First Paris. Then Belgium. Then Istanbul. Now Nice. Terrorists have carried out bloody assaults in all four of these tourist destinations in the span of less than a year, killing hundreds of people and sowing fear among world travelers.
So the instinct to stay home and hunker down is understandable. But some travelers are vowing they won’t give up on their wanderlust. They reason the chances of getting injured or killed in a massacre are slim, and that shelving their passports would amount to an unacceptable victory for the terrorists. On Friday, they were fantasizing about trips to Europe and the Middle East even as the U.S. State Department was warning the likelihood of terror attacks will continue abroad.
Casey Baird of Midtown Atlanta spent a week vacationing with a college friend in Turkey and Croatia just before three suicide attackers killed more than 40 people and wounded dozens more in Istanbul's main airport. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has blamed Islamic State for the assault. Baird visited Turkey despite security warnings and her parents' concerns, and passed through the Istanbul airport on her way home. She felt anxious but safe in Turkey and would return "in a heartbeat."
“When I broke it down, I had to take emotion out of it, and I had to look at everything logically,” said Baird, who works in medical sales. “I had to say, ‘Look, am I going to change my life based on a fear? Or am I going to look at the logical probability that I get caught in some kind of attack?’ The reality of it is I am more likely to get in a car crash.”
Baird had previously visited Istanbul and found it to be bustling and vibrant. But last month, she said, there were fewer people in the streets and the restaurants were empty.
“Everybody that we talked to who was living and working there were expressing wanting to leave because the city has become dead almost,” she said. “It is terrible for their economy, and all it does is just perpetuate this cycle and it plays right into the terrorists’ hands.”
Baird said she and her boyfriend intend to keep traveling to Europe and maybe even to the Middle East. Jordan is a possible future destination. Traveling abroad is essential, she said, because that fosters understanding and empathy.
“What’s the sense in retreating? Because the minute that you retreat is the minute that all of that terror works,” she said. “They want to shut down economies. They want to bring Western culture into a war. They want all of that. And fear and changing the way that we live is exactly what they want. And I refuse to give it to them.”
Still, terrorism is slowing demand for airline travel in Europe, according to an International Air Transport Association report. The assault in Brussels, for example, affected the large international European market earlier this year. For overall travel demand, “the shocks of Istanbul and the economic fallout of the Brexit vote make it difficult to see any early uptick,” said Tony Tyler, the association’s director general. On Friday, Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines announced it was waiving certain fees for customers who want to change their travel plans to Nice.
Baird's friend Sara Lamond of Atlanta vacationed in Paris in March with her husband after the Nov. 13 terrorist massacre that left 130 dead. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility. Lamond said she and her husband refused to change their travel plans, though her relatives were concerned for their safety. They saw some increased security in France and "felt completely safe the entire time."
“We had booked our trip before the terrorist attacks. So when we started telling people we were going to be heading out of the country to Paris, there were a lot of concerned faces,” said Lamond, who owns a beauty store in Atlanta. “With these soft targets I just think they are so unpredictable that you can’t try and adjust your lifestyle or behavior based on the deranged mind of someone who is trying to cause harm.”
She and her husband are now considering a trip next year to Israel, where she attended high school.
“I have been to Israel a number of times,” she said. “And they deal with terrorist attacks frequently, and you see the resilience of the citizens who are determined to live their lives despite terrorist attacks.”
Like Baird, Lamond is extra vigilant when she travels. For example, she puts away her music earphones when she walks through airports. That way, she said, she can react more quickly to any sound of trouble.
Jason Grant, a semi-retired stagehand from Dunwoody, often vacations in Europe — including in Brussels — and has considered the long odds that he could be caught in the middle of a terrorist attack.
“I have been going to Europe every summer and I have no plans on letting radical Islamic terrorists stop me,” he said.
Grant recalled the day he attended the 1996 U.S. Summer Olympics in Atlanta, when a domestic terrorist bombing killed two people and injured many others. Grant said he and some friends were hanging out near where the bomb exploded but left right before it happened.
“I did make it through a terrorist attack before,” he said. “Was it when I was in Paris? Shanghai? Germany? Brussels? Nope, it was Atlanta, Georgia, for the Olympics. So it can pretty much happen anyplace. So I could sit at home cowering in fear or I can live my life and hope for the best.”
“I choose to live and I choose to travel, so if I happen to be gunned down by a terrorist, then I went out doing something I enjoyed. I am more fearful of driving on Atlanta streets due to the idiots on their phones than I am crossing the ocean.”
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