Save Our Trip

I read an interesting article today on the New York Times Online about travel risk management companies--something I'd never heard about before. With political and social skirmishes taking a larger toll on business travelers and vacationers, most recently in Mumbai, it seems that people have been turning more and more to professional help in case of emergency.

Although it points out that most situations have to do with accidents or theft, you can't help but think what a savior it would be in a more serious situation--one with national or global ramifications. People aren't just traveling to Canada anymore; destinations range all over the globe, where customs and safety issues might be drastically different from the home territory.

There's something comforting about exploring within the United States, where you know the rules and where you can go in a worst-case situation. We're trained to call 911, to scream for help, to run in the opposite direction. But what happens if you don't know the way? What happens if nobody will come to your rescue or you can't speak the language? What happens if the authorities won't help, either?

In this day and age, there's no reason not to use the communication technology we have to the fullest advantage possible. It's about time we gather our resources and help one another, because there's no telling what could happen if you make the wrong move.

Last spring, I took a vacation trip to the Dominican Republic with several friends. I was amazed by the difference between the resort life and the rest of the country--almost to the point that I was losing sleep over it. We landed our plane in Punta Cana and had to drive about an hour to our resort in a rickety old van, passing some truly appalling conditions, from barefoot kids on the side of the road to emaciated horses tied to trees. It was so drastically different from where we landed in Boston, or even in Puerto Rico, that we almost couldn't imagine it was in the same hemisphere.

I realized that we had no idea what the customs were there if something bad were to happen. It's not something you think about when you book a tropical resort trip, because it's impossible to imagine anything beyond sun and sand. But when my roommate and I both woke up on the same night with sweats and nausea, taking turns sprinting to our hotel bathroom, all I could think was that if we didn't get better, we wouldn't have our safe, clean, regulated United States hospitals to fall back on. I had friends who had gotten sick in Spain and in Ghana and who experienced firsthand the ghastly conditions that some hospitals overseas can have. Granted, it depends widely on the location and the situation, but I had to wonder what kind of medical infrastructure this host country would provide.

It would make me feel good to know that there's a system behind me that could walk me through the things I don't know how to handle. The travel world is growing all the time, and this certainly seems to be a positive expansion.