Is it still safe to travel to Europe? 10 ideas for get-away-from-it-all alternatives

Is it safe to travel to Europe? Or anywhere? Faced with terrorism, crime, natural disasters and disease, some of us are no longer prepared to put up with the risks of overseas travel.

Paris is a prime example. The City of Light reported a million fewer visitors in the first half of 2016, compared with the first half of 2015, after the terrorist attacks last November that left 130 people dead, according to the French capital region’s tourism committee. Flooding around Paris in June and the headline-making robbery of Kim Kardashian in the city’s Hôtel de Pourtalès in October can’t have helped. Bookings on the national airline, Air France-KLM , were down 7.9 per cent year on year in July 2016, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA). There were significant drops in visitors to France from China, Japan and the United States.

France is not alone; visitor numbers to Egypt, Belgium, Turkey and Tunisia also fell in the wake of terrorist attacks in those countries. Travellers from Asia in particular appear to have become wary of travelling to Europe. IATA reports that flights from Asia to Europe saw the slowest expansion of any travel sector in July 2016, with Asian travellers choosing to visit Australia or North America or travel within Asia instead.

Are we overreacting? In terms of terrorism, 2014 was the most deadly year on record, according to the Global Terrorism Index, with 32,658 deaths, a figure that in 2015 fell slightly to 28,328.

“We all experience a visceral reaction to scenes of carnage and destruction,” says Phil Sylvester, resident travel expert at Australia-based Travel Insurance Direct. “The human body is built to react in a physical way to scenes of horror, and these feelings are much more powerful than reason.” He thinks travellers are feeling nervous because they’ve seen awful events unfold in destinations they can imagine themselves being in, or perhaps in places they’ve visited before, or plan to one day.

While the chances of being caught up in a terrorist event are slim, there’s no doubt that incidents in locations formerly considered safe have contributed to a perception that threats to travellers are becoming both more common and unpredictable.