“How about Honduras?” she said as we were researching trip destinations… I figured, why not? I’d never been, plus on the surface it seems a lot like the rest of central america. Turns out, the answer to the “why not?” was a few reasons deep:
- Honduras has the highest per capita murder rate in the western hemisphere world at 82 homicides per 100k. For reference, at that rate there would have been nearly 7000 homicides in NYC proper last year. (there were 500ish)
- The nation also wins the award for most dangerous city on earth: 1. San Pedro Sula, Honduras 2. Juarez, Mexico 3. Kabul, Afghanistan. Really? Worse than Juarez?
- Additionally, Honduras is home to some to the highest rates of Malaria, AIDS and Hepatitis A in hemisphere.
- The coup-prone nation lacks the political, military and healthcare infrastructure to adequately deal with any of the above.
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So where did we end up changing our trip to? Well Honduras of course. We did make a bit of a detour to avoid the aforementioned San Pedro Sula, heading to Roatan to be exact. And while some might consider the choice a bit risky, we didn’t travel without a fool-proof 5 step plan for survival:
1. Beware the locals.