The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
HOW THE TRAVEL WORLD HAS CHANGED
From Baghdad to Beirut and Belgrade, via Berlin, Bratislava and Bogota, the map of where we have felt safe to travel has altered dramatically over the past half a century…
1970S
The 1970s were a different era for travel in the Middle East and Central Asia. You might even have strolled the gardens and avenues of Kabul. Although Afghanistan saw its monarchy overthrown in 1973, it did not really deteriorate until 1978, and the second coup d’etat of the decade (the Saur Revolution). This was followed by the thunderous arrival of Soviet tanks in 1979. The country has rarely climbed out of the abyss since, due to war, the surge of the Taliban, and the US invasion in response to the 9/11 terror attacks.
Syria spent the decade as a relatively plausible travel destination, the rise to power of Hafez al-Assad in 1971 bringing a hard stability. The same could be said of Israel, across the border – even though these two neighbours clashed in the Yom Kippur War of
1973. Tours of Iran were plausible – the Queen had visited Tehran and Persepolis in 1961, and you might have traced her footsteps 10 years later. Even a break alongside the Tigris in Baghdad, or amid the ruins of Babylon, was feasible. Saddam Hussein would not become president in Iraq until 1979.
This was a decade when Europe was more awkward. The building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 had reinforced the idea of an Iron Curtain blocking off East Germany, Hungary and Poland. But while it was possible to cross this line with the right visa, incidents such as the Prague Spring of 1968 – where Czechoslovakia took tentative liberalising steps, only to be crushed by Soviet might – would have made you think twice.
Travel to South America, while largely for the adventurous, was certainly on the agenda – though you would not have dipped into Colombia. The birth of the guerrilla group FARC in 1964 had helped to unleash a period of civil war that would run for half a century – while Pablo Escobar’s founding of the Medellin Cartel in 1976 would soon mire the country in narcoterrorism. Over in the Caribbean, meanwhile, Cuba was off the menu. Memories were recent of Fidel Castro’s seizing of the reins (1959), the failed US-backed Bay of Pigs invasion (1961) and the nuclear holocaust closeshave of the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962).
1980S
If you might have visited Libya in the 1970s, exploring the glorious Roman remnants of Leptis Magna and Sabratha – Muammar Gaddafi had overthrown King Idris in the Al Fateh Revolution of 1969, but the situation remained relatively stable for another decade – the 1980s were another matter. The notorious US airstrike on Tripoli in 1986, and the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988 – of which Libya was accused – marked the country’s “emergence” as a pariah state. Syria and Israel at least were options for confident travellers – although the latter’s war with Lebanon in 1982, and the growing cry of Palestinian protest against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, were definite reasons to be cautious. Lebanon itself was impossible. Beirut had been deemed the “Paris of the East” in the 1950s and 1960s. But the Lebanese Civil War had broken out in 1975, bringing with it a wave of kidnapping which saw the British peace negotiator Terry Waite taken hostage in 1987. Elsewhere, Iran and Iraq slipped into antipathy and an eight-year war against each other (1980-1988).
Europe remained divided along Cold War lines, but Yugoslavia was an exception to the holiday rule book. It had long distanced itself from the Soviet Union, embracing a less abrasive communism under the strong arm of the dictator Josip Tito – and, as with Croatia today, was a popular seaside destination in the 1970s and 1980s. At one point, package specialist Yugotours was the UK’s fourth largest tour operator.
Over in South America, Peru was far from being the bucket-list staple of today, spending the decade wracked by inflation and the rise of communist terror group the Shining Path.
1990S
Any remaining idea of Iraq as a travel destination was excised with Saddam’s annexation of Kuwait in August 1990, and the (first) Gulf War which ensued the following January. Syria, weighing into the conflict on the side of the US-led coalition, strengthened its image as a country open to western tourists. Israel fared similarly well, enjoying a decade of comparative tranquillity, calming relations with the Palestine Liberation Organisation and with Jordan. However, tensions persisted with Lebanon – which, though its civil war subsided in 1990, remained off the tourism map throughout the decade. Iran stayed on the periphery of viable travel, the election
of Mohammad Khatami – a liberal figure who would try to steer the country closer to democracy – in the 1997 presidential election boosting its reputation.
With the tearing down of the Iron Curtain in 1989 and German reunification in 1990, Europe became an expanded playground – weekends in Prague and Krakow facilitated by the growth of budget airlines. By contrast, Yugoslavia fell into hell. Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia declared independence in 1991.
Across the Atlantic, Peru began to quell its internal problems with a crackdown on the Shining Path, but Colombia stayed trapped in its inferno, despite the death of Escobar in 1993 and the fall of the rival Cali Cartel in 1996. Cuba was also suffering. The collapse of the Soviet Union cut off much of its funding. However, one result was the Castro government’s decision to seek alternative sources of revenue – including tourism.
2000S
The new millennium brought unexpected changes to the travel map. Displaced in the pariah-state stakes by Afghanistan and Iraq – which faced US-led invasions in 2001 and 2003 respectively – Libya enjoyed a decade where its Roman sites were the highlights of organised tours. Lebanon, too, began to emerge from the gloom. While the assassination of its former prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2005 was a horrific moment, the withdrawal of Israeli and Syrian troops from its soil saw tourists start to return, ambling along Beirut’s Corniche promenade and admiring the ruins of Baalbek, Tyre, Sidon and Byblos.
Syria’s popularity broadened – the “election” of Bashar al-Assad as president in 2000 for now a continuation of the family line rather than a harbinger of trouble ahead. Israel had its issues, the failure of the Camp David Summit of July 2000 to resolve the question of a Palestinian state widening the division between the sides. But Tel Aviv was increasingly chic of image, and now on the budget-flight network. Iran, though, was retreating into itself – partially via the election of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president in 2005.
In Europe, the exhausted Balkans stepped back from bloodshed, and a new region appeared – Croatia an ever-brightening light for visitors thanks to the walls of Dubrovnik and the islands of Dalmatia. Montenegro would slot into place as an attractive piece of the shoreline jigsaw – with formal independence in 2006.
Colombia entered another bitter chapter of its seemingly interminable internal conflict, but with Peru proving something of an economic phoenix, “Machu Picchu” was now a phrase on tourists’ lips. Cuba, meanwhile, had seen tourism take over as its chief source of income in 1995, and travellers were being enchanted by Havana as well as its beaches.
2010S
The “Arab Spring” revolutions of 2011 redrew the travel map again, plunging Libya and Syria into vicious conflicts – the latter spilling over the border into Lebanon, threatening its resurgence. Israel moved closer to the travel mainstream – still heavily criticised for its treatment of Gaza, but on increasingly good terms with several Arab League states. Iraq remained impossible, its woes compounded by Islamic State. The terror group would also bring its evil to Syria, attacking the ruins of Palmyra. Iran remained problematic, any British thoughts of travel quashed by the detention of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe in 2016.
Peru ascended to the dream-travel list. Suddenly, Colombia did, too, its government’s 2016 peace deal with FARC helping to confirm it as one of South America’s most desired destinations. Castro’s retirement in 2011 and death in 2016 made no difference to Cuba’s status as a Caribbean holiday keystone. Croatia’s popularity would grow exponentially, but savvy travellers would also begin to consider Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.