Welcome to coolgeography.co.uk
Back to main Back to GCSE Back to Tourism
Extreme tourist environments
Think about it

An extreme environment is one in which there exist difficult environmental conditions for human survival.  They include deserts, ice sheets, mountains and rainforests.  All activities involved in these environments include an element of risk, and often include a lot of physical exertion.  Tourist activities count as extreme tourism includes rock climbing, white water rafting, bungee jumping, ice walking and paragliding.  Younger, adventurous people are often the target market, so called DINKS (Dual Income No Kids!) because they have the fitness and cash for such activities.  

Oman's Grand Canyon

Extreme tourism  has expanded in  popularity in recent years, as people search adventure.  Many people do not want packaged holidays in huge mass tourist resorts and are looking for something different in a holiday.  This is where Extreme tourism comes in.  As air travel expands and people have more disposable income, these types of holiday are becoming more available.  In addition, companies are realising that people will pay a lot of money for a specialised extreme holiday, and are expanding as a result.  This means that even more people can become extreme tourists.  Antarctica is one place where you can be an extreme tourist, and is your case study for this unit.  There are other environments though, such as the Franz Joseph glacier in New Zealand, Death Valley in the SW USA, boats trips to the Arctic and tours of the Amazon rainforest (shown below) to name but a few!

1) Watch the video below from Mr Joe Woodhams and write down as many extreme tourist activities as possible.

2) Read the text opposite and complete this gap fill exercise

3) Try the scatter exercise below


The canopy level of trees in the Amazon, an extreme environment because of its remote nature, climate and hazards

Tarantula in the Amazon, dangerous animals are one of the things that make the Amazon Extreme

 Creative Commons LicenseCoolgeography.co.uk by Rob Gamesby is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Contact - robert.gamesby@st-marys.newcastle.sch.uk