Urban Exploration: Tips, Tricks, Links and Guides
Urban exploration (also known as ‘building infiltration’) is a risky sport at best and an illegal one at worst. In short, it is the art of breaking into abandoned buildings and places. While WebUrbanist can’t endorse breaking the law there is fortunately no law against reporting on it and some forms of urban exploration are fortunately legal. Here are some introductory guides and additional resources for those interested in exploring this illicit urban sport.
Creative, Useful and Humorous Urban Camouflage (and More Examples): Whether it be humorous, artistic or practical there have been a lot of creative attempts at urban camo. One artist plays with outfits that blend perfectly into the background while another has created a fire hydrant and coke machine suite for disguising oneself against a typical urban backdrop. Even objects like cars and buildings can be made to look like other elements in the urban environment.
Introduction to Parkour and Free Running (and More Parkour Videos and Extreme Urban Sports): No one gets around cities with as much subversive class as parkour building jumpers. Whether they be amateurs in home videos or trained professionals in movies and commercials, practitioners of this amazing urban acrobatic art form are something to behold. They bounce gracefully from wall to building top and make amazing stunt props out of the most ordinary urban objects around them. But be careful: this is much more difficult than it might appear.
Impressive Urban Photography and Photographers: While you are out exploring the urban environment you might not realize how many ways you can capture your experience on film. Some people take an artistic approach and others allow their subject matter (be it abandoned buildings or amazing graffiti) to take a lead position. Whatever your approach, these urban photographers are a great place to find some initial inspiration for your shots.
30 Other Urban Exploration Websites: Unknown to many web surfers there are a vast number of regional urban exploration websites as well as specialty forums and other online urbex communities. The list of thirty linked here is just a taste of the myriad sites dedicated to this subversive activity around the world. Organized into helpful categories they provide a basis for further urban exploration.
42 Essential Flickr Groups for Finding Abandonments: Want more eye candy? Here are some great Flick photo groups revolving around all kinds of urban exploration from broad building and vehicle types to very specific forms of decay and disuse. You can browse these groups for hours then come back to this hub page to find even more
