The Virunga Mountains in Rwanda offer sunrise treks to active volcanos where you can literally watch molten lava churning inside Earth’s crust. People pay $400 for the privilege.
Mount Nyiragongo’s lava lake—one of only five persistent ones on the planet—sits about 600 feet below the crater rim, glowing like some kind of geological nightlight. The Democratic Republic of Congo opened this site to tourists in the early 2000s, and thousands have hiked up to peer into what is essentially a cooking pot of 1,000-degree Celsius rock soup. In January 2002, this same volcano fractured and sent lava streaming through Goma, killing 147 people and leaving 120,000 homeless. Yet by 2009, tourists were back, cameras ready.
Here’s the thing about visiting active volcanoes: the definition of “safe” gets really flexible really fast.
When Gas Clouds Decide Your Lungs Are Optional Equipment
Kilauea in Hawaii became the poster child for accessible volcano tourism until 2018 when it exploded—not metaphorically, actually exploded—destroying 700 homes and reshaping 13 square miles of landscape. Before that, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park drew 2 million visitors annually, many walking right up to active lava flows like they were checking out fountain displays at the Bellagio. The Park Service created viewing areas with what they called “safe distances,” though defining safe proximity to 2,000-degree lava involves more guesswork than anyone admits publicly.
Sulfur dioxide poses problems that don’t photograph well. Kilauea emits around 15,000 tons of this gas daily during active periods, creating vog—volcanic smog—that drifts across the Big Island like some kind of geological passive-aggression. People with asthma get handed respirators. Everyone else just breathes shallower and hopes their lungs forgive them later.
Iceland’s Fagradalsfjall erupted in March 2021, and within days, hiking trails materialized as if Icelanders had been waiting their entire lives for this exact moment. They had. Thousands trekked across fresh lava fields—some still warm enough to melt boot soles—to watch fountains of magma arc into the sky. One volcanologist described it as “the most benign eruption imaginable,” which in volcano-speak means “probably won’t kill you today.” The eruption lasted six months. Nobody died, though several people needed rescue after ignoring barriers, because apparently telling humans not to approach geological blowtorches works about as well as telling cats not to knock things off tables.
The Mathematics of Not Becoming a Volcanic Statistic Look Surprisingly Fuzzy
Mount Etna—Europe’s most active volcano and roughly 500,000 years old—has killed fewer than 100 people in recorded history despite erupting almost continuously. Sicily built towns right up to its slopes, vineyards thriving in mineral-rich soil that owes everything to periodic destruction. Etna’s tourism infrastructure includes cable cars to 2,500 meters, then 4×4 buses to 2,900 meters, depositing tourists near active craters like some kind of geological Uber service.
The volcano killed ten people in 1979 when an unexpected explosion hurled rocks the size of cars into a group of tourists. Wait—maybe proximity isn’t the only variable here. Etna also killed a volcanologist and a tourist in 1987 during another surprise eruption, proving that expertise provides exactly zero protection against bad timing.
Modern volcano monitoring involves seismographs, gas sensors, thermal cameras, and GPS stations measuring ground deformation down to millimeters. Mount St. Helens had 60 people monitoring it in 1980, yet still surprised everyone by exploding sideways instead of upward on May 18, killing 57 people including volcanologist David Johnston, who radioed “Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!” seconds before the blast wave hit his observation post six miles away.
Turns out predicting volcanic behavior remains less science than educated gambling.
What Tourism Operators Mean When They Say the Word Safe in Brochures
White Island in New Zealand operated tours for decades, ferrying visitors to an active marine volcano where steam vents hissed and sulfur crystals grew like alien flowers. On December 9, 2019, the volcano erupted while 47 tourists explored the crater. Twenty-two people died, some immediately, others from burns covering over 90% of their bodies. The volcano’s alert level sat at 2 out of 5—deemed safe for tourism with “moderate to heightened unrest.”
The subsequent investigation revealed what many already suspected: volcanic alert systems describe observation data, not safety guarantees. Level 2 means increased activity, not “bring your children.” Tour operators interpreted ambiguity as permission, and tourists interpreted the existence of tours as endorsement of safety, creating a feedback loop of misplaced confidence.
Insurance companies took note. Several volcano tour operators globally now struggle to find coverage, and those who do pay premiums that reflect what underwriters actually think about geological Russian roulette.
The Difference Between Adventure and Stupidity Involves Timing and Luck in Equal Measure
Pacaya in Guatemala lets tourists roast marshmallows over volcanic vents, which sounds adorable until you remember you’re cooking snacks using heat from molten rock that could, theoretically, fountain skyward without warning. The volcano erupts regularly—it killed three people in 2010 when rocks rained down on nearby villages—but tours continue because Pacaya’s eruptions tend toward the predictable end of the volcanic behavior spectrum, which is sort of like saying this particular tiger usually doesn’t bite.
Stromboli in Italy has erupted continuously for at least 2,000 years, earning the nickname “Lighthouse of the Mediterranean” for its regular nighttime explosions visible from the sea. Tourists hike to the summit nightly. In July 2019, an unexpected larger explosion killed a hiker and sent panicked tourists running down the mountain through darkness and falling debree. The volcano had been erupting steadily the entire time; it just decided to erupt more enthusiastically for a minute.
The truth? Visiting active volcanoes is safe right up until it isn’t, with that transition happening faster than human reaction time. Thousands do it annually without incident, creating statistical illusions of safety. The people who died on White Island probably looked at thousands of previous safe tours and felt reassured by numbers that ultimately meant nothing when magma decided to say hello in december 2019.
You can visit active volcanoes safely the same way you can cross streets safely—by accepting residual risk that no amount of caution eliminates completely, and by understanding that “safe” describes probability, not certainty. The difference is that streets don’t occasionally explode and hurl cars at pedestrians without warning. Volcanoes do. They’re geological dice rolls wrapped in tour packages, and every visitor becomes a gambler whether they realize it or not.
