Given WW3, should we cancel Europe travel plans

[Anonymous]

Go OP. The US is less safe than Europe with its gun culture. If it is the end of the world..everyone is impacted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stay away from Barcelona. Anti-tourist protests. There were similar demonstrations in other parts of Spain including Ibiza, Malaga, Palma de Mallorca, San Sebastian and Granada. Protests in Italy took place in cities including Genoa, Naples, Palermo, Milan and Venice.
We’ve worn out our welcome with bad behavior

I don’t think it’s bad behavior. It’s mostly two things: 1) Massive increase of people moving/migrating, and traveling in general (everywhere is crowded now all the time, not just in Spain and Italy) Density and crowds cause stress. 2) out of control rental market due to unregulated air b&b, vrbo, and so on, for too long. Locals are squeezed out everywhere because it’s more lucrative for investors (often not local) to buy places and rent them to tourists.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:OP, what are you talking about specifically? Airbnbs? Israel/Iran? Russia/Ukraine?

The US is going to war with Iran because Israel is too weak to fight Iran. This puts a target on all Americans.

THIS. Im the OP.

This makes me so angry. Israel should not start fights it cannot win and then drag us into them.

Hon, stay home and let some brave tourist from another country get that gorgeous Birkin in Paris. Europe will be fine without you!

I always stop reading after “hon” and “sweetie” - I have no desire to listen to posters that are both unserious and lame at the same time.

+1000

The "sweetie/hon" poster always sounds ridiculous no matter what.

Agree, and I always wonder if it’s one and the same miserable person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stay away from Barcelona. Anti-tourist protests. There were similar demonstrations in other parts of Spain including Ibiza, Malaga, Palma de Mallorca, San Sebastian and Granada. Protests in Italy took place in cities including Genoa, Naples, Palermo, Milan and Venice.
We’ve worn out our welcome with bad behavior

Are these protests just during summer, or year round?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stay away from Barcelona. Anti-tourist protests. There were similar demonstrations in other parts of Spain including Ibiza, Malaga, Palma de Mallorca, San Sebastian and Granada. Protests in Italy took place in cities including Genoa, Naples, Palermo, Milan and Venice.
We’ve worn out our welcome with bad behavior

Our bad behavior? I don’t think Americans are the worst tourists in Europe. Not even close. Plus the locals in those cities are entitled jerks. They want the tourist dollars but not the tourists. Sorry but it doesn’t work like that.

Nope, the worst tourists are the Spanish and the UK chavs. We were in Turkey last year and ended up altering plans to avoid Spanish tour groups. Loud, pushy, culturally disrespectful. And the chavs in Egypt, OMG. Just stumbling drunk (in a muslim country!), making out in public, haranguing the locals over everything, shrieking conversations, etc.

You haven’t seen Russian tourists yet, especially large groups of well-to-do drunk Russians, they are all of the above and more.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It's not airbnbs - US has a ton of them. It's that Americans are moving entirely to Europe and buying up property only Americans can afford, away from locals.

The airbnbs often are owned by locals and a source of income - it's business there just like it is in the US.

It's really that Americans are leveraging lax immigration systems and moving to Europe and taking advantage of their way of life because the US has gotten out of control with costs, culture and the slimeball running the show here. That is what is ruining Europe for everyone except Americans.

I know 3 families that will be relo to Europe before end of yr and renouncing American citizenship without a second thought. They are going to Portugal, Spain and France. All have family ties/hate Trump and realize there's only more pain to come in the US. Europe isn't perfect but it is def a simpler lifestyle and there is a freedom there now that you really are seeing less of in the US.

It sounds like these people don’t get how they are behaving like Trumpers, wanting to exploit locals and their economies as rich lords.

Well, Europe sent their poor and needy to the US for centuries. Now the chickens are coming home to roost. I don't see a problem with that. These people, for the most part, have family members that emigrated recently.

You realize the majority of Americans are descendents of Europeans, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:OP, what are you talking about specifically? Airbnbs? Israel/Iran? Russia/Ukraine?

The US is going to war with Iran because Israel is too weak to fight Iran. This puts a target on all Americans.

THIS. Im the OP.

You are oblivious. Israel is kicking Iran's you-know-what, and shows every sign of continuing to do so until the Iranian regime collapses. And if U.S. support to Israel makes Americans targets, that ship has sailed. It's hardly news that U.S. intelligence, resupply, and deterrent capabilities have been in play from the outset; more direct intervention by US air or naval forces will just be more obvious and will hasten the Iranian regime's demise. The global threat to U.S. persons isn't going to change. If anything, Iran's capacity to direct terror attacks against U.S. people and interests will just collapse even faster than is already happening due to their losses from Israeli direct action against the IRGC and intelligence organs.

But, do feel free to shelter in place in your back yard bunker, for fear that the long arm of Iranian vengeance is going to reach out for you. The rest of us see Iran as the Black Knight, armless and legless, but for now claiming "tis but a scratch!".

For the Palestinian Philistine, here's the reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmInkxbvlCs

Look up the 1980s. Achille Lauro. Lockerbie. Etc. All driven by chaos in the Middle East and North Africa.

Sure but that was 50 plus years ago. Achiie Lauro could not happen now because of defensive measures of cruise ships. Same way no one will take over a plane with box cutters. A bomb on a plane? World has changed and much harder. Sure not impossible but not at all likely.

I never understood the bolded. Every time I enter an airport, I do not feel a sigh of relief until I get beyond TSA and to the gate. I believe the TSA checkpoint is the most dangerous point for a terrorist attack.

This is the weak point at any airport. In India they moved check in outside so you have to pass security before getting in a building. You can still do a bomb but outside where it should impact less people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, what are you talking about specifically? Airbnbs? Israel/Iran? Russia/Ukraine?

The US is going to war with Iran because Israel is too weak to fight Iran. This puts a target on all Americans.

Trump is too weak to stand up to Israel, who are hellbent on destroying the entire Middle East. Amazing how easily we have forgotten the disasters that were US wars on Iraq and Afghanistan.

I don't think the goal is to destroy the middle east. Just Iran. Most of the middle east is and would be behind that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:here's the thing, as of 1 hour ago, all US Navy ships that were in the port of Bahrain were deployed from the port into the Persian Gulf. Highly unusual and a large, calibrated movement. Everything is being put into motion to get our assets further away from Iran. Possibly a defensive move and not offensive.

The US is moving towards war. Any American traveling in Europe or the ME should be alert.

That’s because American assets are under threat in the Middle East, and they were specifically warned. This does not mean there is any increased danger hiking around Loch Ness this summer, or sipping a cappuccino in Bari.

You should always be alert in big cities, and sadly, a terror attack is just as likely here at home.

[Anonymous]

Sure. Stay home. We are going to the UK, Belgium, Austria and France for a few weeks and are not scared at all. We will be happy to escape Trump add and America’s stupidity, violence and steady pace of missing kids on the news.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s fun is that our effective counter-terrorism measures have been decimated by the dismantling of USAID. Our abominable foreign policy will absolutely increase terrorism.

So you’re saying USAID was CIA?

Wow. The ignorance is mind-boggling. Maybe you should do a little research on soft diplomacy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not airbnbs - US has a ton of them. It's that Americans are moving entirely to Europe and buying up property only Americans can afford, away from locals.

The airbnbs often are owned by locals and a source of income - it's business there just like it is in the US.

It's really that Americans are leveraging lax immigration systems and moving to Europe and taking advantage of their way of life because the US has gotten out of control with costs, culture and the slimeball running the show here. That is what is ruining Europe for everyone except Americans.

I know 3 families that will be relo to Europe before end of yr and renouncing American citizenship without a second thought. They are going to Portugal, Spain and France. All have family ties/hate Trump and realize there's only more pain to come in the US. Europe isn't perfect but it is def a simpler lifestyle and there is a freedom there now that you really are seeing less of in the US.

Why would they renounce their US citizenship?? Those countries and the US allow dual citizenship.

[Anonymous]

Since WW3 started in Ukraine, travel to Europe is off limits to me. Europe could get nuked at any moment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Since WW3 started in Ukraine, travel to Europe is off limits to me. Europe could get nuked at any moment

Europe is basically defenseless with minimal militaries. They can't use nukes without poisoning themselves. Russia is huge and less afraid to die.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:What’s fun is that our effective counter-terrorism measures have been decimated by the dismantling of USAID. Our abominable foreign policy will absolutely increase terrorism.

USAID has been utterly ineffective in addressing global terror, if that was even part of its remit. Instead, it was simply a mechanism for transferring U.S. wealth and supplies to foreign countries, for better or for worse. Counterterror benefits, if any, would have been extremely abstract, unquantifiable, and frankly improbable.

Soft power is inherently abstract and unquantifiable.

And is, in consequence, no form of actual power at all. It is merely wishful thinking.

Yep, and why should we bribe foreign countries not to attack us anyway.

USAID made us more hated in many places, as they tried to export their own values, which were often at odds with local culture.