Travel Since 9/11
by Pam

September 11. I can think of nothing that's affected travelers for the worse since the last World War. We now travel with fear, paranoia, and bureaucracy. Taking a flight abroad isn't quite the act of resistance it was six years ago, but we still question our neighbors who are off to the Arab nations about their sanity, we still eye our fellow travelers with suspicion, we feel the weight or our recent history every time we step through a security gate at an airport. Here are a few reads that acknowledge the recent anniversary of the day that everything changed.


How Travelers Have Changed

Remember after 9/11 when people were so worried about being harmed in a terrorist attack overseas that they were choosing trips that, in fact, increased their risk . . . of a lousy vacation? They were, for instance, choosing cruises that sailed out of Florida instead of sightseeing trips to Europe...


The Enemy Within

Over the succeeding years, however, the T.S.A. has become an arrogant bureaucracy that appears to care little about our rights. Americans who book airline tickets are treated like terrorists until the T.S.A. can prove us innocent.

Airport Security Today

TSA head Kip Hawley echoes many travelers’ sentiments when he jokingly concedes in one enlightening interview that “screening ideas are indeed thought up by the Office for Annoying Air Travelers and vetted through the Directorate for Confusion and Complexity.”

Thoughts from 30000 Feet

When I think of travel now, I think of how long it will take me to go through security, how long will I have to wait at Passport control, and how delayed my flight be.

Travel Since 9/11 on Via Magazine

Think about it. Since 9/11 planes have not been falling like raindrops from the sky, cruise ships have not been exploding, trains have not been getting derailed by saboteurs—yet we fear that all these things could start happening tomorrow.

Remembering 9/11

I know it is now part of the job, but I know what it represents - that every one of us who works at an airport is deemed to be potentially dangerous and untrustworthy. Of course, if one thought about it that way too often it could really cause one grief.

The End of America: Naomi Wolf onThe Huffington Post

The Bush administration created a policy post-9/11 about liquids and air travel. Increased security restrictions led to airport security guards forcing some passengers to ingest liquids: A Long Island mother, for instance, was forced to drink from three bottles filled with her own breast milk prior to boarding a plane at JFK. Other adult passengers have been forced to drink baby formula.

--
I was never afraid to fly before 9/11. I never enjoyed it - an irony not lost on me - but I was never afraid. Now, when I stand in the terminal before boarding my long haul flights, I cast my eyes around at my fellow passengers and wonder if there is someone there that is going to try to kill me. It breaks my heart to admit this, but it is a thing that is true. I don't know if the travelers-as-criminals policies will ever be relaxed enough to allow me to forget this way of thinking or if time will leave me thinking that it has always been this way, that I have always been afraid, that I could never see Kabul, that my fellow travelers were not friends I hadn't met yet, but something more sinister.

I can not personally speak to the loss of lives on 9/11. My New York friends were all accounted for, thankfully. And I can not plumb the depth of sadness for those who were not so lucky. I can say that every year on 9/11 I hear again an imaginary noise in the back of my head, the sound of the planet getting smaller, the sound of the gates slamming on places that are no longer available to me. Six years on, the redrawing of travelers maps in to places that are supposedly, fictionally "safe" and "not safe" resonates with me as though it happened yesterday. I do not want to forget, but not an anniversary goes by that I do not hope for the reversal of the results of this unspeakable tragedy.

Pam blogs about travel and other adventures at Nerd's Eye View. She wrote to President Bush before boarding a plane in the fall of 2001. He did not respond.

Submitted by Pam (view blog) on Thu, 09/13/2007 - 09:16
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Comments

 

Living by the Silver Bullet Theory

When I use air travel, I think about the ineffective pantomime of "safety" that the TSA represent. I do believe that these screenings have significantly inconvenienced folk, embarrassed some,and were created to make air travel appear safer when it is not.

I don't believe the screenings actually do anything more than that.

However, I live by a "silver bullet" theory: when my time is up, it's up. I can act responsibility (buckle seat belts, watch what I eat, etc.), but I cannot avoid that bullet. So I don't think about fellow passengers killing me any more than I would think about an airplane cable failing and my crashing into the earth. Actually, I think about the airline parts a lot more. Statistics and all.

I am sadder by the parts of the world that keep being scratched off "someday" lists for people. Options being taken away. "Enemy lists." I hope that in the future these things will fade. Cities will open up again, the world will open up again. I'm not sure that I'm hopeful, but I'm hoping.

Debra
A Stitch In Time
Deb's Daily Distractions

Submitted by debra roby on Thu, 09/13/2007 - 07:28
 

Live Ready

I can't sustain an ongoing level of fear any more than I can a high level of rage; both emotions will eat out my guts out, long before any terrorist act executes me.

I fly twice monthly for business and every single time I set foot on a plane, I silently ask myself if I’m ready to die. The answer is not always the same but, in any case, I try to “live ready.” Everyone that I love, I’ve told them so – that’s the main thing.

Duct tape and Orange Alerts will not save me – the world is beyond my control. I have changed nothing about my travel life or my wandering habits since 9-11, except for that fucking quart-size bag.

Anyway, I’m with Debra, when your time is up, might as well accept it. As Warren Zevon said just before he died, “My ride is here.”

BlogHer Contributing Editor, Photography
Proprietor, ClizBiz

Submitted by ClizBiz on Thu, 09/13/2007 - 09:55
 

Silver Bullet/Catching a Ride

I like the idea of that and it used to be that I was feeling pretty okay with it, conceptually. I've had the good fortune to live a fine life, a really fine one, and don't feel it's wasted. But when I think about it - and I try not to - I get really torn up over the idea that I still haven't seen Angkor Wat or published a book or oh, you know, any number of things. And it's not like I'm sitting around doing nothing.

I remember talking to some people who were going to France shortly after I'd got back. And I was really, ungraciously JEALOUS. Why? Because I knew already how great traveling in France was and there they were, off to France. You know what I mean?

I swear this is related. I've forgotten how so I'll shut up now.

Nerd's Eye View

Submitted by Pam on Thu, 09/13/2007 - 14:06
 

Now it's clear...

Pam,

So you're saying that when you board a plane, and remember the unexpected horrors of 9/11, you think of all things you haven't done yet and regret the possibility that they may never happen. Because that day drove home to you the truth that we never know about tomorrow.

Have I got it right?

Heck, I have those thoughts all the time. Just not related to air travel. They are a kind of "growing up" checklist. Best thing to do is to plan those things; not in a terribly explicit way, but generally. Like next year I'm white water rafting again. And in 2009 (if I can find someone to walk with me) I'm going to Spring Training in Arizona and hiking the Grand Canyon.

Having stated the time and goal, I simply refuse to believe that my silver bullet will show up before then.

Debra
A Stitch In Time
Deb's Daily Distractions

Submitted by debra roby on Fri, 09/14/2007 - 06:25
 

Yes. No. Sort of. Not entirely.

See, some of that is exactly right. But other parts are all tied up in political anger about how, oh, I'll spare you the rhetoric. I can't really separate the two, that's the deal. Some of it's your standard mortality stuff, and other parts have more to do with how things shifted post 9/11 with regards to travel.

Make sense?

Nerd's Eye View

Submitted by Pam on Fri, 09/14/2007 - 08:33
 

Has it always been this way?

I feel like it's always been this way to some extent, we're just more aware of it now. Different tourist destinations go on and off the "map" based on what's going on politically there at the time.

On Sept 11 2001, my husband and I were in northern Vietnam... a place we probably wouldn't have dared to go even five years before, and a place that's become even safer for western tourists since then. During the same trip, we had to cancel a visit to Nepal because of unrest after a royal massacre.

I feel like it's important to find the moments when it's possible to go to the place you want to visit and make it happen. While not every destination is possible at any moment, the world is (luckily) a big enough place that there are always plenty of wonderful options. Life is just to short to do everything I want to do anyway.

Debbie

Living the good life with kids @ deliciousbaby.com

Submitted by debbiedubrow on Sat, 09/15/2007 - 10:31
 

tahts interesting...

tahts interesting...

Submitted by airmohan on Thu, 09/04/2008 - 16:39
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