It’s often been said that the world is getting smaller. Thanks to affordable and efficient travel, especially air travel, it is now possible for many of us to visit places of which we could once only dream.
But it’s also the case that, for reasons of personal safety, there are now many places that we have to strike off our itineraries.
Last year, after the terror attack on the Bardo Museum, Costa and MSC cruise ships stopped visiting Tunis, and the total number of visitors to Tunisia plunged further after a mass shooting on the beach at Sousse.
An explosion on a Russian aircraft led to many cancellations at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, and the effective closure of its airport for many months. Nobody is travelling for pleasure in Syria or Afghanistan; some people are thinking twice about visiting Paris and Brussels.
As Dr Justin Thomas points out in this article, the world is getting smaller, but not in a good way.
There is some cause for optimism. Perhaps the tide is turning in the Levant and parts of Syria and Iraq will be made safe again. As much as I’d like to visit its ancient wonders, I won’t be packing my bags for Palmyra anytime soon.
My attitude is that every venture in life carries some risk. I know people who still shy away from visiting Egypt at all, citing a series of attacks on tourist sites going back decades. I think I’d be comfortable taking a trip to the pyramids of Giza and up the Nile to the Valley of the Kings right now (had I not already done so reasonably recently), but there are other destinations I would baulk at.
Stay or go? It’s a personal decision. I know it’s glib, but true, to say that you run the risk of being run over outside your own house.
If there’s somewhere you’re desperate to visit, think about it and discuss it with people you love and the experts. Take government-issued travel warnings into account. The holders of certain passports are sometimes more at risk than others.
Only you can decide. But if you decide to go ahead (and this advice applies for any travel at all), make sure you’re insured. If they won’t issue a policy, or the policy excludes certain destinations or activities, maybe that’s a hint that ought to be heeded.
This comment came from a Facebook contact. I thought I’d share it here: “Having travelled to America almost immediately after 9/11, I would do it again without hesitation. Not only were the planes almost empty (we had a whole row each to stretch out on) and the queues at Disneyland non-existent, we were welcomed everywhere we went by grateful and worried proprietors (accommodation etc). I know that’s different from going where something might happen – it would have been extraordinarily bad luck to have had any further hijackings or bombings, given the extra security everywhere. But supporting the locals in places where something bad had happened made me feel better about having had our trip improved by such a distressing event. Yes, the extra security was a hassle – especially at LA airport -but it was also almost comical, watching the way people carried on.”