Tourists Pay To Be Locked Up In Budapest's Cellars

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

All right, if you don't feel like paying to stay in someone else's apartment while you're on vacation, there is another option. You could pay to escape from someone's cellar.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

That's our last word in Business today - a rabbit hole. One of hundreds of games - escape games - that have sprung up in Budapest over the past few years. Tourists pay to be locked up in a room in one of the Hungarian capital's many ramshackle cellars or old, rundown houses.

GREENE: Apparently some are designed like ancient Egyptian burial chambers, medieval dungeons or even psychiatric wards. The tourists playing this game have to find their way out by solving a series of mysterious clues.

INSKEEP: Fortunately, they are given hints if they get stuck because, you know, you can't really tell your airline you missed your flight home because you were stuck in a dungeon. That's the Business News on MORNING EDITION.

GREENE: Get me out of here, Steve. Get me out of here.

INSKEEP: I'm Steve Inskeep.

GREENE: And I'm David Greene. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.