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Virtually every first class hotel in Sharm has security and metal detectors. In Cabo, if you’re staying at a 4 or 5 star hotel, expect to see security booths and armed guards. The excessive security is not necessarily because the place is more dangerous – it’s because tourism is so vital to the economy and the government doesn’t want to take any chances. Besides, the additional security is very cheap. In Egypt, it’s provided by the Army and the Police.
Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
It goes without saying that there are some negative headlines that you need to consider red flags. If you have concerns about a swine flu outbreak in Mexico, maybe you might want to think twice before rolling the dice on that discounted package to Cabo San Lucas. But then again, you should keep in mind that Mexico is a vast land and that Cabo is at the tip of the sparsely populated Baja Peninsula which might as well be on a different planet from the rest of the country. You can drive for 50 miles up the Peninsula and not see a man or a dog – just an unending forest of Cactus trees against a backdrop of the spectacular Sierra Giganta Mountains that hug the coast of the Sea of Cortez. Same thing goes for Sharm. Aside from the resorts at Sharm and Dahab, the Southern Sinai is virtually uninhabited.
Let me give you another “trouble spot” tip. Trinidad & Tobago is an enchanting tourist destination made up of the two southernmost islands in the Caribbean. It’s a gorgeous setting where you can get a beachside house that can comfortably accommodate three families for under $100 a night. But there is a catch – the crime rate. Last year in a population of only 1 million people, they had 550 murders, more than New York City.
Now here’s the real kicker; Tobago the smaller island, not only has better beaches than Trinidad, it has virtually no crime. Regardless, when the State Department issues a travel alert on Trinidad, Tobago gets slammed too. My point is that breaking down the crime stats allows a savvy traveler to swoop in on some excellent deals. You wouldn’t let the crime rate in the South Bronx dissuade you from hanging out in Little Italy or closing the bars on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
Don’t get me wrong - there are some seriously dangerous places that aren’t suitable for tourist travel. In the seventies, there was a bus line used to make a regular run from Amsterdam to Kabul. For obvious reasons, that bus stopped running long ago. In any case, if a place is really that dangerous, the only people booking an airline ticket will likely be war correspondents. Package tour operators will dodge trouble spots because the last thing they want is an avalanche of cancellations. Another acid test is when you notice major airlines cancelling their routes to a particular country – that’s a definite warning sign to go elsewhere.
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