International Travel is a Reality Check in the Name of Sanity

Despite past terrorist attacks, Europeans haven't succumbed to continent-wide paranoia

The Rocky Mountain News' Mark Brown returned from a two-week vacation overseas, where he appreciated being far removed from incessant, excessive, simplistic media coverage of politics starring "screaming talk-show hosts" and, more important from a traveler's standpoint, observed the absence of the post-9/11 fear-mongering and paranoia that has engulfed domestic travel. Despite higher air fares, reduced flight schedules and the pathetic dollar, international travel provides a welcome blast of sanity. In his column titled "Believe it or not, there's a land where cool heads prevail," he wrote:

"No one seemed to be living in fear. We were allowed to take bottles of
liquids on trains on the continent that saw bloody train bombings in 2004,
killing 191 people. We rode London's underground with unsearched backpacks and
suitcases less than three years after the July 2005 subway bombings that killed
52 people, the deadliest terrorist attack in London's history.

"No one made me take off my shoes at the airport on the continent where shoe bomber Richard Reid boarded a plane in 2001 with the intent to blow it up. Had to
take them off over here, though.

"Daily life in London means sitting next to Arabic-looking people on the
subway a couple of times a day, carrying backpacks and other items. Nobody
blinks an eye. The biggest threat to the London Underground that particular week
was a World War II mortar that was found to still be live under a main track.
Commuters were simply rerouted for a few days as it was disarmed and
removed.

"Meanwhile, back here a doughnut advertisement was pulled because the
woman in the commercial was wearing a scarf with tassels. And a fist-bump by a
presidential candidate was characterized as a 'terrorist fist jab.'

"As we seem to become more paralyzed with fear over here, life goes on over
there. It may be too late (and, let's face it, naive) to go back to a notion
that our fellow man isn't a threat but someone we need to cooperate and
communicate with for the good of all of us."

Thank you, Mark Brown, for your words of sanity. I hope that people will continue to travel beyond our tightened borders and that at least, your column is taken to heart by some of those who continue to be wrapped in fear -- but, I am "afraid" that they won't be.