Coastline of Alexandria

Two days ago the state department issued a travel warning to all Americans living in and traveling to Egypt: Don’t go. There’s “social and political unrest”. Now, I can’t claim to imagine how unstable it must feel to be there right now, as if the world is daily on the brink of something unimaginable (aren’t we sort of always?) But the latest crop of warnings got me thinking about these state department releases and about the countries that are perpetually on that list. How do the state department travel warnings affect the way we plan travel abroad?

Now, I know folks of several opinions on this. In 2002 my parents spent half a year worried about my sister, who was living in Nepal at the time, because the country was on a “hot list” (Maoists, anyone?) To them, state department travel warnings are no joke — issued in the name of safety — but also signifying a call to reconsider where you set your American feet. Before we went to Honduras to shoot the pilot episode of Off the Radar, I spent a fretful night reading the state department’s travel warnings. Sure, there had been an increase in “drug-related violence” and travelers were advised to exercise caution in large cities. But instead of packing the warning into my luggage along with all of my other (founded or un) traveler concerns, I worried for days about the black-helmeted motorcycle jackers said  to pull up alongside cars and commit heinous robberies and even murders. I’m not saying that didn’t happen to Americans in Honduras. It did. But for a few days that specific image of stealth, violent motorcycle jackers replaced all the other unknowns in my imagination. And I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

Let me be clear: I don’t slide too far the other way into the whole blow-off-government-warnings-because-they-are-meant-to-vilify-foreign-countries-and-scare-travelers bit (even if they do a little bit). But the fact is, lots of places people want to visit are dangerous and have been for decades. When I look through the current warnings list I see countries that have been on my must-visit list for years. Nepal, Philippines, Mali. Lebanon, Colombia, Saudia Arabia. Shit, says here even Mexico’s no good. But there’s caution and then there’s caution. The images of angry men riding into Tahrir Square on horseback brandishing whips don’t exactly make me want to hop onto Kayak and start searching for flights. But neither do they make me fundamentally afraid to go to the places that our government deems dangerous. Does that make me nuts?

-KC