Should we still visit Thailand?

Political disruption overseas often leads the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office to advise against travel to that country. Not to the disrupted town, or even that region, but against visiting the whole country. The FCO are in a difficult position of course, accountable for the welfare of British citizens and therefore must be cautious, but we have seen the impact this has on local communities whose income is reliant on tourism.

Recently I was asked by Tom Hall at Lonely Planet to comment on visiting Kenya, which was a destination hounded by bad press during the December 2007 political disruption. During this time I received emails from local contacts who expressed the real and devastating impact of this situation. Families could not put food on the table nor send their children to school. Such is the mismanagement of the tourism industry that local suppliers are forced to live hand to mouth, so when the tourists leave, so does their livelihood.

So what can we do? It's actually quite simple - we keep visiting, while avoiding areas of tension. Advice from Tapanee, our YSPerson in Bangkok, for travellers concerned about the situation in Thailand was this:

" The political situation in BKK is not as bad as it looks on TV. I was quite annoyed because cameras get the worst of the images and keep looping them while they are reporting so it gives Thailand a really bad image in the international eye - it makes it look worse than it actually is.

Right now as you already know, the protests have ended. While the protests were going on they were very much localised, and the streets that were not in the protest area were really normal - you would not know that anything was going on.

Right now there is a state of emergency in BKK, but the situation is really calm - the state of emergency has been declared, but it is mainly to stop the red shirts from re-gathering (that is not allowed under the emergency decree) and there is absolutely no violence on the streets at all despite the emergency state. In fact, everything is quite pleasant and we're enjoying the last few days of the Songkran festival, with mad partying now that the protests are over!'

Tapanee's reports echo those of many others living in Bangkok, but at the end of the day it's your choice. You should never visit a place that you feel is dangerous but be sure you are armed with all the facts before writing off a destination. As many have before, you might find that once you've spent a couple of days there you fall in love with the place.

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Always take advice and do contact us for free, impartial information.

Other wonderful destinations we'd highly recommend but get 'bad press':

* Colombia
* Ethiopia
* Rwanda
* Sri Lanka
* Uganda