So many Americans have a totally irrational fear of traveling.

Let’s put things into perspective.  Statistically, you’re much more likely to come to a violent end in America than the average world citizen is — lots of people have guns here and we have quite a high murder rate.  The streets of Boston are far more dangerous than Shanghai, Calcutta, Damascus, or practically anyplace else you want to mention.

People tend to be afraid of the wrong things.  SARS, which everyone was so worried about a few years ago, has killed fewer than 800 people, while AIDS is killing millions upon millions. Even swine flu is relatively unlikely to kill you: you have less than a one in a million chance of contracting swine flu – and only about a one percent chance of dying from it, if you did catch it.  Ironically, you’d probably be better off if you were overseas right now, since the majority of the cases have been reported in North America.1 You could fly around the world 200,000 times before you stood a 50-50 chance of dying in a plane crash.2 Simply walking is many thousands of times more dangerous — in fact, it’s far and away the most dangerous way to travel. How many of the millions of American expatriates abroad have died at the hands of terrorists? A handful. More people die of bee stings.

I’m not saying there isn’t some danger overseas. There is. It’s just not what’s portrayed in the media, and there are simple solutions. The traffic in India is murderous — take a train. The Indian Railway System has the same safety record as Europe – also, it’s super cheap and great fun. Malaria and AIDS are terrible problems in Africa — take your pills and be mighty selective of your sex partners. No problem.

Advertisement