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Outside Magazine July 2003

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Dispatches: Adventure Travel
Road Worriers
War, terror, and SARS are keeping millions of travelers at home. Sounds like it's time to plan an adventure.

By Hal Espen


	Left behind: an abandoned vehicle on the Grave Route in Algeria, April 2003 (Axel Schmidt/Action Press)

IN EARLY FEBRUARY, roughly a thousand miles south of Algiers in the Sahara, European adventure travelers started disappearing without a trace. By mid-April, 15 Germans, ten Austrians, four Swiss, a Dutchman, and a Swede—an astonishing total of 31 men and women—had simply vanished into the void.

About the only thing these unlucky travelers left behind was a single vehicle in an archaeologically rich stretch of southern Algeria known as the Grave Route. At press time, after a massive hunt that included more than a thousand searchers—some on camels, some in helicopters equipped with heat-detection equipment—17 of the travelers had been liberated by Algerian commandos during a rescue operation near the Libyan border. A second rescue mission was reportedly being organized. Observers were not yet able to confirm the identity of the abductors (no group claimed responsibility), but speculated that they were part of a militant Islamist organization known as the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, which the State Department suspects has links to Al Qaeda. The motive? One theory was that the kidnappings were part of a plan to negotiate the release of four Algerians recently convicted of plotting a terrorist bombing in Strasbourg, France. Ordinarily, a mass disappearance of this magnitude would make front-page headlines around the world. But this story was lumped in with a broader convergence of bad news that served to heighten widespread anxiety about the safety of international travel. The war in Iraq, the ongoing threat of anti-American terrorism, and the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) transformed the jitters of early 2003 into unmitigated fear. In late April, a survey by the Travel Industry Association of America showed that 71 percent of U.S. citizens had decided that, thanks all the same, they would rather vacation on the home front this year. Many travel companies reported that SARS had caused an alarming drop in overseas bookings. The impact has been most severe in Asia, where the bulk of SARS fatalities have occurred. As news of the epidemic spread, flights on Pacific routes plummeted 38 percent, a devastating economic loss in a region that was fast becoming a tourism hot spot.

So is it time to forget your dreams of adventure and stay put? Not really. Obviously, now is not the best year to head for Algeria or southern Iraq. But despite reasonable concerns about security and the course of the SARS outbreak, the latest travel panic is largely unjustified. In fact, for adventurous types inclined to gripe about crowds overrunning the world's last best places, the next few months could shape up as a singular opportunity to thumb your nose at paranoia and express the basic human right to wander and explore.

By most measures, the current mass aversion to travel is far out of line with actual risks. In 2002, the odds of an American civilian dying in a terrorist attack were one in nine million, while the odds of dying in a traffic accident in the United States were one in 7,000. Worldwide, the risk of dying from SARS is even smaller. And there may be a silver lining in the current cloud of gloom: Right now, adventure travel bargains are available everywhere as outfitters strive to regain momentum. Airline fares are at a 14-year low, and the cost of lodging and travel packages is steadily dropping. In the spring, many flights to Europe were less than $500; Caribbean airfares were under $400; a week in Chamonix, including flights, was going for $900. There are even bargains for elite climbers: Pakistan recently waived all climbing fees for peaks under 6,500 meters and cut fees in half for taller mountains.

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