Have you ever heard about ‘Poverty Tourism’? This is also known by its recent name poorism. It is one of the harsh realities of Indian Metro cities especially its financial hub Mumbai.  The main features of such tourism are small organized tours that you can take throughout the Metro city of India in extreme poverty areas.

To some it might sound like extreme voyeurism, in which foreign tourists will get to see how the poor and downtrodden live in narrow lanes of Mumbai. But the fact is that poverty tours are spread all over the world and even the developed nations are not the exceptions.

Tourists will be surprised to know that just like squatter streets of Mumbai, there are shanty South African towns or the slums of Rio de Janeiro. Most of such tours occur without any publicity. You can choose any place around the world to travel whether it is the slums of Dharavi in Mumbai or some other place.  This is a home for some 1 lakh people which is also known as Mumbai’s ‘shadow city’ and is becoming a major attraction for tourists.

It is one of the Asia’s largest sprawling slums. Tours of such kind are becoming extremely popular and even a day’s trip will not be sufficient.  You will feel good by going for such tours than heading towards world’s most sought after destination because most of the profit goes into charity. The only thing is that groups are limited and photography is prohibited.

The main purpose of such tours is to show that slums in India are not only about poverty and hardship. But it is about entrepreneurship, non-stop activities and daily humor of life. The must see places to visit are sheepskin factory, cloth-dyers, friendly bakeries in small sweaty basements and plastic recycle factory.