“Taken” (the movie) and travel safety

by Brenda Yun on

Upon the suggestion of a family friend, my parents treated me to a $1 movie to see “Taken,” the new movie with Liam Neeson. My dad had told me his friend thought it would be relevant to my travels abroad, but after reading the synopsis, I kind of scoffed at the idea that the movie could have anything to do with me! After watching the movie, however, I can now see how it could in fact have to do with me, any solo female traveler, and travel safety in general.

The film’s plot is based on a real existing crime in Europe. In this case, an Albanian mafia group in Paris solicits information from female tourists, kidnaps them, gets them hooked on drugs, and then uses them in shady sex trade deals. Although this would appear to be a ridiculously convoluted storyline, the ease with which the mafia identifies and eventually captures these innocent girls is pretty easy to imagine. In the film, a man simply asks to share a cab into the city and then invites the girls to a party later that night. Suddenly, they’re taken.
Luckily, in the film, the father happens to be on the phone when his daughter is captured and also just happens to be a former spy. He single-handedly rescues his daughter from these dangerous and scary mafiosos. (Making matters worse, when he seeks the help from a former French spy, he discovers the mafia group is actually paying the government to keep its despicable operation running).

Unfortunately, not every girl can be so lucky. It was both funny and scary when, after the movie, my parents said to me, “Well, at least you know there’s no way we’ll be able to save you.” And it’s true. If I did find myself in that situation I would pretty much be at the mercy of the cruelty of my captors, which is not a very pleasant thought.

Females absolutely have to keep their wits about them more than men do — both at home and abroad. The first time I traveled to Colombia I was honestly scared of getting kidnapped. I was particularly wary of taking night buses. Fortunately, Colombia is a far safer place than people believe it to be, but it doesn’t mean that you can travel everywhere and anywhere to your heart’s content.

It’s a shady, shady world out there, so if you’re female and traveling alone, use really clear judgment:

  • NEVER get drunk or go to a party where you don’t know anyone (even if you’re going with another female travel companion).
  • Never hitchhike alone.
  • Always take a certified cab if you don’t feel safe walking back to your hotel at night.
  • Always do whatever is within your power/control to be safe even if it means staying in at night, taking a day bus, or not going somewhere altogether.

Five-hundred-pound plane engine part falls from the sky

by Jamie Rhein on

Earlier there was the story of plane engine parts falling from the sky, scattering across a warehouse roof in Queens, and smashing windshields of cars parked in the warehouse’s lot.

Here’s another plane parts falling from the sky story–an even bigger one. Chicken Little would really have something to squawk about with this one. An Arrow Cargo McDonnell Douglas DC-10 freighter, on it’s way from Brazil to Colombia, had an issue with an engine. One of the three engines conked out and left the plane, literally. Not all of the engine, mind you, but a large portion of it.

When an engine of this size leaves a plane, it’s impressive. When its pieces made contact after their tumble through the sky, they landed on 12 houses and many cars. The largest engine part weighed 550 pounds. Now, that’s some part that I bet made a mighty loud bang. The rest of the airplane was able to arrive safely in Bogota.

Luckily, no one was hurt, and the cargo company is paying for the damages. [The Aviation Herald Photo: PD/EPA/Arlesson Sicsu]

Hostel Trail: Latin America’s hostel network

by Brenda Yun on

I think long and hard about what kind of cool, helpful knowledge I might be able to share with Gadling readers, and sometimes the most obvious material escapes me. But it only took me a few months to realize I’ve been keeping my best tips to myself because I don’t see them as suggestions, but rather as experiences.

I stepped foot in the Hostel Trail guesthouse in Popayán, Colombia by default. I hadn’t even intended to pass through the “white city” (it’s known as this because all of the buildings in the historical center of the city are a beautiful, uniform, stark white color). In fact, I only planned on being in Colombia for five weeks — not twice that long, as my stay there turned out to be. My five days in Popayán were so comfortable because Hostel Trail is one of the cleanest and most reasonably-priced guesthouses I’ve stayed in all my travels around Latin America (and, believe me, I’ve seen some pretty decripit places).
Tony and Kim, the Irish owners of Hostel Trail, realized the fantastic potential of Popayán as a travel destination (it was recently named of the gastronomical centers in Latin America — and rightly so!). They quickly made this place (at the edge of the old city) their home and have been sharing it with backpackers for about two years. Using their technological savvy, as well as their connections in Colombia and Latin America, they decided to utilize their innovative web domain as a homepage for not only their hostel but all of the cool hostels in Latin America. Tony and Kim continue to spend long hours networking with other hostels in South and Central America. Once part of the network, a hostel is given a whole page dedicated to information about their lodging. Ultimately, HostelTrail.com is truly the most viable lodging resource for backpackers in Latin America.

There are now hundreds of hostels in the Hostel Trail network, making it that much easier to travel from city to city because you know what to expect when you get to your next hostel. What’s even cooler about Hostel Trail is if you’re on a tight budget and have a way with words and a camera, you can actually write for Hostel Trail and get free lodging wherever it is you stay — so long as it is not a place that is already covered on the site, and you provide a comprehensive overview of the hostel, along with photos of the place for other travelers to see.

How have I waited this long to reveal one of my best kept Latin American secrets? I guess it’s been nearly a year since I stepped foot in Latin America, so I kept my memories tightly locked in the recesses of my mind so as to avoid the painful nostalgia I feel for this part of the world. Regardless, the Hostel Trail guesthouse in Popayán, its hostel network, and the travel writing opportunity with the site makes HostelTrail.com one of the best resources for travel not only in Colombia, but all over Latin America. If you do make it to Popayán, please tell Tony, Kim, and their cute little black dog I say “aloha!”
[Yes, that’s me in the photo, enjoying Poker beer and a ride on a Chiva, taking in the Popayán nightlife!]

Making light of Colombia’s crime problem

by Brenda Yun on


There was much debate in the comments on my article about “dangerous” travel destinations — most of which pertained to the current clean-up of Colombia’s city of Medellín. Having traveled to Colombia for three months during the spring of 2008, I believe Colombia as a country (particularly the dangers of traveling there) is largely misunderstood.

Take Mike Peters’s “Mother Goose & Grimm” comic strip that was published a week ago on January 2, 2009.

The Colombian Coffee Growers Federation, which includes over 500,000 coffee producers, were so offended by Peters’ suggestion that it is suing Peters “for damage and harm, detriment to intellectual property and defamation.” The federation is seeking no less than 20 million dollars, claiming that the cartoon links Colombian coffee to organized crime and “attacks the national dignity and the reputation of coffee from Colombia.”

As a cartoonist, Mike Peters seeks controversy, but this type is harmful to our already skewed perception of Colombia. Peters’s cartoon suggests that Colombia is a dangerous place. I’m not clear about how drinking Colombian coffee could be considered a dangerous activity, but there’s definitely a sense of fear in this comic strip with regard to crime in Colombia.

While I’m all for freedom of speech, I think in this particular instance Peters could have picked a topic that he knew more about or discussed a country that he really understood. Instead, this particular cartoon defames a nation and offers an unfair and inaccurate portrayal of Colombia and its coffee for all the world to see. I just hope readers will know the difference between sarcasm and reality.

[via the Associated Press]

What is a “dangerous” travel destination?

by Brenda Yun on

I’ve been thinking long and hard about what it means to travel to a “dangerous” destination lately because I’m in the process of planning a 2-month trip to Cuba. While Cuba is not considered “dangerous” to citizens of other countries, it does send a little shiver up an American’s spine when thinking about the potential consequences of traveling there without a visa, which I might end up doing. I guess sneaking into Cuba through Mexico or Canada may classify more as “risky” rather than “dangerous,” but I am always willing to take risks so long as I know I will not inevitably put myself in danger. A possible $10,000 fine is quite a price to pay for a visit to a country closed to Americans, however, so I know it’s important to tread lightly.

So I proceeded to do some research on how to estimate a “dangerous” place in the world, and I found the results quite startling. According to Fabiola Hernandez over at Associated Content, the 5 most dangerous countries in the world are Colombia, South Africa, Jamaica, Venezuela, and Russia. Hernandez goes so far to say that, “You wouldn’t want to be caught dead living there, literally.” But do I trust her opinion? Not at all.
This list was generated from a kind-of-handy statistical website called NationMaster.com that spits out national information ranging from Agriculture to Terrorism. Hernandez seemed quick to compile her list by searching for “Crime — Murder per capita.” The “most recent” results of my search are the same as the results Hernandez found nearly two years ago, which leads me to believe NationMaster.com is not at all up-to-date and, therefore, its information is misleading.

I could not disagree more with Hernandez’s list. First, it is completely void of volatile countries in the Middle East. Secondly, I traveled in Colombia, the country at the top of her list, for three months during the spring of 2008 and never felt safer there. Medellín, Colombia’s second largest city that Pablo Escobar made famous, is largely misunderstood. While it may have been the “Murder Capital of the World” five short years ago, this city is quite safe, quite lovely, and quite a tourist hotspot.

I have never been to the other four nations on the list. While I’ve heard that these countries do indeed have their dangerous regions and cities, I know for a fact that there are also some really wonderful, worthwhile places within their borders that it would be a pity if fear prevented a traveler from going there.

I find Hernandez’s estimation of “danger” quite askew, and I feel lists like this are harmful and largely misinterpreted. Sure, the percentage of murders in a country is one thing that could make a place dangerous, but what about terrorism, civil war, theft, and rape? More importantly, fear is the thing that prevents so many travelers from leaving the “safety” of their home. I believe, with proper precautions, even the most dangerous place is just as safe as sitting on your couch. Additionally, you are seeing the world and experiencing life for real, in its rawest, most natural form.