THE 10 WAYS YOU’RE MOST LIKELY TO DIE ON VACATION
Death doesn’t take a holiday
What if I told you that going on vacation comes with a heavy dose of danger? While you may be focused on removing stress from your life by going on holiday, there is a chance that this removal may be a bit more permanent than you anticipated.
There are many ways to die on vacation. Here are the top ten. The numbers cited are the total number of US tourists deaths from the years October 2002 to December 2014, according to our State Department.
1 Car accidents, 3,004
The most likely way to meet your maker early just so happens to be one of the requirements needed to go on vacation in the first place, traveling. That’s right, the most common way to die on vacation, by a landslide, is getting in a car accident. There are places where driving laws are more of suggestions (India and Italy spring to mind) and places where roads were built on hopes and prayers, which, for all their otherwise wonderful attributes to life, turn out not to be good engineering foundations. But the truth is there is nowhere truly safe from these metal boxes on wheels, whether you’re driving or someone else is, or someone else is coming straight at you. It’s a crapshoot.
So, the best protection for you on vacation, as at home, is the humble seat belt.
2 Homicide, 1,913
The second most likely way is that darkest of fears — murder. But despite being this high on the list, it’s not a given that you’ll be slaughtered when you go away. Most nations are completely safe for travelers with only a few areas increasing the likelihood of being murdered. That is to say that if Mexico alone was removed from the data, homicides wouldn’t even make this list. (Oh, and don’t go to Jolo in the Philippines, Somalia — seriously, the country is run by pirates — or anywhere there is a war on…)
3 Suicide, 1,383
When traveling, danger can be anywhere. Yet sometimes, quite a lot actually, the danger is you to yourself. Apparently a lot of people decide to change the scenery when they decide to change their life status. Or something about being away pushes them over the edge. Literally.
4 Drowning, 1,244
Perhaps the most insidious of all deaths, drowning can still follow you abroad. While there are the obvious kinds of traveling to increase chances of drowning, such as scuba or cave diving, white water rafting, or simply going to the beach and getting caught in a rip current, water is everywhere, waiting for you to slip into its final embrace. Take for instance the innocuously named Bolton Strid, a seemingly small, easily crossable creek in Yorkshire, England. A place to dip a languid toe. But the Strid holds a dark secret — it is actually the River Wharfe, which is about 90 feet wide, and much much deeper. In fact no one is quite sure how deep it is though it has been recorded at depths of at least 273 feet. No one is quite sure how many have died here, and the local authorities aren’t too keen to release the grim statistics. (Travel tip: Avoid the friggin’ Bolton Strid.)
5 Air accidents, 336
While films and news reports make flying seem like one of the most dangerous ways to travel, it is in fact the safest mode of transportation. However, that does not leave it without risks. While we often hear of relatively rare commercial airliner crashes, the majority of tourists perish whilst onboard smaller private aircraft.
6 Terrorism, 335
While dying in a terrorist attack is rare, cases do occur. Of course, the chances are increased by traveling to warring parts of the world. But there are instances of terrorist groups specifically targeting areas with the most tourists and expats, as has happened, sickeningly, in the South of France, in Spain and London and elsewhere.
7 Drug related, 273
Dying of drug related reasons while traveling often overlaps with murder, but even still this number may seem surprisingly low. However, this is due to the distinction made by the U.S. State department to separate things such as tainted drugs or overdoses from murders that may occur in the pursuit of drugs. Regardless, if a strange man in a foreign country offers you an unidentifiable substance, it’s probably best to avoid ingestion. And better not to even be there in the first place.
8 Natural Disaster, 164
Whether it is a tsunami or an avalanche turning your triple black diamond ski slope into a tomb, Mother Nature has no restraints when it comes to ruining your vacation. Mother Nature can be a bitch.
9 Maritime accidents, 116
The subject of myths and legends, of beauty and peril, nothing quite compares to the reputation of the ocean. Whether tales of the Titanic or the Costa Concordia, or a brave soul braving to sail around the globe, or someone simply falling overboard, the seas are the largest and most overwhelming part of the planet, and will claim lives so many ways, so capriciously. Given the power and unpredictability of the oceans, it’s a wonder that death at sea is only at number 9.
10 Miscellaneous
Hiking, rafting, caving, extreme sports. Honestly, a) life comes with risk and doing something adventurous is going to come with greater risk. But a life without risk is, well, pretty dull; and b) you could have done any of that at home. At least you got away.
FURTHER NUMBER OF HIGHLY UNLIKELY WAYS YOU WILL DIE ON VACATION, BUT PEOPLE DO, SO YOU’VE BEEN WARNED
Hit on the head by coconut There are few cases, and even fewer of tourists, but it does happen…
Climbing Mount Everest The notorious rainbow valley of poor souls who couldn’t make it to the top, or down.
Cruise ships Different ways of dying on a cruise ship are rare, such as falling overboard, or choking on your food. Most cruise ship deaths are from the elderly using the ship as a retirement home/hospice. I mean, beats a crappy nursery home, right?
Death by Selfie Not only selfies, but taking images in precarious situations for social media points kills many idiot tourists each year.
Falling into a hot spring/volcano While rare this does happen, rarely for volcanoes, most often for people going off the trail in places like Yellowstone and falling through the ground into a hot spring which chemically and thermally burns them to death.
Poisonous gasses Several places are known for the build up of poisonous gas vapours in the world, whether it is the lake Nyos in the Congo, natural phenomenon such as caves lacking adequate oxygen, or poisonous mining, such as the “hole to hell” in Kazakhstan, wherein natural gas leaking from a collapsed well has stayed on fire for decades.
I’m so hot And not in a good way: Heat exposure, most notably in Death Valley and Ethiopia, can be the end of you.
Radiation Chernobyl and the Marshall Islands lead the nuking yourself stakes. And there are plenty of irradiated lakes throughout the former USSR. That is not mentioned in tourism brochures. Should be.
Snakes not on a plane The aptly named Snake Island, and parts of Australia (not Sydney, we’re assuming) are places to give a wide berth.
Running of the bulls Pamplona, Spain. Self explanatory. They’re bulls and you are pissing them off.
Unexploded Mines Many areas used to be war zones and it’s not unheard of for intrepid explorers to step upon a long forgotten ordinance
Fugu The Japanese pufferfish. Eaten raw, if cut wrong, the sushi delicacy can be fatal. Latest numbers are six a year, but we bring it up because there were still six tourists that ate this deadly (and by all accounts pretty bland) fish. More people die eating oysters in the US than eating Fugu anywhere in the world, to put it into (macabre) context.
Organ Harvesting. A nightmare that seemingly could only come from a horror movie, organ harvesting is very real throughout the world, with some people going on vacation to be the recipient of someone else’s organs. While unfortunately most victims happen to be impoverished or oppressed, or tricked into what they thought was a free vacation only to end up on a table, there have been reports that your average run-of-the-mill tourist has grown to become the target of such practices, with at least two concrete reports of this happening from Mexico since 2020.
