Background: Both in the most distant history and nowadays, travel is accompanied by danger. Nowadays, insecurity is becoming a basic barrier to tourist travel to high-risk areas. The aim of the study was to make a comparative review related to the subject of travel danger in retrospective terms. Material and methods: In a scholarly review, the authors mainly used the historical method, the method of establishing historical facts, the comparative method. The method of analysis and criticism of literature was also used. Results: Travel safety is not a common topic of historical literature on tourism. Although we have many fragmentary accounts in the diary literature, in Polish historiography there are no scholarly monographic works and articles that put the subject of travel safety in a historical context. Conclusions: Travel has always been accompanied by danger. Nowadays, insecurity is becoming a basic barrier to tourist travel to high-risk areas. Threats on the road are of a difficult nature to predict, from the dangers caused by the forces of nature to the deadly threat resulting from human actions, most often with an intent to rob, but also against a political (terrorism), religious or national background. Despite the ongoing civilizational changes, including the extraordinary dynamics of cultural changes, the dangers of travel still show an analogy to the former days. The end of the nineteenth century was a borderline period, it marked the irretrievable end of primitive road banditry. The development of safe communication, the emergence of strong state bodies in Europe with a developed system of security apparatus effectively limited and then eliminated the epicentres of high-risk areas, which does not mean the complete elimination of road banditry. Also today, information about attacks on tourists is coming from some regions of Europe, the mechanisms and methods are confusingly similar to those known from history.
Since the dawn of time, one of the main barriers to travel has been the fear of leaving one’s place of residence and travelling into a foreign unknown and dangerous space. However, at the same time, firmly rooted in human nature is the desire to know and experience travel, this archetypal inner need is the motive for undertaking travel. In the past, in ancient times, it was difficult to travel safely, not always succeeding in avoiding dangerous areas and being among the friendly inhabitants of distant countries. In modern times, too, travel is dangerous and no traveler can have the comfort of carefree travel until the end. This work has the character of scholarly reconnaissance and touches on selected historical threads related to banditry on the roads in the old days. This work deals with the methodology of bibliographic information retrieval using modern search methods for the expansion and accumulation of knowledge on the criminal risks of the commuter in ancient times from antiquity to the 19th century period. The main purpose of the study was to compare existing data already obtained from autopsies with those to be obtained using Google Scholar and the EBSCO databases. Available research articles were searched for using the following keywords: history of tourism, cultural tourism, dangers of travelling, travel dangers, robbery, highwaymen, bandits, robbers. The goal was also to find qualitative studies concerning the outlined areas. This article aims to show the technology of performing a comparative literature review on the subject of the dangers of travel in a historical context. To achieve this goal, the authors used the following methods: the historical method, the historical fact-finding method, the comparative method, and the method of literature analysis and criticism. The research of the second stage yielded very interesting records for the keywords bandits—131,000; cultural tourism—45,000; travel dangers—311; tourism history—7460; and travel dangers—135.
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