Travel+Vocabulary+by+Jess

Travel: the other side of the coin

Most of us have, at some point in our lives, experienced the joys of travel. We go to the **1** __**travel agency**__ to pick up our brochures. We book a two-week **__2 package tour__** with flights and accommodation included (or if we are **__3 independent travellers__**, we make our own way to the country and travel around from place to place with a rucksack on our back). We make sure we have all the right currency, our passport and any **__4 visas__** that are necessary to get us into the country. We go to the airport and **__5 check-in.__** We strap ourselves into our tiny __**6 economy class**__ aircraft seats and a few hours later we __**7** **disembark**__ from the aircraft, strange new sights, smells and sounds greeting us. Nowadays, it seems, the whole world goes on holiday at once: the age of **__8 mass tourism__** is in full swing!

But for the great majority of people around the world, travel for them is done in the face of great adversity and hardship. They never get to indulge in an **__9 business class__** holiday in a luxury hotel with all meals and drinks included. They never get to explore the lush Amazon rain forest or the frozen wastes of the Arctic on an **__10 eco-tourism__** holiday. For them, travel is a matter of life and death. I refer, of course, to all the **__11refugees__** escaping from their own countries or the __**12 internally displaced**__, moved from one part of their country to another by an uncaring government, or **__13 economic migrants__** forced to find a job and seek a living wherever they can.

Can you imagine anything worse than the misery these people must face?? Let’s not confuse them with those **__14 expatriates__**, who choose to live in another country and often have nice houses and high salaries. These people are simply desperate to survive. As well as losing their homes because of war or famine or other natural disasters, they must come to terms with their new environment: for many the __**15 culture shock**__ can be too great. And while many countries with an open policy on __**16 immigration**__ will welcome them in with open arms, others will simply turn them away. These people become **__17 persona non grata,__** unwanted and unwelcome. Even if they manage to get into a country, they will often be **__18 deported__** or repatriated. Their future is uncertain.

Something to think about, perhaps, the next time you are **1__9 checking in__** to your five-star hotel by a palm-fringed beach or sitting in a coach on an **__20 excursion__** to a pretty castle in the countryside.