While traveling the globe and relating my stories to people unfamiliar with travel, some form of this question almost always comes up. Aren’t you scared? Won’t you get robbed?

It’s a common travel question and I certainly understand why people ask it, but at the same time, it’s doesn’t seem very well thought out to me. Seriously, I was traveling in New Zealand and was asked this question by a local: “Aren’t you scared?” In New Zealand of all places? I was stymied.

Where Does This Mentality Come From?

I can’t say for sure, but I think a few different factors feed in to the thinking that travel is somehow inherently dangerous.

• Media Sensationalism

Imagine if the mainstream media reported on every traveler who didn’t get mugged or robbed. That wouldn’t make for very good headlines, but the fact is, plenty of people travel the world without incident and the incidents we hear are few and far between when compared to the shear number of people who travel.

• State Department Warnings

Nobody reports their experiences with not getting robbed, mugged or scammed to their embassy. If nothing awful happens to a traveler, the embassy probably doesn’t even know they exist. State Department advisories and warnings have their place, and I’ll get to that later.

• Unfamiliarity

There’s a good chance that you could be robbed, mugged or scammed while in your home country or hometown. But it probably doesn’t happen because you know how things work there. You know which areas to avoid. You understand what situations to avoid. You hang out with familiar people who you know and trust.

Are You Saying Travel is Completely Safe Then?

No, of course not. There are many factors that make a place more or less dangerous than another. Local laws and law enforcement (or the lack of) will shape what kinds of crime exist and what sort of risks criminals will take. For instance, in Romania, violent crime is dealt with very harshly, while pick-pocketing is not, so of course, pickpocketing is very common but in the case of Romania, you’re not going to be targeted simply because you are a traveler. Criminals there are equal opportunists.

Local economics also play a huge role in the types of crimes and scams that might be common in the area. If people are poor, hungry, desperate and have no hope of earning an honest living they may very well resort to scams or crime. It isn’t personal but as a traveler, you could be targeted specifically because you are seen to have more.

All of that said, let’s not lose sight of the one common denominator here: People. People, no matter where you go in the world, want to live a peaceful existence. They want to raise their families. They want the same basic things that you or I want. People aren’t evil by nature, no matter where they live.

How to Minimize Your Risk

I’ve been to some dodgy places. Kashmir comes to mind. Everybody there had a gun but me. I’ve been in parts of Mexico at the beginning of an uprising. I’ve been in some extremely safe places that are relatively crime-free. In Taiwan, for example, I once left my iPhone in a taxi cab. I actually got it back. I’m not sure that would have happened anywhere else in the world. I’ve only ever had something stolen once, and while that was a bummer, I think that considering the amount of time I’ve put in traveling, it’s pretty good odds.

Here are some handy tips for minimizing your risk:
• Common Sense

I know what “they” say. Common sense ain’t so common and that is evidenced by the fact that many people become victims by taking risks that they shouldn’t have.

1. Moderation in Drinking

The temptation to get caught up in having a good time with fellow travelers is strong. Go ahead, have a good time but don’t overdo it. You should know your own limits and you should stick to them. If you’re incapacitated by drinking your judgement will become diminished, your reaction time will be slowed. You will become more likely to make mistakes.

2. Avoid areas that aren’t well lit.

Especially if you’re in an unfamiliar area.

3. Try not to be alone

I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t travel solo, but if you are alone, try to stick to areas where there are other people.

4. Be aware

I call this “paying attention to my spidey-senses”. Be vigilant, pay attention to your surroundings. Listen to your own intuition, and if something doesn’t feel right, get out.

5. Know the risks

Having knowledge of what kinds of crimes are common in the area where you are traveling will help you spot a scam or a dangerous situation. That’s where State Department travel information comes in handy. Some scams or diversion tactics have the same elements worldwide, some are more regional or local. Know what you’re likely to encounter so that you can recognize it for what it is early.

So my answer to “Isn’t it dangerous?” is no, not really, at least not so much that I’m going to let that notion keep me from exploring the world around me.

My travel habit probably started when I was three or four years old. One of my earliest childhood memories was taking a cross-country trip to visit my grandmother for Christmas (or some other holiday). I spent a lot of time in my youth staring out the windshield of my mom’s truck going from horse show to horse show, I left the country for the first time when I was in high school. I joined the military after high school, and of course that led to even more overseas travel and working in foreign countries. In 2005 I took my first overseas contract job working in Antarctica. I started traveling for extended periods after that and haven’t looked back.

Even though, technically, I had lived in foreign countries during my time in the military I hadn’t really experienced life in a foreign country the way that the people from there do. Living on a military base shares many similarities with living in the U.S. The food is familiar, the products in the store are familiar and things work just like they do back home.

One year ago, I took a job overseas, working and living in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The challenges of living in a foreign city turned out to be pretty grand. Things that I would take for granted in the U.S., e.g. trash removal, mail service, grocery shopping were done differently, and in a language I didn’t understand. The food smelled bad, and was unfamiliar. The products in the grocery store were strange and I damn sure couldn’t read the labels. I became overly self-conscious about my consumerism at trash time. It was the strangest thing. You see, there are no dumpsters in Taiwan, instead, the trash trucks circle the city playing ice-cream truck music and everyone rushes out to the street with their bag of garbage to throw in the truck. Every day when trash time would roll around, I would grab my massive bag of trash and share an elevator for 24 floors with my neighbors who barely appeared to consume anything. For every 40-gallon hefty I filled up, my neighbors filled up something that was equivalent in size to a sandwich bag.

When my job in Taiwan ended, my wife and I moved to Hunachaco, Peru. Huanchaco is a place that I had traveled to once before. The differences that I am noticing between traveling in Peru and living in Peru are pretty immense. Eating in Peru isn’t expensive, and if you’re o.k. with goat stew it can be downright cheap to eat in Peru. Hostels and hotels in Peru don’t tend to have kitchens because it is so easy and convenient to eat out. But, now that we live here, and saving money is a greater concern, I’ve had to explore shopping

photo credit: codybanger

for food at the local mercado. If the food had packaging, I could probably safely say that the packaging and labeling were different, but alas, it’s not packaged at all. Fruits, veggies and grains are all easy enough, but meat is something else, entirely. I don’t know how to ask for “rack of goat ribs” and I wouldn’t know what to do with a whole chicken, on full display with half-formed eggs still attached. What is the best cut of manta ray?

From a previous post about moving overseas:

I don’t know how to butcher a chicken. It’s not pre-packaged for me in Styrofoam and plastic wrap. I could very well starve to death, not for a lack of food, but for a lack of knowledge.

I will admit this, however, the lack of packaging on my food sure has cut down on my daily waste. Also, consider this interesting fact about Peru: You can’t flush toilet paper. The plumbing simply can’t deal with it. Now, if you’re traveling and staying in hostels or hotels and forget, or simply blow it off, no big deal, right? If somebody else’s plumbing gets clogged up, it’s not really your problem is it? But when you live here…I don’t even want to try to negotiate with a plumber.

So…from Brasov we caught a train to Bucharest (the capital city of Romania). While it’s not fair to make a judgment on a city based on a four hour layover, it is fair to say that the neighborhood around the train station is, in a word, gritty. We saw (several) people huffing bags of paint, bums sprawled in the street, experienced the acrid smell of urine everywhere. I did stop in a little neighborhood bar for a beer. It was poorly lit, many fixtures were in a state of disrepair, the commode in the men’s room had been broken off its base but the bartender was exceptionally friendly and warm and the beer cheap and cold. Anyhow…from Bucharest, we caught another train to Sofia Bulgaria.

We had reserved a hotel in Sofia via hotels.com. The address listed on hotels.com said the hotel was on Biglastr. I wrote the address down on a piece of paper and handed it to a cab driver outside of the train station, the cab driver just scratched his head and told me he didn’t know of this “Biglastr”….so, we went back inside the train station, purchased a map, and tried to figure out where the hell our hotel was. I couldn’t find Biglastr on the map anywhere but what I did find was…wait for it…Bigla Street. They had abbreviated but not put a space where appropriate. We stepped back out, flagged down a cab and asked to go to 30 Bigla Street and were taken there without delay. Overall, we found the people in Sofia to be very friendly even though I was fined for not having a valid bus pass (the validation machine on the bus is communist era and doesn’t work too well) by a guy who was kind of an asshole. Marsha thought he may not have even been legitimate..this is a possibility, but it was a small amount of money and I didn’t feel like investing negative energy into the matter, so I let it go. From Sofia, we took yet another overnight train, this one to Istanbul.

Improvisation at its finest

I had a negative impression of going to Istanbul. It gets a lot of bad press and a few short days before we went there were talks of a coup. Thus, I decided to not tell anyone where I was going…I didn’t want anyone to needlessly worry about me, and witnessing a coup seemed like something pretty exciting anyhow! Seeing the number of Senior Citizens’ tour groups that we did put any worries of a coup immediately out of mind.

Istanbul turned out to be a wonderful surprise. There are, of course, the well known tourist attractions like the Blue Mosque, The Grand Bazaar, The Golden Horn, St. Sophia, Whirling Dervishes and The Bosphorus. There is also something magical about the city. A mixture of old and new, east and west and absolutely full of the friendliest people I have ever met, anywhere (and if you have been reading this blog, you know I have been a few places). We only stayed a few days in Turkey. I had no idea how much the country had to offer and I fully intend to return to explore the greater part of the Turkey. I learned so much about myself, the world and Turks while here. Istanbul has transformed me, perhaps nearly as much as Kashmir. This is something I should have written about earlier, while it was still fresh in my mind but I was too busy living and exploring to take the time to write about it. C’est la vie.

From Istanbul, another overnight train..this time to Thessaloníki, Greece. I haven’t got much to say about Thessaloníki, but in short, do you know why you have never heard of that world famous excellent Greek service? Because it sucks. Horribly. Oh…but you can buy a chipmunk in a cage if you are so inclined. The poor service also extends from the restaurants to the airlines and to top it all off, we were flying out on a day that they decided to call a strike so our plane was delayed by several hours and we were stranded in perhaps the world’s most depressing airport. Next stop…Berlin.

Because it was cheap to fly to Berlin, and because we wanted to visit another country, we flew to Berlin. We spent a night in a hotel cum kindergarten (yes, you read that right) luckily, school was out and we weren’t disturbed by the goings on of a school directly below our hotel room. What is the one thing you would want to see if you had only a few hours in Berlin? Why…Checkpoint Charlie of course. This historic spot along the former Berlin Wall is perhaps the most famous transfer point between east and west and was iconic of the cold war. Nowadays, you can pay a man dressed in a uniform to stamp your passport with any one of a dozen or so stamps from the communist era. I didn’t go for it. Marsha did. Goodbye Berlin, Hello Doesburg, Netherlands.

In Doesburg we were privileged to spend several days/nights with Marsha’s friend Julie and her family. It was a treat to spend time in this type of setting after so long living an unconventional lifestyle. We had one of our funnest days during a folk festival in Doesburg. We both went clog dancing! It was a hoot.

The “not-so” professionals

From Doesburg, we spent a day in Amsterdam, visited the red-light district and saw a few sights before flying to Edinburgh, Scotland. Scotland is exceptionally expensive but also exceptionally rich in history, natural beauty and culture. We stuck to a pretty traditional tourist itinerary with a ghost tour of Edinburgh and a bus tour of the Highlands including a monster spotting cruise on Loch Ness. Next we flew to London. The idea was to drive to Stone Henge but soon after departing we abandoned this idea due to the horrific holiday weekend traffic and opted for a day in the city. I’m left with a pretty “been there, done that” sort of feeling about London. Granted it’s rife with history and culture, but for me, the crowds and the cost are too much to make me want to return. From London, we parted ways. I flew to Denver, Marsha to Houston with plans to see each other in late June or early July.

Edinburgh architechtureNessie revealed

The London Eye

So…that pretty much concludes what I’m going to take the time to write about Europe in this blog. I’d love to talk to you in person about it sometime over a beer!

After two nights in Budapest, we boarded another overnight train. This time to Brasov, Romania. Brasov had been on my radar for quite some time since it has Eastern Europe’s best known ski resort nearby. I had considered going skiing there but due to a lack of snow this season, I didn’t. One of my goals on this trip was to hang out someplace for long enough to really get in to the culture so we decided we would give Brasov a chance and stay here for a greater length of time than any of the other places we had been to or were going. We had booked a home stay with a man named Eugene. Eugene rents out his mother’s bedroom for extra income. His mother is still alive and when he has guests, she sleeps in his room. It feels a bit odd, but the price was right and what a better way to get into the culture of a place than to stay with a local, besides if Eugene’s mother didn’t stay with him in his room, she may have to resort to eating alpo or something. Another generator of income for Eugene is that he offers his services as a guide/driver to tour the world famous Dracula’s castle, two other lesser-known castles, and the surrounding countryside. In the interest of Eugeni Mama (that’s what she called herself) we took him up on the offer of an 8+ hour tour of the aforementioned sights.

Brasov is a pretty Transylvanian town situated at the foot of the Carpathian mountains.

WTF?

Most Romanians under the age of 50 can speak English very well. Most of them over 50 can’t. Eugene’s mother was no exception, but the conviction with which she spoke to us in Romanian caused me to be scared to let on that I had no idea what she was saying, so I politely nodded and smiled as she spoke to me.

Eugene himself is quite the character. I am a big fan of conspiracy theories, but they have to sound at least somewhat plausible. Eugene thinks that governments have machines that can control the weather. Of course, you usually don’t find out someone is whacko until you spend 8 hours in a car with them.

One day we took a pleasant hike to the seven stairs falls. There is a series of waterfalls that come down a canyon and a series of ladders and walkways up the canyon.

It’s obvious that the safety inspectors haven’t been around in quite a while, or maybe such things are of no concern to the Romanians. Marsha was braver than me and ascended one more ladder than I did – but she does weigh quite a bit less than me. The whole thing reminded me of something out of Indiana Jones.

I also got a haircut while in Brasov. I’ve never needed a translator for a haircut before. I was very pleased with the results.

More castles:

From Prague, we took an overnight train to Budapest. We had our own private sleeper car for the 9ish hour trip. Going to sleep in one country and waking up in another is a pretty neat experience.

There were far fewer tourists in Budapest than there were in Prague. Budapest is the combination of two cities. The city of Buda and the city of Pest. The two are separated by the Danube river. The Pest side, where we stayed, has a reputation for being a bit rough i.e. muggings etc. Granted we didn’t go out drinking in the wee hours of the morning, but we saw nothing that even remotely resembled ‘rough characters’ and felt as safe as we would in Mayberry, USA. Another preconception proven unfounded.

I haven’t got too much more to say about Budapest. Here are some pics: