How Safe Is Your Vacation Destination?

I stumbled upon a chart on the CBC News website today entitled, Dangerous Travel: Countries to Avoid. 'The chart is color coded red, brown, yellow, blue, and green.''

Red: Avoid all travel.

Brown: Avoid non-essential travel.

Yellow: Avoid some areas.

Blue Exercise high level of caution.

Green: Take normal security precautions.

My biggest take-away is that I have changed my mind about visiting Timbuktu. The Canadian government suggests that I avoid it at all cost. Timbuktu is in Mali, West Africa by the way. Red!

Not surprisingly, most of the red and brown areas reside in Africa and the Middle East. The two Koreas are on opposite sides of the spectrum. While the home of the Samsung Galaxy 3 and LG in the south is deemed safe, you probably should avoid Pyongyang in the North and their evil dictator, Kim Jong-un.

A few African countries did receive the highest score (green) but Botswana was the only mainland country.' The Islands of Seychelles, Mauritius, and the Spanish islands are good choices for safe travels to the Dark Continent.

What about the Caribbean?

The lowest grades in the Caribbean were not surprisingly earned by Venezuela, and Haiti. Both received a yellow code, advising visitors to avoid certain areas.

The Virgins (British and US), the French islands, the Dutch Islands, Barbados, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, and yes, Cuba were all deemed safe.

The other islands are coded blue"'Exercise high degree of caution.

So how come my beautiful island paradise of Montserrat didn't get a perfect green score?

Here's why:''

According to the travel advisory site, "There is no advisory in effect for Montserrat. However, you should exercise a high degree of caution due to limited medical resources, generally poor road conditions, unreliable public transportation and moderate crime rates."'

Really Canada?

To see how safe your next vacation destination is check out the site at:'

http://www.cbc.ca/news/interactives/travel-warnings/' '

Editor-in-Chief's Note : Theo Semper is an Associate Editor with MNI Alive