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Outside Magazine July 2003

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Dispatches: Adventure Travel
Road Worriers (Cont.)

AS THE SITUATION SHAKES OUT, some intrepid travelers are hedging their bets by planning domestic trips and saving exotic destinations for later. Mountain Travel Sobek reports that reservations have been lower than average overall but that bookings for North American trips have jumped 42 percent over the past year. "This season, a lot of people are going to stay closer to home and take driving vacations," says Jerry Mallet, president of the Adventure Travel Society. "But travelers are pent up and getting tired. I think eventually people are going to travel again."

On the international front, some hardcore outfitters and their clients argue that the Great Panic of 2003 is mostly a reflection of an urban mind-set and a stampede toward zero-risk timidity. Savvy

In 2002, the odds of a civilian dying in a terrorist attack were one in nine million; the odds of dying in a traffic accident were one in 7,000

adventure travelers typically blow through cities on their way to the good stuff and do their homework first. (The European trekkers who disappeared in the Sahara apparently had not recruited seasoned guides to accompany them, in an area known for lawless activity.) An informal survey of adventure travel companies by Outside found that most diehard adventurers are unfazed by world events. "Our folks—the adventurous clients—are still going," says Robyn Gorman, marketing director for Mountain Travel Sobek. "They're much more attuned to the rest of the world than the average traveler."

This attitude is justified—in most destinations, the locals are still more interested in collecting dollars than defending political ideologies. "The average person in other countries is concerned with putting food on the table," says Robert Link, founder of the adventure travel company Mountain Link. "They couldn't care less about nationalities."

And while terror is always a concern, Tom Sanderson, an international-threat analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington, D.C., says, "I wouldn't panic or cancel trips. You just need to stay away from certain areas." Those areas include trouble zones like Pakistan, Colombia, Afghanistan, and portions of the Middle East.

Luckily, there have been few significant attacks since 9/11—and no terror incidents on U.S. soil in the past 20 months. But the threat is still there. "The huge U.S. presence in Central Asia and the Middle East is not sitting well with many people," Sanderson warns. "There's definitely the potential for terrorism to get worse."

It's also difficult to predict the future of SARS. "I can't say whether it's going to peter out or spread or come back next fall," says Steve Ostroff, deputy director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases, in Atlanta. "Even if you damp down or stamp out the clusters of illness that have come about, you always run the risk that it could be introduced over and over again." At press time, the World Health Organization was optimistic that the disease had been contained in most countries, though, predictably, they urged caution in Beijing and Hong Kong.

Terrorist threats, anthrax, violent conflict, recession, anti-Americanism—getting things back on track seems like a big task. On the other hand, anyone who thinks that history won't take unexpected U-turns hasn't been paying attention. It's worth noting that geopolitical hot spots of decades past—Nicaragua, Vietnam, South Africa, most of Eastern Europe—have become friendly tourist destinations for U.S. travelers. Who knows? In ten years, Iraq's Persian Gulf port of Umm Qasr could be hosting a beach volleyball tournament.

No matter how bad things get, the urge to travel won't disappear, even if it takes us to not-so-distant ports of call. Almost two years of apprehension, vague dread, and sheer frustration may be what ultimately gets the ball rolling again. "There have been a lot of people jumping on the fear wagon as far as adventure travel goes," says Robert Link. "People think the world is falling down around them. But that's just not the case."

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