The Travel Detective

Travel Emergency: What To Do When Traveling In A Country In Crisis

Locations in this article:  Los Angeles, CA Mumbai, India

Riot Police - Handling A Travel EmergencyIn the last few weeks we’ve been watching the events unfolding in the Middle East. It’s one thing to be in the comfort of your own home and watching the events on TV.

But what happens if you’re actually on location when things fall apart?

Peter checked in with Jane Engle, assistant travel editor for the Los Angeles Times, about her recent story on five things that can help you get out of a country in a crisis.

Peter Greenberg: So Jane, where do you begin?

Jane Engle: There is a lot you can do for yourself before you leave. As with all kinds of travel it is all about preparation. Think about using a travel agent. But before you do, make sure that you have 24-hour emergency line access to them, or that at least you have expanded hours access. What is great about this is if you book a tour or cruise through a travel agent, you generally don’t pay them extra for it. This is really a free service that is right at your fingertips. If you have a decent travel agent, they will help you get re-booked and help you get out of there.

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PG: I prefer human contact. So many people today say, “Oh, I’ll go online.” Well, you’re not going online in Egypt, they turned the Internet off. You need to get on the phone and you need to work the phone. And you better get numbers that, as you said, are 24/7 where you’re not going to get some answering machine or some voicemail.

US Embassy Seal - Where NOT To Go During An EmergencyBut what do you also do on the ground there? I recently went on television to talk about this and the State Department hated me for it. In fact, they wrote letters to CBS and claimed I was misleading the American public. But it has been my experience that when I’m in a situation where the you-know-what hits the fan, the very last place I will ever go is the American Embassy. That is the very first place that gets shuttered, gets bunkered, gets surrounded, and basically you have no access to it at all. I go to the British Embassy or the Australian Embassy or the Canadian Embassy.

The State Department got angry at me and said I was misleading the public because if you need a new passport or a visa, the Australian Consulate or Embassy can’t help you. I said, I’m not talking about a new passport or new visa. I’m talking about when the you-know-what hits the fan and you need to get somewhere where you’re going to get protected, I’m not going to the American Embassy. Then, within 48 hours of the events unfolding in Cairo, would you believe the State Department actually issued an release saying Americans who are in Cairo are advised not to go to the U.S. Embassy if security forces block off the area? I had to laugh.

JE: I assume it depends on what the situation is on the ground. On the one hand, the Embassy was closed at one point. On the other hand, as you know, the U.S. State Department evacuated more than 2300 Americans out of there, too. So it’s kind of a mixed picture there. I certainly think it’s worth it to enroll in the State Department’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program. It’s free, you give your passport info, trip itinerary, emergency contacts, and if there is a mass disaster it can serve as a way for friends and family to reach you or get information about you.

Learn more about the State Department’s recent efforts: U.S. Begins Voluntary Evacuation Of Citizens From Egypt. Or learn more about Peter’s take on American Embassies and American travelers here: Peter’s Blog: The American Traveler and State Department Warnings.

Soldiers - How To Deal With Travel EmergenciesPG: I do agree with you on that. It’s always good to get the information out there, but you’ve got to be ready to read the street. You’ve got to be ready to look outside your window and think: Is this really a good idea to go down that street to get to an embassy that’s already going to be blocked?

JE: That is a very good point. One thing about the flights in Egypt as well is that the planes were taking off when they could get supplies. The difficulty was how do you get there? When I talked to security experts at one point they said, don’t go to the airport, the roads are blockaded, it’s extremely dangerous. Look around, stay in touch, but if you look around and things are not safe, stay at home or stay where you are. If you’ve got food and water where you are, stay there and let things blow over.

PG: Plus, in this situation the Internet was cut off. Phone circuits were basically jammed. We were going back back to the future in this one. It was like an old fire brigade. People were just hand carrying messages for a while. And you’re right, sometimes it is better: If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. Just stay where you are.

Learn how to prevent yourself from getting into sticky situations in the first place with: CBS News: Avoiding Travel Disasters. Be sure to get the latest news on that front with Travel Alerts Issued For Libya, Bahrain As Middle East Unrest Continues.

JE: Right. You mentioned the difficulties with the communications which were extraordinary in this situation with the Internet being cut off and so on. One thing that people should be aware of is, they really want to take as many communication devices as they can because of the situation. You want an international cell-phone that you can make international calls on. Yes, the charges can be horrific on those phones, but if you are in the middle of a crisis, you don’t care. If you can’t get a call through, text. Help Can Be Just a Phone Call AwayNow there’s various technical reasons that this works, but basically, if the circuits are jammed you cannot get through, but if you sent a text, many systems are going to hold that text and wait until the network clears, even briefly.

PG: You’re absolutely right about that. I go back to the November 2008 shootings in Mumbai. They didn’t cut off the Internet, but you couldn’t get through on the phones because every circuit was jammed. So I was basically communicating with my sources inside the Taj Hotel in Mumbai on Blackberry, and it was instantaneous. It was the weirdest thing because I was in New York getting these email messages from my guys inside the hotel saying, they’ve cornered the guys and they’re going to go shoot it out with them. We were getting a live feed from Indian television and sure enough, there goes the tower on fire. But at least it was real time information and nothing beats that.

JE: I think another resource that people don’t think about is that most big travel insurance companies offer a 24-hour business line. Of course as I point out in this case, in the event of a civil unrest, you might not be covered by your travel insurance policy. Many of them exclude this, but whatever the difficulty is, most insurers that I talked to said yes, we have 24-hour assistance lines. If you have an insurance policy with us we don’t care if your plans are screwed up for a covered reason, call us and we can at least help you get re-booked.

PG: You do have to read the fine print because there are several exclusions I worry about when reading these policies: acts of God, and the famous force majeure, which can include a riot, an insurrection, and acts of civil disobedience. Not every policy reads that way and not every insurance company interprets it that way, but in this world we live in today, you can try to find a mutually agreeable definition of terms before you ever sign on the dotted line of that policy.

Find out more about what travel insurance usually does and doesn’t cover with: Travel Insurance And Egypt: Travel Protection During Civil Unrest

JE: At least if you’re concerned about a particular situation you can give them a phone call. One of the difficulties, however, is that it is subject to interpretation. One thing said in a phone call when it’s not written down does not count for much. There are just a lot of people that don’t even read the policy all the way through. You’ve at least got do do that, as boring as it is. Get a couple of cups of coffee since these things run 24 pages.

PG: Then get somebody to interpret the language for you, because I think it’s intentionally difficult to read.

By Peter Greenberg for Peter Greenberg Worldwide Radio. Read Jane Engle’s complete story on five things that can help you in a crisis in the Los Angeles Times travel section.

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