Should a world of warnings hamper your travel plans?

05 July 2015 - 02:00 By Paul Ash

The world has always been dangerous place, but that has never stopped people from exploring, writes Paul Ash If you are of nervous disposition and have seen the list of countries the UK's Foreign Office says are off-limits or unsafe for travel, you might lock the door, turn on the telly and never go out again.It is, admittedly, a big list - by the Foreign Office's yardstick, Britons are urged not to travel to some 60 countries around the world. If we accept that most of the countries that are deemed unsafe for Britons will be unsafe for South Africans too, that's roughly one-quarter of the world's nations that we should avoid.I am reminded of a man named Ted Simon, a former British newspaperman who, in 1973, at the ripe old age of 44, abandoned his career and took off astride a Triumph Tiger motorbike on a freewheeling, four-year circumnavigation.His route took him through southern Europe and across Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, then through Sudan and East Africa to Cape Town. Other than the full-scale guerilla war being fought in then-Rhodesia, and the bitter wars in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, the world in 1973 was relatively peaceful. That's not to say there were no simmering tensions - Simon suffered at the hands of Brazil's secret police, who detained him on suspicion of being a spy - but for the most part he travelled unmolested through a world that was far less suspicious and volatile than it is now.Since the late '70s, the world has witnessed dozens of nasty, bitter wars. Some places Simon crossed on his faithful Triumph - most notably Libya and Afghanistan - are now serious no-go zones and I'm not sure I would embark on a solo motorbike trip across Pakistan or Iran these days either.story_article_left1Of the countries I have been to in 20 years of travelling, some have fallen on hard times. Libya is at war with itself, as is Ukraine, and the part of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula where I enjoyed a glorious few days of snorkelling in the Red Sea in 2010 is now regarded as unsafe for all but essential travel.Others have become safer. I no longer have the same trepidation travelling in Mozambique that I did when backpacking there in 1993. And Vietnam and Laos have cleared much of their former killing fields of unexploded ordnance and embraced tourism instead.The world has always been dangerous in parts and still travellers make their way through the badlands, maybe like moths drawn to flames, or maybe because sometimes the only way to know how bad or great a place is is to see it for yourself.So, if you have travel plans, take heart. Do your research and seek out other travellers who have returned safely - they will tell you what you need to know.- Ash is the editor of Travel Weekly nbsp;..

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