The Innocent Pleasure of Trespassing
Yes, we all like breaking into places in ways that &#x27;nobody cares about&#x27;, and we all like beholding beautiful scenes which a majority of people don&#x27;t think to look for.<p>But there&#x27;s a reason why most places discourage this sort of freewheeling exploration; when you visit a place and disrespect its boundaries, you often end up damaging it for the people who come after you. Even footsteps will eventually wear away stones, knock things loose, and disturb delicate habitats&#x2F;ecosystems such as fungi. As the old saying goes, &quot;plants grow by inches, but they die by feet.&quot;<p>And if you play confidence games like the author, you&#x27;re making it more likely for other people seeking the same location to get caught and punished.<p>Yes, the sunbeams that cut through the jagged broken windows of an abandoned train station are gorgeous, and the view from the top of a palatial tower is hard to beat. But it&#x27;s also sort of like driving through a wetland or ignoring &#x27;please stay on trail&#x27; signs in the wild; if we derive pleasure from these places and consider them special, showing them off and visiting them regularly without regard for conservation seems like a poor way to honor them.<p>Honestly, I have trouble seeing the views espoused in this article as anything other than selfish. Even publicly-owned lands have limits on their use, because we all share these spaces. They don&#x27;t belong to <i>you</i>, they belong to <i>all of us</i>, and that includes future generations who will have the same yearnings that we do. I&#x27;d be interested to hear other takes, but as an occasional trespasser, this manifesto feels disrespectful and I feel like it might paint the community of urban (and natural) explorers in a bad light.