Back in the 1970s, a couple I know drove across Afghanistan as part of an overland-as-far-as-possible journey from England to Australia. It’s a journey that is virtually impossible these days due to decades of fighting in that region.
In 1989, during the “troubles”, I spent a week staying in Belfast and driving around Northern Ireland — including past the site where, just a day earlier, a bomb planted in a parked car had killed a man and his granddaughter on their way to school.
A few years ago, I sailed along the Nile from Luxor to Aswan and back, taking in the Valley of the Kings, Karnak, Abu Simbel and other ancient wonders, with an optional side-trip to see the pyramids and sphinx at Giza. It’s a journey I highly recommend, but many people remain reluctant to take it because of several incidents including the 1997 massacre of 62 people, mostly tourists.
As I write this, I’ve been reading about an attack in Sultanahmet Square, a major Istanbul tourist attraction that I visited last year. Ten people are confirmed dead so far. It follows two incidents in Tunisia in 2015 — at a museum and on a beach — and the attacks on Paris in November.
Clearly, tourism can be a dangerous business, especially when there are extremist groups, and twist individuals, who want to maximum their headline appeal by putting international visitors in their crosshairs.
But everything we do in life is a calculated risk. So, if we want to travel, we need to approach it sensibly.
Afghanistan remains off my itinerary, along with a few other global hot spots (Syria and parts of Iraq among them). But I will almost certainly go to Turkey again, because there’s much more I want to see there, and I have no doubt that I’ll be in Paris once more.
There are some things we can do to mitigate the risks, but that can mean missing out — especially if the advice you get is to avoid popular attractions. If you want to see the Eiffel Tower, who am I to tell you it’s dangerous to do so?
I’m not saying that we should throw caution to the wind, but we should keep in mind the reason we travel. And — caution: cliche ahead — if you change the way you live too much for fear of the terrorists, then they have already won.
