Tony Wheeler: Balancing travel risks and rewards

In the first of a two-parter, Lonely Planet's TONY WHEELER advises on safe travel.

I'm as nervous a traveller as anybody else. When the taxi driver is a madman and the vehicle looks like it would disintegrate if it collided with a pigeon, my knuckles turn white.

When we hit turbulence and the airline is second-rate [or even worse], I tighten my safety belt and try not to think about how much the wings are flexing.

In fact, my worst travel fears are often mundane. I hate the thought of falling ill by myself in some miserable Third World hotel.

The reality is that I know my most dangerous travel activity is when I decide to ride my bike to work rather than to drive.

Where and when have you felt least safe?

Of course you know you are at risk in badly driven, overloaded, ancient buses or on worn-out railway lines with barred window carriages. But the places I've felt least safe have probably not been that bad at all.

One of the gloomiest, greyest, least pleasant cities I've been to recently was Guatemala's capital. Guatemala City does not have the best reputation, but arriving at night certainly didn't help.

When I left my hotel to find a meal, the city felt positively spooky. The streets were practically deserted and I found myself scurrying between any brightly lit area or place where a few people could be seen. Next morning those same empty streets were crowded, bustling and felt utterly different.

Any place which is normally crowded but at certain periods completely empty inevitably feels risky. City centre areas in the US are often that way, as are places with curfews or in political turmoil. I remember feeling distinctly uncomfortable in Tehran just before the Shah fell.



Where would you not go?

Places where the regular rules have been cast aside - southern Sudan, much of Algeria, and various parts of Africa.

Countries where you know your nationality is not flavour of the month - the West Bank if you're an Israeli, West Timor if you're Australian, Pakistan if you're American.

Would you ever go back to Afghanistan?

I would love to go back to Afghanistan. I would love even more for it to be a place you could go back to. I recommend anybody contemplating joining the "whack the Afghans" movement to read Jason Elliot's luminous, heartbreaking book An Unexpected Light and then to think again.

Could you see people giving up travelling because they are worried about the dangers?

There will certainly be some people who have, or will, cancel travel plans but I suspect more people will rearrange things rather than simply stay at home.

What precautions do you take?

The usual ones. Nothing that hasn't been covered a hundred times in all the basic travel advice. I'm a naturally wary and distrustful person.

I always look both ways in one-way streets just in case somebody didn't see the [one-way] sign (or chose to ignore it), or in case some visitor who has just jumped in his rent-a-car has forgotten which side of the road people drive on.

Despite my natural curiosity I'm a believer in the "get away from the danger" or "don't hang around to gawk" rule.

The one occasion I've been reasonably near to a bomb going off was in Belfast - people were running past me, towards the scene, instead of away from it.



Are there airlines you avoid?

There are plenty of airlines I think twice about flying with. Fortunately, there are often alternatives these days.

A couple of years ago in India I flew Delhi-Lucknow in a tatty old Indian Airlines 737 which seemed to underline the company's bad reputation. I returned in a well-kept 737 from one of the country's independent airlines.

A few months ago I flew Santiago de Cuba-Havana in a noisy old Antonov which periodically shook and vibrated enough to shake your teeth loose.

- INDEPENDENT

Part 2: Just feel the fear and do it anyway

Lonely Planet