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The purpose of this paper is respond to the recent critique of tourism and positive psychology research by Nawijn (2016). Tourism academics have been actively interested in the rise of positive psychology, the study of what makes life worth living (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Positive psychology includes research on topics such as humour, positive emotions, happiness and well-being, flow, kindness, gratitude, love and other topics describing more desirable aspects of human existence. Tourism knowledge related to this field has been growing over the last few years (Filep & Pearce, 2013). In his critique of tourism and positive psychology research, Nawijn raises two core criticisms. The first criticism is the alleged exclusive application in hedonic contexts of tourism and positive psychology research. Specifically, Nawijn critiques the tourist happiness framework as presented by Filep and Deery (2010) as he believes it does not apply to non-hedonic tourism contexts, where negative emotions are experienced. The argument is raised with reference to dark tourism, using an example of a visit to Auschwitz, arguing that Filep and Deery’s (2010) framework does not explain happiness in this particular context. The proposed framework, grounded in Seligman’s (2002) authentic happiness theory suggests that tourist happiness is a state when a tourist experiences positive emotions (such as love, interest, joy, contentment), a sense of engagement in an activity (like flow or mindfulness) and derives meaning from tourist activities (or a sense of greater purpose). Nawijn argues that such a conceptualisation must apply only to hedonic contexts. Filep …