In talking with countless people about our upcoming jaunt around the world, many people are extremely excited about it. However, there are also a lot of people who think the Steve and I are out of our minds given that we are willingly going to drive through some very "interesting" places. My own apprehensions early on about some of the places we were going to led me to keep my parents in the dark about the trip we were planning for quite a while. (Interestingly enough, my parents are now equally excited and have been truly supportive of TWBR)
Steve and I have been doing a lot of research about the countries TWBR will be visiting over the next few years and there are some interesting statistics. The U.S. State Department maintains a list of countries that they recommend people, and American’s in particular, avoid. This list is constantly evolving and at any given point in time, there are anywhere from 10 to 20 countries on the TWBR itinerary that pop up on that list for a variety of reasons: rebel attacks, famine, violent crime, etc. However, just because certain areas of a country may be a little bit more dangerous than others, should we avoid the country in its entirety and just how dangerous is the outside world? 
If you are one of those people who are constantly glued to CNN or other news networks, you would be led to believe that most of the outside world sucks and you will probably be kidnapped, blown-up, tortured and killed if you venture outside of the safe confines of our national borders. In order to prepare for the certain death that Steve and I will face on the road, I have been reading an awesome book by Robert Young Pelton. In Pelton’s book The World’s Most Dangerous Places, he describes in great detail over the course of 1,100 pages the truth about the outside world: the truth that you can’t get from the news, a Fromer guidebook, or our own government. It has tons of information and provides links to sites and other resources that also have tons of information.
There are truly dangerous places out there, but the bottom line is if you are smart, savvy and exercise a good dose of common sense, the likelyhood of getting killed out there is relatively low. In fact, when all risks to personal safety are considered, Steve and I are more likely to be killed driving down to the local grocery store than we are traveling abroad. True we are taking some risks by traveling to places where the 12 year old kids are equipped with AK-47’s as opposed to PsP’s but given the right approach and the appropriate knowledge, these are calculated risks and can be mitigated to a certain extent.
I like to think that Steve and I are pretty smart guys. We are doing our homework, taking the necessary safety precautions and obviously we don’t want to pad the numbers of the unfortunate few who do die traveling abroad. After all, a successful measure of the trip is traveling around the world, and this does not mean driving half of it and then finishing it off from a box in the cargo hold of an airplane. However, if we do for some reason beyond our control end up becoming content for another doom and gloom episode of Nancy Grace, at least we did it traveling and doing something we love. This is more than I can say for a large percentage of Americans. In all likelihood, nearly 40 percent of Americans will expire sitting on the couch from heart disease while clutching a Doritos bag and contemplating all the horrible things that might happen to them if they do get the steel to venture outside of their "comfort zones."
