Question - How did you get into exploring?

[The Young One]

How did you get into exploring and when did you get into it?

 

[Mikeymutt]

Looking for old pillboxes online and when googling kept coming across abandoned places and seeing communities dedicated to it in forums (was no Facebook groups then). Thought this is definitely something I like so started going out finding local things then going further afield. Started making friends and it just snowballed from that. I still see it as a fun day out with friends or an escape on my own, prob do more solo than with others. History was my favourite subject at school, so this hobby is perfect. It was eleven years ago now for me. Not as long as a lot on here.

 

[TalkingMask]

How did you get into exploring and when did you get into it?

friend took me out to Hartshead Power station back in 2019 and thought it all seems quite cool, and I’d love to explore more, come 2020 I find 28dl and make my first report on it

Never was one for the history of things, I just like seeing as much as I can from every angle, I still want to try climb up the conveyor at said power station for this reason

Weird to think one of my biggest hobbies wouldn’t be here if I never went out on that first trip, wouldn’t have my good friend now too either, funny how small things change a lot

 

[Wastelandr]

Looking for old pillboxes online and when googling kept coming across abandoned places and seeing communities dedicated to it in forums (was no Facebook groups then). Thought this is definitely something I like so started going out finding local things then going further afield. Started making friends and it just snowballed from that. I still see it as a fun day out with friends or an escape on my own, prob do more solo than with others. History was my favourite subject at school, so this hobby is perfect. It was eleven years ago now for me. Not as long as a lot on here.

Not far off from Mikey actually - the military stuff kind of finds you sooner or later, quite unique to the UK really. I stumbled across some mystery industrial ruins whilst bike riding with a mate of mine as a teenager, and I started reading into them. Also got shown a pillbox that was on farm around the same time that was a bit sneaky. Came at it from more of a local history angle, looking for little local bits and bobs off the beaten track. Discovered 28DL and DP a few months later and this thing called 'urban exploration'! I've got serious nostalgia for those early years.

 

[GRONK]

CAMELOT!

Like everyone I messed around in abandoned buildings as a kid, but I saw some photos of Camelot on FB in 2014 and fancied a look myself, I’ve been hooked ever since

 

[JaffaTB]

Used to go in derelict buildings after school with my mates years just messing about then sort of grew out of it, then back in around 2021 my daughter started watching some american guy exploring and asked me to take her somewhere so one sunday we went to a local spot and that was it, been trawling for new spots to visit ever since most of the time solo but sometimes i take her with me

 

[ahab45]

The idea of exploring started just recently this year during a parkour session. The focus of the training has always been the moves, but my curiosity to access new places using what I have learned started to grow. I didn't know exactly what I was doing until I finally came accross the name on the internet...Urbex!

 

[albino-jay]

Always done it. On holiday as a kid on the isle of wight mooching around derp holiday parks that sorta stuff.

Always been curious poking my head in places i passed then i uploaded a photo of greaves hall in southport on fb when it first came about 2007. A mate told me to check out 28 i did. Bout it really.

 

[HughieD]

Exploring derelict buildings in North Wales with my dad as a nipper...

 

[Wastelandr]

I do think as much as urbex is a relatively new word, curiosity is part of human nature really and it's probably been going on since time began

 

[mookster]

As a kid I always loved ruined castles and the like (I still do), and was always weirdly fascinated by derelict buildings - in the road next to mine in the mid 1990s were two obviously derelict terraced houses right next to each other which I loved looking at, and in a village across the park where we walked our dog in the early 2000s was a very derelict thatched cottage that I can remember being obsessed with whenever we walked that way.

In the mid 2000s I found the site Derelict London whilst looking for photos of abandoned cars and stumbled across the photos of Cane Hill, I then found 28dl and was an armchair explorer for a few years before in 2009 one of my good friends who I know from my other hobby of banger racing told me one day that he'd been exploring stuff for years and years and did I fancy going on a trip with him one weekend? So that's how Hellingly ended up being my first ever explore and I was hooked.

 

[Speed]

Yeh kind of hard to put my finger on exactly when I started exploring, I remember going in the local derelict pig farm with my mates when I was a kid, maybe 8-10 years old? and then also walking to school every morning and taking all kinds of detours around the town to look at interesting places, some derelict some not. My dad rented a unit in a old factory that had been split up in 2000 when id have been 14 and used to like going off round all the disused bits when no one was looking.. Wouldn't have said i was necessarily an urban explorer at that point tho. Personally i think to get that status you've got to be actively doing some research and hunting out places rather than just stumbling on stuff locally and also you've got to be 'documenting' and doing what we do on here rather than just going for a look. For me all that pretty much started because of this guy urbex:uk.

 

[Tobin]

It all started for me about 10 years ago, messing about down the old Asfordby mine area I stumbled upon an old drainage tunnel. It didn't lead anywhere, but this sparked my curiosity on what else I could find 🤣
I found 28dl very shortly after and was amazed that there was old mines all over the country, spent the next 10 years exploring mines. And recently started on the industrial sites and such like.

I don't think i I would of pursued the hobby without finding 28dl

 

[Calamity Jane]

Hard to say, like a lot on here, I was a nosey kid. I was lucky enough to move into a very big manor houses at 13 years. It had old wine cellars, and push buttons in bedrooms for maids, and an old call box in a downstairs kitchen for them to attend which ever toom was calling. I was curious and asked all sorts of questions back then. I also lived in an old village, littered with big old houses, an abbey and loads of tunnels. I never really appreciated it back then though.
Around 2004 a friend invited me to have a nose at an old mansion in Essex. Valentines mansion, a 1600 year old place, before it got refurbed. After that I discovered its history and I was hooked.

 

[Wastelandr]

Hard to say, like a lot on here, I was a nosey kid. I was lucky enough to move into a very big manor houses at 13 years. It had old wine cellars, and push buttons in bedrooms for maids, and an old call box in a downstairs kitchen for them to attend which ever toom was calling. I was curious and asked all sorts of questions back then. I also lived in an old village, littered with big old houses, an abbey and loads of tunnels. I never really appreciated it back then though.
Around 2004 a friend invited me to have a nose at an old mansion in Essex. Valentines mansion, a 1600 year old place, before it got refurbed. After that I discovered its history and I was hooked.

Very much a case of the inherent curiosity! Was that the one at Valentines Park in Dagenham?