is for people who spend hours on the internet looking for ghost towns and abandoned quarries. It is for people who, when they see a map, can guess where the best tunnels are. It is for people who hate to see old buildings knocked down. It is for people who have poison oak rashes on some part of their body nine months out of the year.

Urbex is for people who would gladly spend the night in an abandoned house to find out if there is anything to the ghost stories told about it. It is for people who only really know where they are when they’re lost.

The way an urbex enthusiast looks at the world is different from the way a non-urbexer does. The enthusiast glances under bridges as he drives over them. He sizes up every fence he sees. He dresses so that he isn’t seen unless he chooses to be. He wonders where locked doors lead. He wonders if that way into the building through the coal chute, storm drain, basement, or fire escape is a good idea or not. He spends two years searching for a place that probably didn’t even exist.

The non-urbexer’s idea of adventure is something that needs a plane ticket to get to. Of course the backcountry of Alaska, Patagonia, Antarctica, and the Himalayas are out there, but for most people, most of the time, they are out of reach. Adventure with a capital “A” is something entirely different from most urbex trips. But a central tenant of urban exploration is in the name– it is adventure close to home– within reach of most people most of the time.

Urban explorers enjoy knowing things other people do not. They thrive off of secrets, but long for the chance to show someone new what they have found.

Most of the activities married to urbex can be sorted into two categories: those which enable the discovery of secrets, and those which aid the sharing of secrets. Biking, hiking, trail running, rock climbing, backpacking, orienteering, and research belong to the first category. Photography, cinematography, and writing belong to the second category.

In a sentence, Urban Exploration is the art of finding adventure where the world doesn’t expect it.