Urban exploration is about a drive for authenticity -- peeling back the surface layers to find those precious few spaces in the urban environment that aren't designed for consumer consumption. The Discovery Channel's show is a phony, packaged and entirely for-profit product, featuring actors paid to play the parts of various pre-determined stereotypes (visit http://web.archive.org/web/20040204030403/http://wildernessdoc.com/ to see their original casting call). Not a single off-limits area is visited, since the producers purchased permission to visit each location. "Urban Explorers" is an entirely staged, entirely safe Club-Med like substitute for real adventure, and the antithesis of what urban exploration is all about.

Our first concern is not achieving some "desire to become national TV celebrities" by doing stunts for the camera, and we don't normally have the money or the clout to get permission to visit the places we explore. We certainly never get paid for it. We do it because we crave authenticity and adventure, and because we love the places we visit. For a lot of people, it's not just about the adventure, but about the aesthetic of urban decay and the history and the documenting of such.

We hope you'll take a look at this site and other UE sites and decide you like the REAL version of urban exploration better than the ARTIFICIAL version on TV!