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| View of Double Island at a distance. |
With all the strife, wars, natural disasters and horrific incidents on the news each day, we’ve particularly enjoyed the Aussie TV news when the majority of it is fun and informative tinged with the typical Aussie playful sense of humor.
Of course, they do report on the heart wrenching international and local news keeping us well informed on worldwide events. A portion of the Aussie news consists of small stories, such as a biker in Brisbane falling off his bike and breaking his arm. Although we felt sorry for the biker, Brisbane is a long way from us and we chuckled over the how the national news carries such a simple news story.
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| Extra parking in the driveway where we live in Trinity Beach. |
Australia’s entire population spread out over this vast continent is over 23 million, comparable to the population of the cities of Beijing or Karachi.
Overall, the crime rate in Australia is low:
“Australia is generally a safe country with a low rate of crime. Statistics show that the homicide rate has actually decreased in almost every state since 2002. Crime statistics are monitored by the Australian Institute of Criminology and the Australian Bureau of Statistics provides comparative breakdowns for different types of crimes.
As we plan to travel to new countries we check out the crime rate (primarily the murder rate) before booking anything. Yes, we’ve made a few exceptions when motivated by certain aspects of a country we didn’t want to miss.
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| Unusual flat leaves on a bush. |
In reviewing the chart below, good placement on this chart doesn’t mean one can be laissez-faire with their wallets, cameras, luggage, personal effects, and personal safety.
(Please excuse formatting issues on this chart due to poor connection, with rankings in far-right column and #218 numbering not listed). To see more detail on this site and inclusions for lost lives as a result of wars, please click here).
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There is no country, city, locale, or venue that is entirely safe. We need only keep an eye on the news to discover this reality. For us, a vital aspect of travel has been being as diligent as possible in regard to our personal safety, and yet, we still run the risk of becoming victims of crime, no matter where we may travel.
After all, our own home country, the US is ranked #91 on this list, certainly on the higher end of the scale. Seeing Australia ranked as #201 is not surprising to us. Also, with Fiji ranked at #203, which we’d checked long ago before booking Fiji, gives us peace of mind.
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| The beginning of the driveway heading down the hill doesn’t look steep in this photo, but it’s very steep. |
Although we don’t spend time worrying about crime, we feel that knowledge is power. Protecting our stuff has been relatively easy with all the safety measures we have in place, which we’ll be sharing in tomorrow’s post along with a horrific vacation rental story that was in the news. It’s in protecting our physical selves that leaves us at the most risk.
Traveling to relatively safe countries certainly reduces those risks and staying away from high-risk cities, especially at night reduced the risk. No matter how diligent any of us maybe we’re never exempt from risk. We often hear of tourist attacks on the news and pay considerable attention. The fact that we seldom dine out, walking streets at night to get to our car or a taxi, also reduces the risk.
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| We’ve yet to use the hot tub in the yard for a few reasons, neither of us cares to use hot tubs and secondly, the cost to heat the hot tub and to keep it heated, if we used it, would be outrageous for the owner who pays all the utilities. |
We’re not implying that one shouldn’t dine-in at restaurants. (We tend to avoid restaurants when the food is a potential risk for me which varies from country to country based on how they season and add sauce to their protein sources. Australia is big on marinating and saucing their food). However, it may be safer dining out during daylight hours and avoiding dark spaces at night.
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| The side yard off of the kitchen. Many of the huge plants in Australia are used as small houseplants back in the US. |
Then again, we hear horrible stories of daylight hours incidences in cafes and on buses. One could make themselves crazy worrying about every potential situation. We ran some of the same safety risks in the cozy town where we lived in Minnesota, USA.
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| It’s difficult to climb up to the rainforest in the backyard. Without trails, it would be tricky to explore. |
For us, we choose to opt on the side of seeing that which we’d love to see, whether it’s a busy high-risk marketplace, a stroll along a potentially risky beach, or a visit to a country in which we can see wildlife. After all, we’ve already been to Kenya, South Africa, Egypt, Jordan, Tanzania, and on and on…all in the higher-risk categories.
We’ll continue to stretch ourselves to see that which appeals to us. Last night on TV, we watched a fabulous TV show, “The Lost City of Petra (Jordan)” which seeing in person was one of the major highlights of our journey to date. We’d have missed this life-changing experience had we let fear rule our decisions.
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| Had we been too cautious in our travels, we’d have missed the opportunity to see this unbelievable site and to enjoy our photos for the rest of our lives of The Treasury in Petra, Jordan. For our Part 1 Petra on this memorable day, please click here. For Part 2, please click here. |
If you have the opportunity to review these two above referenced posts, it becomes evident why we often choose to pull something out of the “bucket list” although there may be some risks, resulting in an extraordinary experience that we’ll never forget.
We continue on tomorrow with a scary vacation rental story, a must-see for all travelers who use online vacation rental sites.
Photo from one year ago today, August 17, 2014:
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| The Eurostar formerly referred to as “The Chunnel.” We were excited for a chance to travel on this train, one year ago, when we needed to get from Paris to London. Traveling on a train under the ocean was definitely a mode of transportation we anticipated with excitement. We weren’t disappointed, although many of our perceptions were dispelled. For more details, please click here. |