Are you afraid to travel? Do you think that leaving the country will mean getting exotic diseases, mugged and kidnapped? Well you should be. People are nuts to travel. The safest thing you can do is to sit at home and do nothing.
However, if you have a death wish and insist on traveling, you better be prepared. There is no better guide to survival in the dangerous world out there than the The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Travel. Useful subjects it covers include:
- Stopping a runaway train
- Surviving a hostage situation
- Escaping from a car hanging over the edge of a cliff
- Surviving in a plummeting elevator
- Navigating a minefield
- Crossing a piranha-infested river
- Treating a severed limb
- Removing a leech
- Foiling a UFO abduction
Each one of the above items happened to me at least twice during my travels. (no alien is going to probe me thank you very much).
I’ll be giving away a copy of The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Travel to three lucky winners, selected by Random.org. All you have to do is leave a comment and tell me your biggest fear when traveling.
My biggest fear while traveling is that I will be abducted and nobody will ever know what happened to me!
@ The Global Traveler – I can relate to that! Sitting with wife & 1 year old on a scheduled flight from LAX non-stop to Paris France, encircled by fire trucks who foamed the tarmac under us, we learned of a defective fuel cap under one of the wings. …the tank emptied when they pulled the hose out. Over the PA the capt. says “we can’t carry enough fuel to get to Paris! However, we can get half way there”!! So, after an unscheduled flight in Newfoundland we arrived 4 hours late! …and continued to enjoy an amazing vacation in France! :)
I can’t think of a thing … so I want to comment on the list above. “Treating a severed limb” !! Hey, what about treating the person who lost it, instead? LOL
Hmmn, one bad thing about traveling? Perhaps food poisoning or some other dire ailment that requires hospitalization in a foreign land …
Wow, sounds like a cool book!
My biggest fear when travelling is getting lost on my own in a country where I don’t speak the language.
I’m lucky enough to have been brought up with three languages and am learning an fourth, but still it’s my biggest nightmare. It means I would have no control over my own situation and depend on others 100%. Scary thought.
My greatest fear when traveling is that the bridge I am crossing might collapse. Kind of unlikely, but you never know!
My greatest fear is getting lost in translation, with no one to communicate with in a faraway land. :|
sounds cool, count me in!
Plane crash in the ocean.
I think parasites or bugs that burrow into your skin are what scare me the most. Snakes are my second concern…jungle snakes that is!
Lost luggage!
Thanks for the giveaway… I have two big travel fears: contracting an exotic disease i.e. insect, waterborne, etc., and getting into a serious accident / in need of advanced medical care in a “third world” country.
My fear losing my passport. I miss place everything.
Jennifer – there is no wrong plane or train, just an unplanned one. What an adventure that would be!
My biggest travel fear is being unable to continue travelling. I can’t imagine what would stop me.
My second biggest travel fear would be to hear “who forgot to fuel up?” over the PA when flying over the middle of an ocean.
My biggest fear is of getting ripped off. Especially by a confidence trickster, but also by airline companies and the like who charge too much. And heights – I’m definitely scared of heights, I think I just have to accept that.
Biggest fear, by far, is being in England during one of those zombie epidemics I hear so much about on TV. They never have any well-established refuge spots; everyone ends up in a mall.
My biggest fear when travelling is getting on the wrong plane or train and ending up on the other side of the world.
I have to agree with an earlier comment getting locked up abroad would be at the top of my list. That may be driven by the fact that I watch the show by the same name on Nat Geo: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/locked-up-abroad/all/Overview
Getting your rental Car hit by a train… Oh wait, that already happened and everything worked out
Either losing all my photo’s or getting seriously sick.
Serious physical accidents, with noone you really know around to help out… It happened to a friend, who luckily was with a guide that knew who to contact, and my mother saved a guy who was wounded in a bike accident in Vietnam and couldn’t get anyone to stop and help. Another friend is paralysed from the waist down after a biking accident abroad.
So, yeah, accidents… Though I guess it can happen without travelling.
Getting sick in a country where I don’t speak the language!
Getting my camera and laptop stolen. Anything else I can handle but not these.
getting pickpocketed or robbed of cash, cards and passport!
My greatest fear? Making an idiot of myself (which is not all that irrational, I have learned). My second greatest? Let’s just say it involves toilets.
Honestly, my biggest fear is losing my documents… licence, passport, etc. And it is founded, my one and only trip to Mexico landed me with big guns pointed in my face when I attempted to retrieve a fax copy of my lost drivers licence from a being-renovated villa next door. Yikes. Almost got stuck in the country.. foreeeeeever!
Traveling is my passion, but my greatest fear is getting mugged while I’m backpacking somewhere and being left in the middle of nowhere with no money and no passport! I double check to make sure I have my passport, cash, and air tickets twice a day (not exaggerating!) while I’m out of the country.
When travelling, my biggest fear is unpredictable crimes that can harm my life.
Hi Gary,
My biggest fear is being abudcted and sold into salvery/marriage/something horrible! (A blond, blue eyed woman) I just traveled to Egypt and Dubai where I felt surprisingly safer than anticipated.
I”ve had my passport stolen in France, getting a replacement wasn’t too painful, so that doesn’t worry me as much.
Irrational fears – gotta love ‘em!
Great website! I’ve done a lot of traveling, (just took a road trip to chicago this weekend!) and my biggest fear is definitely just getting mugged. I suppose I would adjust fine, even if I lost everything, but it’s still my biggest fear, hands down.
Definitely getting mugged and having my camera and money stolen – especially the camera at the end of the trip or the money at the beginning of the trip!
Tough one! I’d have to go with getting sick, especially Malaria.
My fear is being stranded someplace where I don’t speak the local language and I need to catch a train/bus/plane to get out of there.
mine’s getting mugged, attacked, robbed i guess.
i need to take some self-defence classes
Honestly – my biggest fear is flying – but sometimes it’s the only way to get to where I want to go – so I suck it up.
Loosing all photos!
Losing my passport
my biggest fear when traveling is losing my passport and or money and being stranded somewhere.
Ending in unknown environments like middle of the sea, deep jungle… like if they were other planets ;-)
My biggest fear in travelling is talking to people. :(
i only fear to lose a foto, to fill all my memory cards, have a low battery, have my cam stolen… my memories stolen when i travel, or get blind
As a woman, my biggest fear is finding myself alone in a place I do not feel safe. As much as I hate to admit i’d like having a man around… ;)
My biggest fear is being away from my family for so long.
My biggest fear is to meet colleagues at the end of the world… Then I must have done something wrong. :)
not being able to escape a governmental fall or other political or social uprising.
Biggest fear is not having enough time! (I get a bit stressed about that)
My biggest fear is losing my valuables: Money, passport, travel documents (i.e., tickets), and copies of my passport and travel documents.
My biggest fear is losing my passport of course!
Getting locked up abroad!
All it takes is one mosquito…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengue
Biggest fear? Realizing I didn’t budget enough time to see everything I want in a new place.