Cum Laude in Evading Bandits
June 2, 2009 – 4:41 pmNY Times columnist, and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Nicholas Kristof wrote an op-ed piece challenging college students to take a “gap year” from their studies and travel to a developing country and learn about life in another culture. In his column he offers 15 travel tips for students (or anyone) venturing into these precarious countries. Here are a few:
- Carry a “decoy wallet,” so that if you are robbed by bandits with large guns, you have something to hand over.
- Be wary of accepting drinks from anyone.
- Look out for fake cops or crooked ones.
- Remember that the scariest people aren’t warlords, but drivers.
He concludes that
even if everything goes wrong and you are robbed and catch malaria, shrug it off — those are precisely the kinds of authentic interactions with local cultures that, in retrospect, enrich a journey and life itself.
Read the entire article.
Related NYT article: Going Off to College for Less (Passport Required)
To discover more of Kristof’s intriguing pieces on the developing world, trek over to his On the Ground blog.
