FabulousFrance

By the volume of post on the fodor's forums I am glad to see people are still traveling.

I have to admit this last attack in Nice has shook me up to the point of being more strategic in where I go. Maybe because I have "partied" on the promenade des anglais and have been right where the innocents were when evil visited them the other night.

Rationally I know we are not promised another day-

And I will still travel-I have an upcoming trip to Mallorca & Barcelona in the fall and for
2017 I had already begun planning a return trip to France.

Now I am thinking of cutting out Paris & other areas with large populations, Muslims & otherwise-No cities, no popular spots or sites & sticking just to small villages-which breaks my heart to think like this.

But on the flip side one of my like credos is to not put myself in harms way & to be aware of my surroundings

How bout you- how have your travel plans changed? or not?

Sassafrass

Not yet, though we rarely go to events anyway. However, there are a few I would still like to attend and probably would if we have a chance.

Pegontheroad

Well, in a way, I guess they have changed. I say "in a way" because I've been rethinking plans to go places where I have to walk a great deal, so maybe Turkey would not be on my short list even without the turmoil there.

But if not for this walking problem, I might have thought seriously about traveling in Turkey.

I've more or less decided that I'll just go to Semana Santa in different parts of Spain.

jubilada

No, though cities are not my favorite destinations, I still plan on a stop in Rome in a few months.

tripplanner001

Absolutely not! I refuse to give in to terrorists and allow them to take away my freedom to travel. I was in Istanbul for a few days earlier this year and would not hesitate to go there or Paris. Having lived in NYC and living in DC now, I'm not sure that there is any place that is absolutely safe or unsafe save all-out war zones such as Syria or Afghanistan.

colduphere

I'm as tough as nails. The terrorists will never win. I'm still going camping in northern Canada.

HappyTrvlr

Still gping to Italy and Spain in fall but Asia is looming larger in our planning again.
We were in Asia a few months ago and for the first time I did think about safety and had, perhaps naively, no worries of terrorism.

Pepper_von_snoot

Your post makes no sense, OP.

You are more likely to die in a car accident than a terrorist attack, yet do you give up driving?

You are more likely to choke to death than in a terrorist attack, but do you give up eating?

Hell, yea, I am not taking a shower tomorrow morning because I could slip in the tub and die!

I am going on holiday to Nice, Antibes, and St. Paul-de-Vence in October.

I am more worried about rain than terrorists.


Thin

nytraveler

I am a native New Yorker and lived through 911 - losing one second degree relative, the fiance of one coworker and the uncle of my assistant. The city will never be exactly the same again. And I have not been able to go to the 911 Memorial or Museum - and am not sure if I ever will. Seeing it all once was enough.

But other than the few days after the attack, when my office (right near the UN) was unreachable, I have not changed my life, including going through Times Square on the way to work many mornings. I have also not changed how I travel - having been to europe numerous times since then both on vacations and for business.

I think I am more aware in some ways than I was before. And am glad that the NYC has a very large specially trained terrorist task force, which has foiled several planned attacks on the city since then.

I am not the type of tourist who would be in a soccer stadium, and possibly not at a fireworks show (although I must admit I think allowing that truck on the Promenade was a massive security failure). But there is nothing you can do about airports or train stations.

You can live your life or you can hide in fear. I won't do the latter.

And DDs, a finace and DH and I will be going to France either this fall or next spring based on timing of school and work.

Kiddo

We're booked to go to the UK and Italy for 3+ weeks in August and I have no intention of changing plans. I do however have second thoughts of going to Florida where we have a vacation property. Given all the shootings and the political climate in the US we have talked of selling it.

thursdaysd

I tend to avoid festivals and similar gatherings in any case, because I don't like crowds, so reason to change that. I also avoid popular places in high season for the same reason - I love Nice in spring and fall, but you'd have to pay me a lot of money to get me there in the summer.

I am scheduled to spend two nights in Istanbul in September on the way to Uzbekistan. Still plan to do that, although I was already intending to avoid the main tourist sites, which I have already visited, in most cases more than once.

thursdaysd

"so NO reason to change that". We so need an edit function!

Macross

I have been saying I will avoid big crowds but my local hospital had a man go up on the third floor and kill a women patient and a worker last night. Just crazy, trust me security will change drastically there but how and why he was able to do that at 2 am is wrong. I have been a patient there twice and know many that work there. Nothing is safe. Kiddo, don't blame you one bit. I live in Fl and understand.
Some are so confused about the Turkey flights right now. Getting two different stories. Turkish air had been running great deals so think a lot of people had purchased tickets with them. Is it flights into and out of the US?

Bokhara2

Terrorism isn't new. Perhaps we've become complacent, with the demise of the terrorist organizations that kept those of us who travelled to & lived in the UK & Europe in the 70's & 80's on our toes.

With a few exceptions like the Bali bombings & NYC's 9/11 attack, the areas frequented by western tourists have been pretty peaceful for more than 20 years. And even the traditional hotbeds of rebels & terrorists, places to which only the more adventurous of us here would venture, seemed to me to have had a hiatus of sorts.

I thought this link was interesting and useful for putting the recent & current events in perspective.

https://ourworldindata.org/terrorism/

To answer the OP's query, no - the recent attack by a madman with a truck in Nice & the ISIS attacks in Paris & Brussels won't alter any of my travel plans.

Nor will I change any future plans I have to go to the US.

I would generally re-think plans to visit countries which are undergoing some type of violent political unrest at the time. There are places that aren't attractive to me, but not all of them are because of their politics.

I probably only have another 30 good years of travel in me, so I'm not about to allow the minuscule chance of being killed or injured on a trip deter me.

As Thin rightly points out - I could just as easily be mown down by a skate boarder or lunatic motorist in my own city.

A man walking his dog, was hit & killed by a *#}}^} idiot who lost control of its car in a suburb here yesterday. The car mounted the footpath, killed the man & his dog instantly. Said +#}{%} idiot was apparently texting.

I hope that man didn't delay any trips because he was frightened of what might happen somewhere on the other side of the world.

rialtogrl

Travel keeps me going - I think without it I would die. So I am going to keep traveling.

But I don't have any kids. I can imagine that with kids it would be different. I hope that if anything ever happened to me my brother would tell my nephews, your aunt died doing what she loved. And I think if he told them that, they would understand.

cdnyul

Terrorists in |Europe, no.

The craziness in the States, yes.

Mark

Bokhara2

I'm not quite understanding your point, rialtogirl.

Are you saying that if you had kids & were killed at home, you think that would be preferable?

I don't have kids either, but I had parents. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been more distressed if either one of them had been killed or injured on a trip, than if it had happened here.

rialtogrl

-Are you saying that if you had kids & were killed at home, you think that would be preferable?-

I am so sorry I was not clear. What I meant is, I can understand why people that have children would not want to travel to certain areas right now. With or without their kids.

Mainhattengirl

No. Not at all.

Bokhara2

I see. And yes, I can understand that.

Still, tourism to the US still seems to be remarkably, and perhaps surprisingly, robust.