Jonestown Massacre site to reopen as tourist destination in Guyana

A South American tour group is turning Jonestown into a travel destination, over four decades after it was the scene of the most notorious mass suicide and murder in modern history.

The first group of tourists is already scheduled to visit the site, located in the rural interior of Guyana, in January, according to the tour operator. For a price tag of $650, they'll have an overnight experience that is intended to provide a deeper understanding of the tragedy.

"The thing is, Jonestown remains a tragic part of Guyana’s history, but it is also an event of global significance," said Roselyn Sewcharran, owner and founder of Wanderlust Adventures. "It offers critical lessons about cult psychology, manipulation and abuse of power."

With the support of the Guyanese government, Sewcharran will take small tour groups to what once was Jonestown, a commune settled by American Reverend Jim Jones and hundreds of his followers. It was the site of the 1978 Jonestown Massacre, in which more than 900 people, including hundreds of children, died after Jones ordered them to drink cyanide mixed with a fruit-flavored beverage.

The welcome sign at the entrance of Jonestown, Guyana, in 2022.Patrick Fort / AFP - Getty Images file

The guided visit will also take travelers from the city of Georgetown to the Port Kaituma airport, where on the day of the massacre U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan and two members of an NBC News crew — reporter Don Harris and cameraman Bob Brown — were among those shot and killed as they attempted to board their plane home.

Former congresswoman Jackie Speier, a staffer at the time, survived the attack.

"I was lying on the airstrip with my head down pretending I was dead, and I just kept hearing shots ring out," she told TODAY in 2018.

Despite the rise in popularity of dark tourism, a term describing travelers visiting locations associated with death and tragedy, some in Guyana are skeptical about the tour that will take visitors to such a morbid site.

"It clearly appeared as if there was a lot of illegal activity going on there, human rights violations, food/sleep deprivation, forced imprisonment and the images were pretty gory, reprehensible," said Neville Bissember, a Senior lecturer at the University of Guyana. "People would prefer not to remember."

But Sewcherran disagrees. After all, tourists from around the world pay to see sites like the Chernobyl in Ukraine, Ground Zero in New York City and former Nazi concentration camps in Poland.

"These sites attract visitors, not to dwell on tragedy, but to understand the events ... honor those affected and ensure that such histories are neither repeated nor forgotten," she said.