Take one measure of what “unsafe” is: the homicide rate of a country.
Simply put, we’re terrible at determining what’s dangerous and what’s not. Sure, it’s a place where they cut off your ears if they don’t like your face, and that puts it a little ideologically closer to ISIS than it’s carpet-flying, menagerie-owning monarchy may care to admit, but it’s still disturbing that so many Americans are willing to jump at the opportunity to bomb someplace vaguely Arabic-sounding. Agrabah is the name of the city in Disney’s Aladdin. The problem with that (aside from the fact that a large number of Americans want to bomb anywhere) is that Agrabah is not a real place. Last week, a rather disturbing poll revealed that a disturbingly large number of Americans think we should bomb Agrabah. What we think of as “unsafe” is often wrong. This isn’t to say we should haphazardly charge out into the world mindless of risk: if the State Department is issuing travel advisories for the countries we’re visiting, we should at least take them into consideration and educate ourselves about the dangers of the countries we’re visiting, and it’s always worthwhile to be alert while in a strange place regardless of its reputation for danger.īut easily the most meaningful experiences I’ve had while traveling were in places that conventional wisdom has deemed as “unsafe.” And that’s because conventional wisdom is not particularly wise.
It may seem counterintuitive - I’ve reached a point where, when I’m leaving for a trip, more people say goodbye with “Have a safe flight!” than with “Have a good trip!” - but safety should not be what we look for in travel. We shouldn’t just see the “safe” parts of our world.