Summer is approaching, will you be traveling? Or will you let recent events scare you into staying home for three long months? I find myself leaning more towards the latter, and my stance has been swayed by tragic examples from around the world and close to home.
Tuesday night, my smartphone’s CNN push notification reported the sinking of a South Korean ferry and declared that more than half the 459 passengers on board were missing. USA Today reported that four people have died. Wednesday’s headlines were riddled with minute-to-minute updates on this tragedy, echoing the media barrage that followed the disappearance of Malaysian Flight 370 weeks ago. The international community is still searching for the over 200 individuals on board that flight.
News of travel-related tragedies just keeps popping up. Days ago, Newsweek reported that a Northern California bus accident left ten dead, including the two drivers, and over thirty others injured. The majority of the passengers were high school students on their way to a college recruiting event.
Thank goodness I’m a Long Beach local, and didn’t have to travel far at all to tour CSULB. ABC News reported that the bus drivers in this accident had “clean driving records.” Is anyone immune? Or are we all merely in the hands of chance?
At this rate, I find myself concerned that traveling in 2014 has become a sick “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles”- “Final Destination” combination. I can’t shake the feeling of uncertainty that I have developed over the past few weeks.
The ITB World Travel Trends Report for 2013-14 recommended that the travel industry become more “mobile.” The report confirmed that travel plans have been increasingly influenced by the quick access to information provided by smartphones, tablets, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised to see at least a slight decrease in travel through the upcoming seasons as a result of the plethora of travel-related crises that have been publicized through these devices.
Perhaps this hesitation seems irrational, but I disagree. Nelson Mandela, may he rest in peace, is remembered for saying, “Courage is not the absence of fear…” Well, I think the opposite is true, too: Fear is not the absence of courage, it is merely the recognition that sometimes costs outweigh benefits.
In the cases described above, lives were lost. Despite previous travel experience, sometimes there just isn’t a substantial reason to roll the dice on a plane, train, automobile or even a ship.
I’m obviously no expert, but the phrase “better safe than sorry” comes to mind when I start to think about big summer travel this year.