Risk vs Reward

I can’t think of any place in the world that I would never want to visit purely for itself. Every country has amazing attractions or scenery and every journey abroad teaches you something new. It’s all about how safe or accessible a country is. So, there are countries, of course, where war or natural disasters make travel impossible. There are countries that are such a huge undertaking in terms of travel that it simply isn’t worth the effort. There are countries whose societies and political systems make them anathema, either permanently or temporarily. There are places where the lives of so many people are proscribed because of the social strata they were born into. I would feel wrong supporting any country like that with my money and as a result I will probably not visit a country that would be fascinating.

I think it’s perhaps a better idea to look at areas of your own country that you have never been at times like this. Yes, there are huge areas of the planet I still want to visit and I am sure I will see some of them in the future, but there are huge swathes of the UK that remain a complete mystery to me and which I would love to visit. Ironically the cost of a three or four day break anywhere in the UK is about the cost of a week in Europe these days, and the roads in the UK are almost permanently gridlocked, but I feel as though I need to explore my own country at this time of increasing political and social upheaval in the rest of the world. Of course, that political and social upheaval is, potentially, only one election away if our own version of right wing autocracy takes hold. However, it may not come to pass and people from the UK and other countries will continue to search out the rich and long culture of the islands.