Guy Visits Each Country, Names 5 Places He Felt Most Unsafe

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Most of us plan our holidays around TripAdvisor reviews, flight prices, and whether the hotel has a pool. Drew Binsky plans his around something slightly different. The 34-year-old American content creator has spent the last decade traveling to every single country on the planet, including North Korea, Afghanistan, and a handful of places that most travel agents would refuse to book for you on principle.

His YouTube channel has racked up 5.7 million subscribers and over a billion views, which tells you that people are very interested in watching someone go to the places they themselves would absolutely never go. And now, after a decade of doing exactly that, Drew has ranked the five destinations that actually scared him. Genuinely scared him. And the list does not disappoint.

Drew’s travel career started the way a lot of great stories do, with a semester abroad. In 2012, he went to study in Prague, visited over 20 countries while he was at it, and got bitten by the travel bug. He moved to South Korea to teach English and launched a blog called The Hungry Partier.

The rest, as they say, spiraled gloriously out of control. Along the way, he has set two world records, visiting 12 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in a single 24-hour period in 2016, and completing the fastest-ever regulated suitcase pack. Not the most conventional CV, but it appears to be working.

Mogadishu, Somalia

 

Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, took the top spot without much deliberation. Drew described it as a city with no rules and no laws, one where simply stepping outside your hotel requires a military escort, armed convoy vehicles front and back, and a group of soldiers in bulletproof vests actively scouting the route ahead of you.

Al-Shabaab, an Al-Qaeda offshoot, has a significant presence in the city, and the atmosphere that it creates is one of constant, unrelenting threat. On his last visit, Drew had gone to meet a friend at the Hyatt Hotel, which is now just rubble. “It’s just very, very scary and very unfortunate,” he said. Of all the countries he has visited, and there are 197 of them, Mogadishu sits alone at the top of the list.

Conakry, Guinea

 

Conakry, the capital of Guinea, earned the second spot, and Drew’s description of it is not exactly a tourism brochure. He was stopped by police within ten minutes of leaving his hotel, got caught up in an active coup attempt, and described the general experience of being there as a “complete mess.”

Kandahar, Afghanistan

Kandahar, Afghanistan, came in third. As the historical stronghold of the Taliban, the city has operated under an intense atmosphere of control for the better part of 25 years. Drew found the ancient markets fascinating, but even there, something sat differently. He made it clear that he loves Afghanistan as a country. Kandahar is simply its own category.

Port Au Prince, Haiti

 

Port-au-Prince, Haiti came in at number four, and the story Drew tells about it is the most personally harrowing on the list. He entered a gang-controlled area near the airport with a local guide and found himself in a situation that escalated quickly with armed men controlling the territory, demanding payment, weapons being pointed in his direction.

Tripoli, Libya

 

Rounding out the list at number five is Tripoli, Libya, where Drew’s 2018 visit involved falling asleep to the distant sounds of artillery. Walking the streets came with constant police attention from officers wholly unaccustomed to foreign visitors. He did note that Tripoli has reportedly opened up considerably in recent years, and that he hopes to go back. That sentiment is honestly heartwarming.

 

When it comes to unaliving numbers, the three most dangerous cities in the world are all located in Mexico, but people are still packing their bags and happily visiting Cancun for spring break. Sadly, the cities on Drew’s list are suffering deeply amid socio-economic turmoil.

By crime index, his evaluation of Port-au-Prince seems to check out, and it is followed by Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea, Pietermaritzburg, and Johannesburg in South Africa. Different metrics, different lists, but Haiti keeps showing up near the top of all of them.

What makes all of this bittersweet is that several of the countries on Drew’s list are, beneath the instability, strikingly beautiful. Somalia has some of the most untouched landscapes in the entire Horn of Africa, with pristine white-sand beaches, coral reefs, and ancient archaeological ruins that have barely been studied because so few people can safely get there.

Afghanistan, for its part, is home to the cobalt-blue Shrine of Hazrat Ali in Mazar-i-Sharif and the extraordinary travertine lakes of Band-e-Amir National Park. These are not places that lack beauty or history or cultural richness. They are places where the gap between what they could be for travelers and what they currently are is almost painful to sit with.

Danger, Will Robinson!

 

 

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These Are the 10 Riskiest Countries for Solo Travelers, According to a New Global Safety Report

Traveling to a new destination alone can be great for self-discovery, but it can also pose additional safety concerns. And some destinations are riskier for a solo jaunt than others.

The country of Venezuela ranked as the riskiest destination for solo travelers, according to a new report from travel insurance firm Square Mouth. The South American country scored a risk index of 9.74 out of 10 with less than 10 percent of residents there reporting feeling safe walking alone at night.

“These safety challenges, combined with limited healthcare access and infrastructure constraints, contribute to elevated risk levels for solo travelers,” the report noted.Venezuela is currently classified under a Level 3 travel advisory by the Department of State, recommending Americans “reconsider travel” there “due to [the] risk of crime, kidnapping, terrorism, and poor health infrastructure and natural disaster.” Additionally, some areas within the country are listed under the highest Level 4 warning, coming with a “do not travel” directive attached, including the border region with Colombia and several other states.

Last month, the country was struck by a series of devastating earthquakes. Since then, the death toll has risen to more than 4,800 people, Reuters reported, with more than 16,000 people injured. The State Department noted the earthquakes have “caused extensive damage and disruption to transportation, infrastructure, and emergency services.”After Venezuela, the country of Peru ranked as the second-riskiest destination for solo travelers with a score of 8.87 out of 10. The report noted less than 25 percent of residents felt safe walking alone at night there, with nearly 60 percent expressing “concern about being attacked.”

The African country of Gabon ranked third on the list, followed by Colombia in fourth place, and Bolivia in fifth place.Whether traveling alone or in a large group internationally, the State Department encourages all travelers to sign up for its Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP). The free program provides automated safety alerts and travel information, and can even provide information regarding evacuations in an emergency. 

To come up with its report, Square Mouth analyzed crime, healthcare access, infrastructure quality, internet access, and more for 113 different countries, ranking each by the highest risk score. This is the full list of the top 10 riskiest destinations for solo travelers, and their risk scores out of 10.

1. Venezuela, 9.74

2. Peru, 8.87

3. Gabon, 8.51

4. Colombia, 8.38

5. Bolivia, 8.37

6. Jamaica, 8.27

7. Guyana, 8.21

8. Ecuador, 8.12

9. Trinidad and Tobago, 8.11

10. South Africa, 8.04

Read the original article on Travel & Leisure

[+ sniper]

I feel like that list is hard to evaluate because for example, in Jamaica if you stick to your resort and the beach you're fine is my understanding. And a classmate of mine from college recently left the US for Ecuador with her husband. I'm pretty sure she did her homework.