This was published 7 years ago
Taking risks while travelling: Don't be an idiot, but being a fool is OK
By Lee Tulloch
One of the most stupid things you can do while you travel is to be young, unfortunately. You never think it (infection, accidents, assault) will happen to you.Credit: iStock
As you're reading this, I'll be in France, trying to avoid someone sticking a paper fish on my back.
Sounds crazy, doesn't it? But April 1 is Poisson d'Avril in that country, a day that equates with our own April Fools Day. It means that if you see a giggling child pointing at you and calling you an "April fish", you've been punked. Check the back of your shirt.
The tradition goes back to 1564, when the King of France, Charles IX, changed the date of the New Year from April 1 to January 1. That made quite a few people unhappy and they continued to celebrate the New Year in April, using the Christian symbol of the fish, which was an offering during Lent.
The splendour of the temples beneath you makes the small chance of an accident worth it when you take a balloon ride over Bagan.Credit: iStock
You're not safe in Australia – there's bound to be a fake news story published in this paper today to catch you in an April Fools Day trick. It will be real fake news, as opposed to the Donald Trump kind of fake news.
Anyway, this set me thinking about really foolish things we do while we travel. By "we", I mean all of us in general, because some are way more foolish than others.
The regretted tattoo is probably the most common. I can understand the urge to do something wild and once-in-a-lifetime on a trip, especially if it's your first, and then return back with a souvenir of it to show off, but perhaps having that souvenir permanently inked on your neck is not something you'll love when that same neck wrinkles and folds with age, as it surely will.
I joke about the regrettable tattoo because incidents of it are mostly harmless – and quite hilarious – but I heard a horrifying story recently of a group of bright, intelligent, young women who went to Thailand to celebrate graduation from university, and all ended up with tattoos. They also all ended up with HIV.
One of the most stupid things you can do while you travel is to be young, unfortunately. You never think it (infection, accidents, assault) will happen to you.
The sensation of "traveller's invincibility" happens to older travellers as well, although they tend to take travel insurance and stay away from raves in Budapest.
Every July, when they run the bulls in Pamplona in Spain, there's some dope who gets gored, trampled or killed. (Hooray for the bulls!) Each year between 50 and 100 people are injured during the run. Fifteen people have been killed since they started taking records in 1910. Of those gored since 1974, only five have been women. Which means another stupid thing you can be when travelling is to be a young male.
Foolish things people do while they travel include riding a scooter without a helmet, skydiving, bungee jumping, getting drunk in dodgy bars and going home with strangers – but they're only stupid when things go wrong. When they don't, that stranger may end up being the love of your life; the skydiving may bring on an epiphany, become life changing.
When we travel, unless we're total dingbats, we make constant calculations of benefit and risk. Even stepping onto the plane is a calculation that the joys of going somewhere outweigh the slight risks of doing it in the air. (For those who are scared of flying this is a big consideration.)
That balloon ride over Bagan may bring with it a theoretical risk of mishap or of freaking out at 300 feet (if you're afraid of heights like me), but the splendour of the 3000 temples and stupas laid out beneath you in the hazy sunrise surely makes the small chance of an accident worth it?
When I think about the foolish things I've done when I've travelled, I realise, to the contrary, that it's when I'm away from home that I'm at my most sensible. I don't take many risks, afraid of landing up in foreign hospitals or being stranded on shore long after the ship has sailed on.
But in many ways this makes me the biggest fool of all. It's the things I didn't do that I regret. That balloon ride over Bagan. The helicopter over Hong Kong. The night I was way too jetlagged to go to a party in Monte Carlo.
What was I thinking? I was thinking too much.
We shouldn't be idiots when we travel but a little bit of fool is OK.
See also: The 10 greatest mistakes a traveller can every make
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