Skip to content

Top Navigation

Travel + Leisure Travel + Leisure Travel + Leisure Travel + Leisure
  • Trip Inspiration
  • Plan Your Trip
  • Travel Guides
  • World's Best
  • Destination of the Year
  • A-List Travel Advisors
  • Cruises
  • Travel Tips
  • News
  • Food + Drink
  • Travel Accessories
  • Check-In

Profile Menu

Your Profile

Your Profile

  • Join Now
  • Newsletters
  • Manage Your Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Give a Gift Subscription
  • Help
  • Logout
Login
Subscribe
Pin FB

Explore Travel + Leisure

Travel + Leisure Travel + Leisure Travel + Leisure Travel + Leisure
  • Explore

    Explore

    • World's Best

      The greatest islands, cities, hotels, cruise lines, airports, and more — as voted by you. Read More Next
    • The 50 Best Places to Travel in 2021

      Whether you're traveling solo or planning a family vacation, here are the 50 best places to visit in 2021. Read More Next
    • Let's Go Together Podcast

      Start listening to T+L's brand new podcast, Let's Go Together! Hosted by Kellee Edwards. Read More Next
  • Trip Inspiration

    Trip Inspiration

    • Trip Ideas
    • Weekend Getaways
    • Spring Travel
    • Summer Travel
    • Fall Travel
    • Winter Travel
    • Solo Travel
    • Romantic Getaways
    • Luxury Travel
    • Beach Vacations
    • Adventure Travel
    • Road Trips
    • Family Travel
    • National Parks
    • Holiday Travel
    • Travel Photography
    • Photo of the Day
    • Culture and Design
  • Plan Your Trip

    Plan Your Trip

    • Travel Deals
    • Attractions
    • Amusement Parks
    • Festivals and Events
    • Bus and Trains
    • Flight Deals
    • Budget Travel
    • Hotels and Resorts
    • Disney Vacations
    • Airlines and Airports
    • Ground Transportation
  • Travel Guides
  • World's Best

    World's Best

    • Top Hotels
    • Top Cities
    • Top Islands
    • Domestic Airlines
    • International Airlines
    • Tours
    • Safaris
    • All World's Best
  • Destination of the Year
  • A-List Travel Advisors
  • Cruises

    Cruises

    • Find A Cruise
    • Caribbean Cruises
    • River Cruises
    • European Cruises
    • All-Inclusive Cruises
    • Family Cruises
    • Alaskan Cruises
    • Disney Cruises
    • See All Cruise Vacations
  • Travel Tips

    Travel Tips

    • Travel Trends
    • Packing Tips
    • Points + Miles
    • Budgeting + Currency
    • Customs + Immigration
    • Responsible Travel
    • Travel Etiquette
    • Travel Warnings
    • Weather
    • Mobile Apps
    • See All Travel Tips
  • News

    News

    • Wellness
    • Celebrity Travel
    • Animals
    • Jobs
    • Offbeat
    • See All News
  • Food + Drink

    Food + Drink

    • Restaurants
    • Wine
    • Beer
    • Cocktails + Spirits
    • Bars + Clubs
    • Celebrity Chefs
    • Cooking + Entertaining
    • Food Fairs + Festivals
    • World's Best Restaurants
    • See All Food + Drink
  • Travel Accessories

    Travel Accessories

    • Travel Bags
    • Shoes
    • Travel Tech
    • Shopping
    • Style
    • Gift Guides
    • See All Travel Accessories
  • Check-In

Profile Menu

Subscribe this link opens in a new tab
Your Profile

Your Profile

  • Join Now
  • Newsletters
  • Manage Your Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Give a Gift Subscription
  • Help
  • Logout
Login
Sweepstakes

Follow Us

  1. Home
  2. Adventure Travel
  3. War Reporters' Top Travel Secrets

War Reporters' Top Travel Secrets

By Claire Berlinski
July 31, 2009
Skip gallery slides
Save Pin
Credit: © Heshmat Aramideh/Corbis
Even hardened, world-weary reporters like to tell jokes—especially ones about travel. Overheard at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Istanbul: “So, the journalist goes up to the baggage check and says, ‘I want to send this bag to Ulaanbaatar and the other one to Rio.’”

Travel savvy, a sense of humor, and the ability to talk your way into anything are practically job requirements for gonzo foreign correspondents, who are world-class authorities on everything from roadside bombs to lost luggage. If you’ve been covering wars, coups, and natural disasters for years—and not only stayed alive, but stayed on budget and filed on deadline—chances are you’re a pretty smart traveler.

But these journalists also know a lot of travel secrets that might come in handy even for those not planning on taking a bullet, like how to tip and how to bribe. (Keep your bribe money reachable and separate from your main stash.) So Travel + Leisure asked some of the world’s most intrepid foreign correspondents for travel advice—what to pack, how to dress, how to meet people overseas, and how to stay out of trouble (or get into it) anywhere from Belarus to the Bahamas.

Their counsel ranges from always traveling with a roll of duct or gaffer’s tape—which has literally hundreds of on-the-fly uses, from sealing air mattresses to keeping your coffee cup warm—to avoiding mishaps large and small on the road by making sure your driver really does speak English. (Newsweek magazine’s Owen Matthews recommends asking drivers what they had for breakfast as a test.)

Even something as small as knowing which side of the road people drive on is key. “Looking left and stepping out into traffic can get you killed in a left-hand-side-drive country,” says Adnan R. Khan, who knows something about dangerous activities—he’s interviewed militant leaders and witnessed fighting firsthand at Pakistan’s Red Mosque. “My trick is: left-right-left...right-left-right, and then make a run for it.”

Also, don’t stand up for lost causes—when you’re abroad, it’s not the time to take pride in the lewd slogans on your T-shirts or your tattoos. “Outside the U.S., people actually do care about how they dress,” says David Gross, who since 1999 has been documenting the aftermath of genocide from the Balkans to Iraq. “Scruffy jeans will lower your social status in much of the world.” Instead, look respectable, and always bring an outfit suitable for dining with an ambassador—you never know when you might get an invitation.

Above all, meet people. Never forget, says Daria Vaisman—who nearly contracted anthrax while investigating a secret biological weapons manufacturing facility in Kazakhstan—that travel is a romance.

“A good introduction is worth 10 guidebooks,” adds Hugh Pope, who has been covering the Middle East for the Wall Street Journal, the Independent, Reuters, and UPI for 30 years, and who once used a good introduction to escape being executed by al-Qaeda. “Remember that real travel is going with the flow, meeting new people and accepting their invitations, not retracing the exactly choreographed steps of 1,000 package tours.”
Start Slideshow

1 of 10

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Tip: Make your driver take an English language test.

Credit: © Travelib Pakistan/Alamy

Why: The most dangerous thing in the world is a car without brakes, bald tires, and a driver who pretends to speak English. Check the vehicle, then assess your driver’s language skills to ensure you stick to your desired itinerary—and avoid any trouble.

War Reporter Testimony: Newsweek magazine’s Owen Matthews—who covered the Chechen war and the bombing of Afghanistan—advises vetting drivers: “Ask them what they had for breakfast. If they can answer you in English, hire them. You’d be amazed how far non-English speakers can get on pure bluff, then put you in serious danger when they don’t understand your instructions.”

1 of 10

Advertisement
Advertisement

2 of 10

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Tip: Bring a dressy outfit.

Credit: © Network Photographers/Alamy

Why: Whether you’re going to Paris or the jungle, pack a tie and proper shoes. Formal attire shows respect to people whose patronage you need—and you never know who will invite you to dinner.

War Reporter Testimony: Alan Chin, who was twice nominated by the New York Times for the Pulitzer, adds that cleaning up can boost morale: “In 2003, I spent three months covering the invasion of Iraq. I got dust into areas of my body that I didn’t know existed.” Finally, he took a vacation in Jordan with his girlfriend. “I can’t describe how good it felt when we went out to dinner—to be clean, wearing a crisp white dress shirt, and looking and behaving like a normal person instead of a war-and-death-obsessed madman.”

2 of 10

3 of 10

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Tip: Bring a cell phone with GPS.

Credit: Courtesy of Globalstar, Inc.

Why: With a GPS, you’ll never look like a tourist fumbling with a map in the middle of the street again; it can show you the location of cash machines, landmarks, and hotels. Most important, if you’re in trouble, you can give rescuers your exact location.

War Reporter Testimony: Angela Cumberbirch has spent the past 10 years documenting the aftermath of Peru’s internal armed conflict. She recommends renting a Blue Cosmo Globalstar GSP-1700 portable satellite phone: “There’s a tracer available to track positions in remote zones,” she says, “and many search and rescue teams have GPS satellite tracing equipment.”

3 of 10

Advertisement

4 of 10

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Tip: Bring condoms—for your camera.

Credit: iStock

Why: Camera lenses are prone to scratching and unexpected water damage. Condoms are the ultimate lightweight protection.

War Reporter Testimony: Elizabeth Pisani has worked for Reuters and the Economist in Hong Kong, New Delhi, and Jakarta, but she’s best known for her controversial book, The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels, and the Business of AIDS. A condom, she advises, is the essential travel accessory. “Not only do condoms protect you from nasty diseases and make a fantastic first aid tool (insert into bullet wound and inflate to stanch the bleeding), but they’re great for keeping sand and water out of lenses and other equipment.”

4 of 10

5 of 10

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Tip: Scan your documents and e-mail them to yourself.

Credit: iStock

Why: Scan your passport, telephone numbers, and credit card information and then e-mail them to yourself before you travel. This way, you’ll be able to get copies wherever there’s Internet access.

War Reporter Testimony: While rushing to catch a plane to Azerbaijan, photojournalist David Gross accidentally grabbed his expired passport instead of his valid one. He ended up a hostage of the suspicious authorities in the arrival hall—just like Tom Hanks in The Terminal. “Without copies of your documents,” he says, “you’re yet another illegal in transit.”

5 of 10

6 of 10

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Tip: Make sure health insurance covers you abroad.

Credit: © Fancy/Veer/Corbis

Why: It’s a must in Fallujah. But even Cancun can get hairy. When you’re embedded with the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, you need the peace of mind only medical evacuation insurance can bring—but frankly, you need heath coverage anywhere you might get ill or be injured, which is everywhere, and your policy at home might not apply overseas.

War Reporter Testimony: Phil Zabriskie, who covered the battle of Fallujah for Time magazine, says “health insurance and safety abroad is a big issue, and you’ll get a better deal if you promise to stay out of war zones.”

6 of 10

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

7 of 10

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Tip: Pack tape.

Credit: iStock

Why: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it—but if it is, this stuff is magic. Use duct or gaffer's tape to seal air mattresses, splice headphones, fashion a rain cover for your camera, even as a coffee cozy.

War Reporter Testimony: Former Army Times photographer James J. Lee has clung to lampposts in hurricanes, waded through the mud of the Asian tsunami, and been blown off his feet by suicide bombers in Iraq—but he’s held it together with gaffer’s tape. “I’ve used it to hang flashes, seal out light and dust from windows, tape up self-inflicted wounds, the list goes on.”War Reporters' Top Travel Secrets

7 of 10

8 of 10

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Tip: Know how to steer clear of trouble.

Credit: © Kim Eijdenberg

Why: If you’re a typical vacation traveler, chances are you want to fly away from storms and war zones, not toward them. But either way, you need to know where trouble lies—right now.

War Reporter Testimony: Countless foreign correspondents rely on Hot Spots, a free daily intelligence report issued by ASI Group’s Global Risk Management Services, to find good stories—or steer well clear of them. It keeps travelers advised of global threats such as terrorist attacks and disease outbreaks, but also of protest marches, strikes, and tropical storms.

8 of 10

9 of 10

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Tip: Smile. Meet people.

Credit: © Peter Alvey/Alamy

Why: Guidebooks can’t substitute for meeting locals abroad. If you can make friends with one person, you’re in with all their friends. If it works on the Tajik-Afghan border, it will work for you.

War Reporter Testimony: Daria Vaisman has tracked a swine flu epidemic in Georgia, chased opium traders in Afghanistan, and toured an anthrax factory in a secret city in Kazakhstan—making new friends everywhere she went. “Follow the same rules as any pickup,” she advises. “Sit at a café. Walk around looking confused. Ask for directions. I’ve been taken to people’s villages this way, fed, and feted by their mothers.”

9 of 10

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

10 of 10

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Tip: Wear the “magic cloak of innocence.”

Credit: © Heshmat Aramideh/Corbis

Why: You know you’re not a spy. But do they? Play it safe in crowds and avoid drawing attention to yourself and unsuspecting trouble by following this easy rule.

War Reporter Testimony: Hugh Pope recently wrote Dining with al-Qaeda, a memoir of three decades covering the Middle East. “I know I’m not threatening, but in my line of work I have often had to meet people who assume otherwise. I have therefore learned to project a conviction of my own benevolence—open-eyed and forthright, not weakly ingratiating. I believe it has saved me many times, from navigating crowds to the night in Saudi Arabia when I had to talk an al-Qaeda missionary out of killing me.”

10 of 10

Replay gallery

Share the Gallery

Pinterest Facebook

Up Next

By Claire Berlinski

Share the Gallery

Pinterest Facebook
Trending Videos
Advertisement
Skip slide summaries

Everything in This Slideshow

Advertisement

View All

1 of 10 Tip: Make your driver take an English language test.
2 of 10 Tip: Bring a dressy outfit.
3 of 10 Tip: Bring a cell phone with GPS.
4 of 10 Tip: Bring condoms—for your camera.
5 of 10 Tip: Scan your documents and e-mail them to yourself.
6 of 10 Tip: Make sure health insurance covers you abroad.
7 of 10 Tip: Pack tape.
8 of 10 Tip: Know how to steer clear of trouble.
9 of 10 Tip: Smile. Meet people.
10 of 10 Tip: Wear the “magic cloak of innocence.”

Share options

Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message
Travel + Leisure Travel + Leisure

Magazines & More

Learn More

  • Subscribe this link opens in a new tab
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Content Licensing this link opens in a new tab
  • Sitemap
  • Travel Guide Sitemap

Connect

Follow Us
Subscribe to Our Newsletters
Other Travel + Leisure Sites
Other Meredith Sites

Other Meredith Sites

  • 4 Your Health this link opens in a new tab
  • Allrecipes this link opens in a new tab
  • All People Quilt this link opens in a new tab
  • Better Homes & Gardens this link opens in a new tab
  • Bizrate Insights this link opens in a new tab
  • Bizrate Surveys this link opens in a new tab
  • Cooking Light this link opens in a new tab
  • Daily Paws this link opens in a new tab
  • EatingWell this link opens in a new tab
  • Eat This, Not That this link opens in a new tab
  • Entertainment Weekly this link opens in a new tab
  • Food & Wine this link opens in a new tab
  • Health this link opens in a new tab
  • Hello Giggles this link opens in a new tab
  • Instyle this link opens in a new tab
  • Martha Stewart this link opens in a new tab
  • Midwest Living this link opens in a new tab
  • More this link opens in a new tab
  • MyRecipes this link opens in a new tab
  • MyWedding this link opens in a new tab
  • My Food and Family this link opens in a new tab
  • MyLife this link opens in a new tab
  • Parenting this link opens in a new tab
  • Parents this link opens in a new tab
  • People this link opens in a new tab
  • People en EspaƱol this link opens in a new tab
  • Rachael Ray Magazine this link opens in a new tab
  • Real Simple this link opens in a new tab
  • Ser Padres this link opens in a new tab
  • Shape this link opens in a new tab
  • Siempre Mujer this link opens in a new tab
  • Southern Living this link opens in a new tab
  • SwearBy this link opens in a new tab
Travel + Leisure is part of the Travel + Leisure Group. Copyright 2021 Meredith Corporation. Travel + Leisure is a registered trademark of Meredith Corporation Travel + Leisure Group All Rights Reserved, registered in the United States and other countries. Travel + Leisure may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice. Privacy Policythis link opens in a new tab Terms of Servicethis link opens in a new tab Ad Choicesthis link opens in a new tab California Do Not Sellthis link opens a modal window Web Accessibilitythis link opens in a new tab
© Copyright . All rights reserved. Printed from https://www.travelandleisure.com

View image

War Reporters' Top Travel Secrets
this link is to an external site that may or may not meet accessibility guidelines.