Tag Archives: terrorism

7 Keys to Traveling Without Fear by Understanding the Risks

Between terror attacks, mass shootings, and other violent incidents, we’re living in a world where anything can happen anywhere at any time—in an office building in midtown Manhattan, at a school in Austria, on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, at a nightclub in Orlando…and, of course, at a music festival in Israel.

The answer is not to stop traveling or to avoid huge swaths of the globe out of a misperception that your risk is greater there than anyplace else. The answer is to keep traveling, to make friends around the world, and to be a thoughtful ambassador for your country.

Of course, while your head may agree with me, your gut may be apprehensive. You may be making travel plans—or trying to—and you can’t help but wonder: If I go, what is the risk that I will get caught in a physical attack? How do I minimize that risk? If I can’t minimize it, how do I get over my fear?

I believe the solution is to put your risk in perspective. Here’s how:

1. Grasp how minuscule the statistical probability is of getting caught in an attack abroad.

In terms of street crime and gun violence, most of the U.S. cities we live in are statistically more dangerous than the places we visit abroad. Your risk of being killed in a car crash (one in 19,000), drowning in your bathtub (one in 800,000), or being killed by lightning (one in 10 million) far exceed your risk of dying from a terror attack (one in 20 million).

2. Don’t confuse the probability of an attack with the probability of becoming the victim of an attack.

Is it virtually certain that there will be a terror attack in Europe within the next 12 months? Yes. Does that translate into a high degree of risk for the individual traveler to Europe? No.

3. Know where the real dangers lie.

When planning a vacation, we tend to worry more about spectacular risks—say, an exploding bomb, or an epidemic of norovirus on a cruise ship—than about mundane risks like, say, overexposure to the sun, even though one in five Americans will develop skin cancer in the course of a lifetime. Remember that the single biggest cause of death for Americans traveling overseas is motor vehicle accidents.

4. Understand the reasons why your fear of an attack is out of proportion to the risk.

There are psychological reasons why we are more afraid of terror attacks than logic would dictate. We’re more afraid of risks that are new and unfamiliar than of those we’ve lived with for a long time (e.g., heart disease, which accounts for one in every three deaths in America each year). We’re more afraid of risks that kill us in particularly gruesome ways—say, a plane crash, a shark attack, or the Ebola virus—than in mundane ways. We’re less afraid of risks we feel we have some control over, such as skiing and driving, even if it’s only the illusion of control. (Most people think their driving is safer than it actually is. We’re all one text message away from death on the road.) We’re more afraid of human-made dangers than of those with natural causes, such as solar radiation or earthquakes. We’re more afraid of risks that are highly publicized, especially on television, and those that involve spectacular events. One incident with multiple deaths has a much greater impact than many incidents each involving a single death. That is one reason why we fear plane crashes more than car crashes (even though the latter are far more likely).

5. Don’t focus so much on unlikely risks that you ignore common risks that are far more likely to hurt you.

Frightened people make dangerous choices. As an example, after 9-11, people chose to drive rather than to fly. As another example, cruisegoers may be so focused on washing their hands frequently in order to avoid norovirus that they forget to reapply their sunscreen.

6. Appreciate that what’s bothering you is not risk itself but your uncertainty as to the degree of it.

The problem you face as you try to plan a trip is that you don’t really know what your risk is, or how safe one country or venue is versus another. We try to weigh the risk of one destination over another by looking at the historical record of violent incidents there. What’s tricky is that we don’t know how relevant the historical record is. Will the future be different than the past? We don’t know. Even when you can’t know the degree of risk, though, you can…

7. Lessen those risks you do have some control over.

You can say to yourself: “What is the likelihood of the situation affecting my trip? Pretty tiny.” And you can lessen those risks you do have some control over. You can drive very carefully on your way to the airport.

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12 Simple, Easy Steps to Protect Yourself When Traveling Abroad

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Many of us focus so much on travel risks that are highly unlikely—violent crime, terror attacks, catching some gruesome rare disease—that we forget about mundane risks that are far more likely to ruin a trip: traffic accidents, pickpockets, food poisoning…. Here are 12 simple things you can do to prevent common threats.

Drive carefully to/from the airport.
Motor vehicle accidents are the most common cause of death of Americans overseas. In fact, instead of renting a car and wrangling with foreign rules of the road, consider hiring an English-speaking driver-guide who picks you up in a private car and knows the key shortcuts, parking spots, sightseeing stops, and local people en route. You can do and see twice as much in half the time. (If you’re seeking a first-rate driver guide, I can point you to the best sources via this trip questionnaire.)

A street in Sri Lanka, where pedestrian accidents are a far greater threat than civil unrest. Photo: Timothy Baker

Look both ways before crossing the street.
Motor vehicle “rules” in many countries are not what you’re used to back home.

"Look Left" sign on a sidewalk in London, England.

Looking both ways can save your life all over the globe, not just in London. Photo: Timothy Baker

Leave valuables at home.
Most of us have learned to leave fancy jewelry at home, but we now bring all manner of fancy electronics. Consider leaving your larger and more expensive electronics at home.

Use your in-room safe.
Store your passport in it. Leave the Do Not Disturb sign on your hotel room door when you’re not in the room.

Use trustworthy Wi-Fi.
I carry my own portable Wi-Fi hotspot rather than logging into free Wi-Fi on the street.

Watch out for scam artists.
In big cities, pickpockets may prey on tourists, especially in crowded transportation hubs and at famous landmarks. Clothing with internal zippered pockets, or a neck pouch, are a good way to keep cash and credit cards safe as you walk around and sightsee. If you’ll be carrying a handbag, use a cross-body one.

In Pompeii, Italy, I wore a cross-body purse—and clutched it to fend off unwanted fingers. Photo: Timothy Baker

A few examples of scam artists:

I was walking in Buenos Aires once—in a good neighborhood, in broad daylight—when suddenly some inky, foul-smelling liquid landed on me and my husband. Two young women sympathetically showed us an outdoor faucet where we could clean it off. Suspicious, we opted to remain a mess and started to walk away—at which point the duo offered Kleenex. They seemed a little too eager to help, so we quickly left the area. Back at our hotel, the concierge immediately guessed which street corner we’d been standing on and confirmed that we had nearly fallen for a common con: Had we put down our bags to clean up, they would have made off with them.

Other traditional scams in certain countries include the handbag snatch (you’re sitting at an outdoor café, you place your handbag on the ground or hang it on your chair, and somebody grabs it and runs off), the fake street fight (boys pretend to beat each other up, one approaches you in tears, pleading for money so he can get home to safety, you pull out your wallet and the kids grab it and race off), the crowded subway car (a group of women and children waltz into your subway car in a distracting whirl of colorful scarves and skirts, remove your wallet from inside your pocket, and exit before the doors close), and even the baby toss (a woman tries to hurriedly hand you an infant—some actually toss you a doll, in hopes that you will instantly drop your bags to catch it. An accomplice then swipes your belongings).

View of a busy street and restaurants in Valletta, Malta.

Malta is very safe. Just avoid one of the biggest mishaps that land travelers in foreign hospitals: tripping on uneven cobblestones. Photo: Wendy Perrin

Dress smart.
I wear jackets and tops with internal zippered pockets that nobody else’s hands can reach. Rather than carrying my wallet, I keep small bills and credit cards in various pockets, so that I never have to take out the whole wallet. If you must carry your wallet in your outside pants pocket, wrapping rubber bands around it makes it more difficult for a pickpocket to extract it. Don’t wear brand new white sneakers. They’re a dead giveaway that you’re a tourist.

Don’t pull out a map or smartphone and scrutinize it on the street, oblivious to the people around you.
Step inside a restaurant or shop if you want to check your map or study your phone.

Think before you photograph someone.
Don’t photograph policemen or anyone who does not want his/her photo taken. Here are some more tips on photo etiquette when you travel.

Program local emergency numbers into your cell phone.
I often ask my hotel concierge for those numbers.

Carry your hotel’s business card in the local language.
Have at least one of these so you can show it to non-English-speaking locals (e.g., a cab driver) and get back to your hotel quickly in an emergency.

A business card of Palais Namaskar in Marrakesh, Morocco.

A business card I took from the front desk of a hotel in Marrakech, Morocco.

Carry a mini-flashlight (so you’re never caught in the dark).
I once made the mistake of not packing one and learned that lesson the hard way. You can read all about my best travel mistake here.

A Pro Photographer’s Solutions to the Airline Electronics Ban

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Travel bans of any kind never come at a good time. But this latest one is coming at a particularly bad time for me. As a photojournalist, it’s my very job description to carry my cameras with me. Sure, iPhone cameras are fine for snapshots, but I make my living using professional-grade cameras that I am now forced to place in checked luggage if I’m flying to the U.S. or U.K. from certain airports. So this ban is going to hurt. I have an assignment in Morocco next week and another in Dubai this summer, and I’ll be flying through and from airports that are on the new watch list.

I always arrive at the security gate well before scheduled departure so that my gear can be scrutinized. In fact, I fly with so much gear, electronics, and cords that I get very suspicious if the security agency doesn’t check my bag with a fine-tooth comb. But this ban will seriously change how I work.

My biggest complaint with the ban is the vagaries of it. Okay, I understand laptops won’t be allowed, or iPads, or my kids’ DS. But what about battery chargers or the cell-phone-sized hard drives I use to back up all the photos I shoot on assignment? What are you supposed to do with a key piece of equipment you thought was okay to carry onboard when a security guard says you can’t take that onboard because…well…he says so. Your checked bags are already down the chute. Now what?

My other concern is theft. You might as well put a “Steal Me” sticker on the outside of a bag with your camera in it. Security staff and luggage handlers X-ray bags well out of sight from the public, so the theft rate could increase exponentially. I remember going through Heathrow years ago when a similar ban was in effect. I had placed my underwater video camera in a checked bag (because my carry-on was already maxed out with other— more important—equipment), and they brought it to the gate where I was waiting, and I had to show the security agents what it was and prove that it was operational. That was the last time I saw it. Those little TSA-approved travel locks? Sure. Why not? But they and your ballistic-material luggage can be breached in mere seconds. Or just stolen completely, little locks and all.

So what am I going to do about it?

I live in fear of a camera getting lost or stolen on a trip, but now I will be changing how I work.

•For starters, I will leave my top-of-the-line camera bodies (the part of the camera minus the lens) at home. Instead, I will use cameras that are a few years or models old. Though not the latest and greatest, they are still usable and more expendable than my best—which I will need back at home.

•I will never put more than one camera body into each piece of checked luggage. That will give me a better chance of arriving at my destination with at least one of them.

•I will carry more media cards on which to store the photos I shoot. Let me explain: Until now I’ve always carried my laptop on my trips, downloaded each day’s photos to it each night, and backed them up on a portable hard drive (if not two). This is so as not to lose the images I’ve shot during the trip. The system allowed me to reuse media cards once I’d transferred the images to my laptop. Since I’ll now be leaving the laptop at home (since I won’t entrust my laptop to checked baggage), I’ll buy more media cards on which to store my photos. I’ll simply save the photos on the cards and wait till I’m home to download them to my laptop. SD cards are actually cheap enough now to do this, but keep in mind that they are small, notoriously slippery, and easy to lose!

•On some trips I might bring an older laptop (from which I’ve erased my personal data) to use as storage and for transferring photos to a portable, cell-phone-size hard drive. Will I be allowed to carry the hard drive into airline cabins? I don’t know.

•I will probably invest in a product such as Western Digital’s My Passport Wireless Pro. You can plug your SD cards right into it (its USB slot handles other format card readers) and copy photos or data right to a 2 or 3 TB drive.

•If you place your cameras in checked baggage, make sure to remove the media cards from the cameras. My video camera was stolen at Heathrow, but at least I had the sense to take the tape out and hand-carry it.

You will also have to remove the batteries from your camera, as most cameras use lithium batteries. However, the FAA specifically says that lithium batteries can’t be in checked bags, so we’ll just have to wait and see how that catch-22 gets solved.

•So what about chargers? I’m going to have to carry extra spare batteries in addition to what I carry now, in case my battery chargers are banned from carry-on luggage and get stolen. I’ll get a second charger too—so I can put each into two separate checked bags, again hoping that both of my bags won’t be taken or violated.

•With the camera bodies in the belly of the plane, that will leave more room in my carry-on for lenses. But this worries me too. A security agent once probed his finger into my telephoto lens and not only made it unusable but did several hundred dollars’ worth of damage to it.

On a personal level, one of my favorite things to do is to take photos while I’m flying. That’s gone now. I will miss shooting sights from a 33,000+-foot vantage point.

I’ve lived with previous bans and increases in airport security since the days of D.B. Cooper and almost daily hijackings to Cuba. And I’ve dealt with higher-speed films being ruined by third-world x-ray machines. So this ban is nothing new. I just wish it weren’t so vague. I’m looking forward to hard-and-fast rules.

Stay tuned.

Be a smarter traveler: Use Wendy’s WOW List to plan your next trip. You can also follow her on Facebook and Twitter @wendyperrin, and sign up for her weekly newsletter to stay in the know.

Why I Think Travel Is So Important Now

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Since the U.S. presidential election, there’s been a lot of talk about how certain groups of voters—from the “liberal elite” on the coasts to folks in the rural heartland to the tech establishment in Silicon Valley to the media that covered the election to anyone who gets their news solely from Facebook—are living in a bubble.

But isn’t it true that everyone’s always lived in a bubble? That’s the reason why we travel—to get outside the bubbles we were born and raised in or currently inhabit, see how other people live and think, and broaden our worldview. Whatever your political leanings, I think this election reinforced how important it is to experience new places (especially within our own country), connect with people who aren’t like us, listen to different perspectives, and find common ground. As Mark Twain put it, “Travel is fatal to prejudice.”

With America’s role on the international stage unclear, though, some people are wondering how they will be treated when they go abroad now. As someone who has traveled in a number of risky countries at times when U.S. government policies were not in favor, I’m here to tell you that, in my experience, as long as you don’t behave like an “ugly American,” people don’t judge you based on your government. That’s because they don’t want you to judge them based on their government.

I can also tell you that, in countries that depend on tourist dollars and don’t see lots of U.S. travelers, people are particularly nice to Americans because, simply put, the American visitors who do travel there spend more money and tip better than other tourists.

When I went to Istanbul during the build-up to the Iraq War—a period when people were worried about anti-American sentiment and experts were advising not to fly on U.S. airlines or stay in Western hotels—everyone I met, from waiters to carpet merchants, told me that while they might disagree with U.S. policies, they love American travelers since they are more interested in learning about Turkish culture than other tourists who go straight to the seaside on cheap package holidays.

Later, during the Iraq War, I found myself in Kurdistan in southeastern Turkey and, again, nobody I met equated me with the foreign policy of the nation I live in. I was treated as a fellow human being first.

The same happened when I traveled in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. In fact, I’ve found people in the Middle East to be among the most welcoming and friendly people I’ve met anywhere in the world. As Aldous Huxley said, “To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.”

It’s a good thing I saw the sites of Syria when I did; today it’s off-limits, as a result of a brutal and tragic war. Lord only knows what the ancient city of Palmyra looks like now. I’m always telling people: Go while you can.

That’s why I’m taking the family to Sri Lanka this winter. Yesterday I asked my husband, Tim, if he’s having any second thoughts about that. “I was in Nicaragua during a war when Reagan was in power,” he replied. “After that, anything’s easy.”

People overseas are already wondering how they will be treated if they travel to the United States in this new era. We’re already seeing foreign governments issuing warnings to their U.S.-bound citizens to exercise greater vigilance. Will State Department travel warnings for outbound travelers change? It will be interesting to see.

In the meantime, here’s how to interpret travel warnings. And, if you’re concerned about safety in a foreign country that’s perceived as risky, here are steps you can take.

Be a smarter traveler: Use Wendy’s WOW List to plan your next trip. You can also follow her on Facebook and Twitter @wendyperrin, and sign up for her weekly newsletter to stay in the know.

How to Stay Safe Traveling in Risky Countries

If you’re waiting for that perfect moment to travel to the Middle East, it’s probably never going to happen. It’s like waiting for that perfect moment to have a baby: You can always find some reason why now is not the optimal time.

At least once a week a reader emails me asking whether it’s safe to go to Israel, Egypt, Turkey, or [fill in country perceived as dicey] right now. I’ve noticed that the people asking have one thing in common: They’ve never been to the country in question. And I think that very fact makes it harder for them to put the risks in perspective. If you’ve traveled in a supposedly precarious country before, you know first-hand how much less risky it is than all the media noise would indicate, you realize that the statistical probability that you will be the victim of a terrorist attack there is tiny, and you have no need to email me.

The news media never report the extent to which everyday life goes on as normal at a destination—because that’s not news. As I pointed out in Is It Safe to Travel To Turkey?, “Television and news coverage always make an incident in a foreign country seem more alarming than it actually is. If news sources were to report the extent to which life at the destination goes on as usual, with people going about their everyday routine unaffected, it wouldn’t sell ads, and the news sites wouldn’t get traffic.”

I’m writing this from Marrakech, by the way. It’s my fifth trip to Morocco. And in those five trips I’ve had so few safety concerns that it no longer even occurs to me that there might be risk involved in traveling to Marrakech.

So, in my opinion you should just go ahead and go. But be a smart traveler by doing three things:

(1) Book your trip through a Trusted Travel Expert.

Proven destination specialists like those on my WOW List have the latest security information at their fingertips, know which areas in a country are safe and which aren’t, employ the savviest guides and drivers, and know how to keep you from harm. Earl Starkey, Trusted Travel Expert for Turkey, has been keeping travelers safe there. And Joe Yudin, Trusted Travel Expert for Israel, is keeping travelers safe in Israel.

“I felt totally safe,” says Nadika Wignarajan, a WendyPerrin.com traveler from Bayonne, New Jersey, who just returned from a trip to Israel arranged by Joe. She and her parents were there for a week, including on November 4, when an Israeli Border Police officer was critically injured by a Palestinian driver who deliberately struck him near Hebron—the latest attack in a wave of increased violence since the start of October.

“Joe and his team have their ears to the ground and know what’s going on,” says Nadika. “I knew my guide wasn’t going to take us anywhere that wasn’t safe. There are parts of New Jersey that are more dangerous. We felt safer in Israel than in some areas of New York City where you don’t want to go at night.”

In fact, Nadika adds, there are advantages to being in Israel right now. “There are fewer tourists than usual. The religious sites are crowded, and there are cruise ships bringing in a lot of tourists, but other places were not crowded, and the hotels weren’t that busy; they were going out of their way to do stuff for us.”

“The biggest misconception travelers have,” says Joe Yudin, the Israel-based travel specialist who booked Nadika’s trip, “is that there is constant violence everywhere. That just isn’t the case. The second biggest misconception is that there is tension in the air. Not true. Yesterday I spent the entire day in an Arab village in the Gallilee, and everyone was nice, pleasant, accommodating, warm, smiling. There have been a few bad incidents, and these unfortunately are played up in the news over and over and over. But the fact is that usually there is no violent crime on our streets. Yes, there have been a few wars and everyone here is a soldier and knows what to do in wartime, but this isn’t a war. This is a wave of violence that we usually do not have. It brings the level of violence here up to the regular level of violence you find in Western cities.”

(2) Give yourself peace of mind via MedjetAssist’s Horizon Membership.

Even intrepid seasoned travelers who are able to put risks in perspective—and who understand the difference between the probability of an incident occurring in a country and the probability of an incident occurring to them while they are in that country—can still wonder how to lessen their risks when traveling there. If an incident occurs and does impact your trip, what are the smart steps to take?

You might not know the answer, but you can turn to someone who does. MedjetAssist, the air medical transport membership program that gets you from a foreign hospital that you happen to find yourself stuck in to a hospital back home that you trust—something that most travel insurance policies won’t do for you—recently added a new membership level that reduces your risk when your security is threatened: Horizon Membership offers assistance should a crisis—a terrorist attack, a political threat, violent crime, or the like—strike. You get access to a 24/7 Crisis Response Center, a veteran security expert to advise you, and response services to come to the rescue if necessary.

Actually, MedjetAssist Vice-President and COO John Gobbels points out, if required, a crisis team can come in and remove you from a situation even if it’s not been a declared a major event or incident—even if it’s just because you’re feeling uncomfortable due to the current situation on the ground and want to get out of that place. Some other companies’ emergency response services benefit kicks in only after a “qualifying security event” has taken place, says Gobbels—for instance, after the State Department has issued a Travel Warning, or after the event that was merely threatening has escalated into a dangerous situation.

(3) Take smart precautions.

If you’re headed to Israel or elsewhere in the Middle East:

1. Enroll in the U.S. State Department’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP), so the Embassy can send you security updates and help you in an emergency.

2. Choose a hotel that has CNN, BBC, and Al-Jazeera, so you can monitor the news in the mornings and evenings. Also make sure the hotel has reliable Internet access, so you can check local English-language news Web sites.

3. Avoid public gatherings and demonstrations.
Don’t get caught in an angry mob.

4. Avoid public transport.
Use a driver.

5. Stay away from border areas and avoid bad neighborhoods the same way you would in New York City or Chicago.
“Don’t wander alone in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, or Nablus,” says Joe Yudin, my Trusted Travel Expert for Israel.

6. Don’t photograph government buildings, military installations, airports, train stations, policemen, guards, or anyone who doesn’t want his/her photo taken.

7. Carry your hotel’s business card—the one written in the local language—so you can show it to non-English-speaking locals (such as a taxi driver) and get back to your hotel in an emergency.

8. Carry a cell phone programmed with emergency numbers (for the police, your hotel, and medical emergencies)

9. Carry a mini-flashlight (in case you’re caught in the dark).

10. Don’t focus on the wrong risks. Don’t get so caught up in avoiding risks that are highly unlikely—e.g., a terrorist attack—that you forget to focus on those risks that are much more likely to damage a trip—e.g., traffic accidents, pickpockets, food poisoning, sunburn.

Be a smarter traveler: Follow Wendy Perrin on Facebook and Twitter @wendyperrin and sign up for her weekly newsletter to stay in the know.

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