For many years I’ve maintained on my mobile devices the current time and upcoming weather projections for destinations around the world where I was planning to travel or someday hoping to visit. I believed it helped assure that travel dreams would become realities…..and many did.
There have been times, however, when I have deleted a destination’s details, dashing dreams for a visit. This has occurred when the explicit dangers of a destination made a visit there seem like an unnecessary risk when the world features so many fabulous and safe travel possibilities — more than I will ever have time to experience.
For years I’ve wanted to see the pyramids of Egypt and travel the Nile River valley in one direction by train and the other direction by boat, and do it on my own terms. No group….just my wife and I. In 2015, after a series of violent occurrences in public places of that country, we shifted our travel destination from Egypt to Morocco, and we had a great time exploring Morocco’s ancient cities and vast desert mostly on our own. That was well before this past December’s brutal murder of two women who had been training to become tour guides in Morocco which has resulted in the arrest of at least 20 suspects……making it doubtful we would be visiting Morocco now if we hadn’t done so already. The time and weather for both Egypt and Morocco are no longer found on my mobile devices.
Istanbul had been on my bucket list, and its time and weather on my mobile apps, for many years before being deleted, due to Turkey’s increasingly unstable environment. No city intrigues me more than Istanbul, the crossroads of world trade for centuries and a mix of culture that is second to none on this planet. Because of many incidents during the past few years and proximity to other unstable nations and regimes, I now feel I have waited too long to experience this on my terms, in this lifetime. So the time and weather for Istanbul have been deleted.
Meanwhile, some nations which once were off-limits are now on my radar, and on my mobile apps. Sri Lanka, for example, the island nation formerly known as Ceylon which is nearly connected to the tip of India, has become almost entirely available to international travelers following many years of imperialism and internal unrest. We will begin a road trip there later this month…..so that country’s current time and weather forecast can now be found on my mobile devices.
Like the USA, Sri Lanka has much to savor but still has some blind spots that civil war has not solved. We have a lot to observe and absorb there.
ALL OVER THE MAP 