What are the rules of urbex?

Where does "take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints" come from?

From the US national parks, and not from urbex.

The oldest documented appearance in print is dated 8 July 1954, when a Missouri newspaper, The Cameron Sun, recorded the line on a museum sign at Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico. Four years later, on 6 October 1958, The Atlanta Constitution found it at Walnut Canyon National Monument in Arizona, worded "Take Nothing but Pictures, Leave Only Your Footprints". In April 1960, Conrad L. Wirth, then director of the National Park Service, published it in Boys’ Life.

The author remains unknown. The park service never signed the line. It posted the line, and the signage carried it.

A third clause joined later, "kill nothing but time", credited to the Baltimore Grotto, a caving club affiliated to the National Speleological Society. That credit comes from Barry Popik’s citation record, which traces it to Caves of Maryland, published in 1971 by the Maryland Geological Survey. We have not read the book itself, so we report that attribution rather than confirm it.

One attribution circulates widely and does not hold: Chief Seattle. The environmentalist speech credited to him was written by Ted Perry in 1971 for the film Home, and the producer attributed it to Chief Seattle.

Urbex inherited a conservation rule posted for national park visitors and later adopted by cavers. Its origin is site management policy rather than a community slogan.

What does the maxim actually ask?

Two symmetrical restraints, one on what leaves the place, one on what enters it.

Take nothing away from the place. No object, no material, no fragment, no souvenir. Add nothing to it. No inscription, no litter, no alteration to the fabric, no trace of your visit beyond the kind that fades.

The six rules the site publishes expand those two principles. The next section takes them one at a time.

The maxim is shorthand for a wider framework. The Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics publishes seven principles, republished by the National Park Service, which traces them to work by the US Forest Service, the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management in the mid 1980s. Two of the seven carry the idea directly: "Leave What You Find" and "Be Considerate of Other Visitors". The Urbex Legends terms of use name that principle and bind the service to it.

What are the six community rules?

The Ethics page sets behavioural rules without replacing the right of access. The table connects these principles to selected French provisions.

Three of the six match no specific offence. They stay rules all the same, and they are the ones that decide whether a place survives: the criminal law punishes what got broken or removed, and says nothing about what got published.

The last rule needs a clarification, because it reads badly. It targets competition between explorers, not company: on how many people should go, the rule that applies is the one on the safety page and in our guide to the real risks, never alone and always with somebody who knows when you are due back.

What separates an explorer from a looter?

The act, not the stated intention. And every act has a name in the code.

An explorer looks, photographs and leaves. A looter removes, cuts, digs or resells. The line does not sit in how the visit gets described afterwards. It sits in what left the building.

The following rows describe the penalties for the cases listed. They do not cover every aggravating circumstance or repeat offence. Classification depends on the facts; an available penalty is not an automatic sentence. Fine classes refer to article 131-13 of the French penal code.

One clarification on tagging, because the provision is narrower than people assume. The second paragraph of article 322-1 covers inscriptions drawn on façades, vehicles, public roads and street furniture. An inscription drawn inside a building falls under the first paragraph, or under article R635-1 of the penal code where the damage is slight: a 5th-class contravention, 1,500 euros.

Aggravating circumstances can raise the heritage penalties cited to ten years and €150,000; the provisions also allow a fine linked to the value of the property.

Handling stolen property requires knowledge of its unlawful origin. Holding, transferring or benefiting from property while knowing that it originates from a crime or offence can fall under article 321-1. Its basic form carries five years and €375,000. Stolen cultural property can be investigated by France’s specialist police office, using reports and the TREIMA database.

Apparent abandonment does not establish that property is ownerless. It does not authorise taking objects; ownership of a building does not establish ownership of every object inside it either.

What should you do when you find an old object?

Report it. That is a duty, and it falls on the finder.

In France, article L531-14 of the heritage code covers monuments, ruins, substructures, mosaics, ancient pipework, remains of old dwellings or burials, inscriptions, and more broadly any object of interest to prehistory, history, art, archaeology or numismatics. Once such a thing comes to light, the finder and the owner of the land must declare it to the mayor of the commune without delay, who passes it to the prefect. The word the code uses is worth keeping: the inventeur, the one who found it. The text grants a role and assigns a duty in the same breath.

The French provision concerns archaeological discoveries and imposes duties on both the finder and the owner of the property. Outside France, check the applicable local rules before undertaking any activity.

Two neighbouring acts fall under separate French provisions, whatever you carry away afterwards. Using a metal detector to search for objects of interest to prehistory, history, art or archaeology requires prior administrative authorisation (art. L542-1), and going without is a 5th-class contravention (art. R544-3). Archaeological excavations or surveys without authorisation, contrary to it or after its withdrawal carry a €7,500 fine (art. L544-1).

Why are coordinates never shared publicly?

Because a published coordinate turns a fragile place into a destination, and a destination attracts more than photographers.

The French Senate took the question up. In written question no. 07250, published on 15 June 2023, senator Bruno Rojouan wrote that some exploration videos "incited malicious individuals, who had spotted paintings or other valuables, to enter the filmed places and steal those goods", and cited the 2019 burglary of the château de Steene in northern France. That causal claim is the senator’s analysis, not the government’s.

The reply from the ministry of the interior, published on 7 December 2023, supplies the facts. It records that the practice "is often accompanied by burglary and/or theft in a group, as well as damage and destruction", and gives a scale: in 2022, 94 case files referring to urbex were opened in the gendarmerie’s area of responsibility, of which 37 % were resolved. The figure covers the gendarmerie zone alone and says nothing about the police zone.

The rule reaches well beyond urbex. In 2018 the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics published social media guidance whose first line runs tag your photos thoughtfully: weigh what an exact geotag does to a place, and tag at a wide scale or not at all.

A photograph documents a place; a coordinate takes people to it. The site publishes the first and withholds the second, which is also what the community rule asks of its members.

Does the code of ethics replace the law?

No. The two cover different ground.

The 2020 and March 2023 ministerial answers cited here describe the legislation of their time. Our legal guide also covers the law of 27 July 2023 concerning homes and certain premises. These references do not create a right to enter.

The absence of a specific offence is not permission, and the applicable provisions are set out in our guide to the legality of urbex in France. That guide covers French law only. This page does not describe the rules of other countries.

The code of ethics starts where the penal code stops. It governs what you do once you are inside, what you leave behind and what you publish afterwards. An explorer can follow the law to the letter and still destroy a place by making it famous.

What Urbex Legends does with the principle

Public pages viewed without signing in do not provide exact access information. Member features are available on the website and in the app, according to access rights. Location information does not authorise entry. Check access conditions with the owner or site manager.

The terms of use name the principle. Paragraph 6.5 binds the service to Leave No Trace, and paragraph 6.4 rules out encouraging or facilitating violation of domicile, forced entry, "theft, however minor, and in particular the removal of objects, materials or souvenirs from a site", or wilful damage to property.

Location information is not permission. Respect property boundaries and the owner’s or manager’s conditions; do not infer a right of passage from a displayed point.

The terms provide for review before publication. A proposal does not guarantee acceptance. Prohibited content includes anything "staging or glorifying violation of domicile, forced entry, damage, theft or looting", and anything "revealing the precise location of an entry point, a structural weakness or a means of access to private property".

Progress never justifies taking risks. Do not turn badges or personal goals into a race to explore. Abandon a visit when access or safety is uncertain.

Sharing a sensitive location can facilitate unauthorised visits and damage. This precaution also applies to member features: do not republish access instructions.