Not to Intrude on AJMD429's Post

[COSteve]

My wife and I love to travel and since retiring 17 yrs ago, we've been to 81 countries. We saved and worked our whole lives to travel as much as we could.

So when AJMD posted, it reminded me of a discussion the wife and I had earlier this year when trying to decide where to go this year. We finally settled on Japan in September but in our discussion it became clear to us that many of the places we've been to or haven't yet and want to see, are currently (and for the foreseeable future) not safe to visit anymore.

The unrest caused by the terrorists is only a part of the issue as civil unrest, a general destruction of civilized discourse, and the lawlessness that pervades many countries (and not just 3rd world, 1st and 2nd as well) have turned us off of many of the places still on our bucket list. We fear that they won't be safe to travel to for at least 10 years, if ever, and we'll be too old to travel much at that time.

It's a really sad state the world is in now. Much worse than even the 60's and 70's we became adults in.

[TraderVic]

I agree with your comments.
Japan should be pretty safe as far as your planned vacation.
I stood at ground zero in Nagasaki back in early 73'. I took a day tour while my destroyer was in drydock in Sasebo, several hours away.
Being a history buff, there are some countries I'd like to see, however, safety abroad should not be assumed (presumed?)....these days !

[jeepnik]

Having lived in a country where terrorist acts were somewhat frequent and American military personnel were bonafide targets let me give my opinion.

I was stationed in Spain on a major Spanish base for two years. American military were easily identifiable, including special plates on our vehicles.

The actual chances of being a target, or even collateral damage is infinitesimal and taking simple common sense precautions along with good situational awareness will just about prevent any issues.

In fact the same precautions and awareness you use at home will serve you well.

I will admit that I was carrying a concealed handgun (technically illegal) while off base.

[AJMD429]

.
I do have a patient who was special forces in Iraq, and went there on two 'tours'. One thing he said that they didn't have to deal with themselves, but he'd had some of the big-company tech people who went various places to do contract work have an issue with that relates to this is, they'd go to an area where some sort of 'contraband' was heavily punished (usually guns, ammo, alcohol, or 'drugs'), and locals (often the security personnel themselves) would slip contraband into their baggage, then 'find' it, arrest them, and tell their deep-pocket employer that their technician was going to be jailed for a year unless they paid a fine of a hundred grand or so, and for another fifty grand they'd keep it out of the U.S. newspapers. He said that was a fairly commonplace thing, and that sometimes OUR security people would accompany the civilian contractors through checkpoints purely to see to it that nobody dropped contraband into a coat pocket or equipment case.

Probably that kind of thing wouldn't happen in most more-modern nations like Japan very often, where there is a lot of travel and good diplomatic relations, but I sure wouldn't trust 'security guards' in some third-world puke-hole to be honest.

It truly IS sad, because although there aren't a lot of places I'd like to go, and my 'retirement' is to work until I'm no longer able, for many folks, they have managed to work hard and save enough to go see the world, and the world right now isn't all that nice.

[COSteve]

We were fortunate to have taken some 82 trips in the 17 years since I started my new career, "A Gentleman at Leisure". Most of those were out of the country and included 6 continents as we’ve not been to Antarctica . . . yet.

Our first trip after the start of my new “career” was to Canada and that was bright and early the next morning after I left. That was our (mostly my) plan and that's what we kept up to right until March 2020, with COVID when we paused until last June when we went back to France for 3 weeks.