Iran and the United States have agreed to end more than 100 days of war. If you’ve been sitting on a summer trip you were afraid to book because of the turmoil in the Middle East, the temptation now is to click the “buy” button before the ink dries. But you might want to slow down.
Walter Meyer is so concerned about hotel safety that he always brings Dave along. Dave is not real. Whenever Meyer leaves his room, he turns the TV on low, preferably a talk show, so anyone listening at the door hears voices and assumes the room is occupied. On his way out he calls back to the empty room, “Dave, are you sure you don’t want anything? Okay, I’ll be back in a little bit.” The idea is to make a watcher believe someone is inside and will return soon, even when no one is. Meyer is not alone in getting inventive. Safety now ranks at the top of travelers’ concerns, and the strategies people use range from the charmingly low-tech, like Dave, to a small kit of gadgets the savvy traveler never packs without. Security experts and hoteliers say there are specific, simple moves that make a room far harder to breach, starting with the things you can do before you even unlock the door.
Kate McCulley, a journalist based in Prague, knew it was time to leave Madagascar. Flights were getting canceled, protests had moved outside her hotel in Antananarivo, and the country was on the verge of a military coup. The police blanketed the neighborhood in tear gas. After several days of trying, she finally caught a flight to Réunion. Most travelers face a much harder version of her call. After months of planning and thousands of dollars spent, deciding whether to cut a vacation short when conditions shift is rarely simple. Civil unrest, a natural disaster, a sudden spike in crime, or a slow drift in local sentiment can each push a manageable risk toward a real threat. Government advisories often lag behind reality on the ground, tour operators have an interest in downplaying risk, and standard travel insurance generally will not cover a trip cut short on fear alone. There is no algorithm for the stay-or-leave decision, but security professionals point to clear early triggers that separate a manageable situation from a dangerous one, if travelers know what to watch for.
Fear of travel is running high this summer. A reader named Cindy Smith nearly canceled a Danube river cruise and a week in Croatia after reading headlines about a cruise hantavirus outbreak and crew arrests. She is not alone. In a recent Global Rescue survey, less than 1 percent of respondents said their concerns about personal safety abroad had eased since last year, while 56 percent said they felt more concerned. Travelers cite three recurring fears: airlines collapsing mid-trip, dangerous conditions abroad, and anti-American sentiment. Yet the major U.S. carriers such as Delta, United, American, and Southwest remain profitable, and a conflict on one side of a continent does not make the other side unsafe.
Eric Finkel thought he’d dodged a bullet on a recent visit to Vietnam. His hotel “accidentally” charged his credit card $1,500 instead of the correct amount of $66. The staff immediately cancelled the erroneous charge right in front of him.
When his cab pulled up to a rental apartment in Lisbon, Walter Meyer knew he was in trouble. The building was crumbling, and the neighborhood looked sketchy. Even his taxi driver — a local who’d probably seen it all — seemed to hesitate before rolling to a stop.
Earlier this week, a precision military raid in Jalisco ended the reign of Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, the notorious leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. The fallout for travelers to Mexico has been problematic.
It never crossed my mind that the most dangerous thing in Nairobi would be on the road. A mosquito carrying an exotic disease or a hippopotamus, maybe. But when I boarded a bus — and then gripped the seat in front of me in panic as it nearly collided with several vehicles on the road — I knew I was wrong.
If you’re heading to the airport this weekend, you might want to pack a little extra patience. As of midnight Friday, the Department of Homeland Security is out of money, and that means the people keeping our skies safe are back to working for IOUs. (We discussed the effectiveness of federalized security screeners on Saturday, and we’re still having a great conversation if you want to join.)
