The growth of extreme holidays

Sometimes unpleasant holiday experiences are more rewarding than the luxurious and comfortable ones simply because they can have a profound effect on you and provide memories that really are unforgettable and which stay very much in your mind.

For me, such an example was my first visit to Africa. I went to Cameroon for three weeks and came back with two types of malaria, a complication of it, Blackwater Fever, and another tropical disease, filariasis. I was so close to death a priest was called to my hospital bed.

However, the experience completely changed my perspective on life and its course, and triggered a lifelong love of Africa. Yet I wouldn’t in a thousand years book a holiday promising great potential danger and discomfort, so it’s puzzling how extremne holidays, that curious niche area of the travel industry, where participants sign up to dangerous exploits like touring war zones or death-defying activities, are more popular than ever.

This trend was notably highlighted earlier this month when a group of tourists on an Afghanistan sightseeing tour were attacked. Five western tourists, from a group that included eight Britons, a German and three Americans, were injured in Herat province when their minibus and army escort were hit by gunfire from Taliban militants. No-one was badly hurt in the attack, but it perhaps puts a question mark on the wisdom of holidaying in the likes of Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Chechnya or North Korea.

Into the mouth of a cave

As well as dodgy destinations like these, there is a growing range of questionable extreme activities, such as swimming with sharks in Fiji. There are no cages protecting divers, and only a rope separating the diver from the arena of feeding sharks.

Numerous BASE jumping opportunities around the world include falling off cliffs in Norway, and into the mouth of a cave deep enough to house a high-rise building in Mexico. The latter, the Cave of the Swallows in the rainforest of San Luis Potosi, has a 333m drop.

In Chile you can go volcano bungee jumping, where you dive head first from a helicopter into an active volcano near Pucon, within about 200m of molten lava. Sadly there’s no refund if you don’t come out alive.

Companies offering these trips include Aquatrek, for those wanting to get close up with the sharks, and Hinterland Travel, the British-based company that organised the trip to Afghanistan where participants were attacked. Untamed Borders is another British company, organising such holidays as polo-playing in the Hindu Kush and ski touring in Afghanistan. As well as Afghanistan, Wild Frontiers puts on trips to such destinations as Algeria, Iraq, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi. War Zone Tours visits the likes of Iraq, Beirut and Somalia.

Experiences and destinations that companies like these offer can throw up further problems: many insurance companies won’t cover a client venturing onto soil that is subject to severe governmental advisory warnings - meaning that if your camera gets stolen while observing a shootout with ISIS, you won’t get compensation. But then, that’s likely to be the last thing on your mind in such a situation...