Rick Steves: Fear is for people who don’t get out very much

Local European travel expert Rick Steves believes he has a good finger on the pulse of who travels overseas and who doesn’t. From his perspective, the ones who would never travel outside the United States stay home because they think it’s reckless and risky to venture out to areas where everyone hates Christians or Americans.

“These are people who are racked with fear, and I find fear really is for people who don’t get out very much,” Steves told KIRO Radio’s Jason Rantz. “I find the flip side of fear is understanding, and I know we gain understanding when we travel.”

Steves, who takes approximately 20,000 people to Europe every year on tours, wrote a viral Facebook post in the wake of the devastating Paris terrorist attacks that said the best way for Americans to fight terrorism is “to keep traveling.”

Related: France IDs top Paris attacks figure, seeks unity to bomb ISIS

At least 129 people were killed and 352 were wounded during the attacks, but Steves said it’s important to keep the act itself in proper perspective and not overreact. He broke the issue down to eight evil people that did a “tragic and disgusting” thing, killing approximately 18 people a piece, and now the world is deciding to shut down.

“I think we’re rewarding the terrorists and I think the best thing we can do is not do anything risky, but keep a grip on what is the actual risk, not what is the fear, and certainly don’t reward the terrorists by overreacting to the fear that they create,” he said.

“There are 400 million people in Europe,” he added. “Last Friday, in a tragic and disgusting, terrible event, (129) people were killed. Europe is certainly going to be on guard with very tight security. I would say Europe, if anything, is safer now than before last Friday. Certainly not more dangerous.”

Steves has written travel guides and has a travel show, spending four months a year for the past 30 years oversees with people who “find different truths to be self-evident and God-given,” which he said helps see the issue from a broader scope.

“There’s horrible things happening all the time and they get in the news and there are beautiful things happening a thousand-fold to that, and they don’t get in the news,” he said. “I kind of like to focus on all the good stuff in this planet. And I don’t think I’m in denial, I just think I’m not influenced by hysterical news.”

While not wanting to make light of the deaths, he still felt the need to remind people to keep their own physical safety risks in perspective.

“I know the emotions are hard to control, and as much as I can be cerebral about this and say, ‘OK, take a grip on the statistic risk,’ if I go into a concert hall or a stadium or a theater, I met let those fears have the best of me,” he said. “But, especially nowadays, I think it’s important to remember there’s a difference between fear and risk. Terrorists are experts at making fear. And sadly, our media environment is expert at rewarding those terrorists and rewarding them beyond their wildest dreams.”

Steves said people are killed all over the world, but a vast majority of travelers never run into any problems.

“The irony, I really believe, is if we stop traveling, and if we stay home, the world will become a more dangerous place,” he said. “To me it’s a statement for peace, an action for peace, that we continue traveling. And one beautiful thing about traveling is it helps us to better understand other people and it helps them to better understand us and when that’s the case, it’s harder for their propaganda to demonize us and harder for our propaganda to demonize them.”

Related: Former hacker: Anonymous’ efforts to sabotage ISIS might do more harm than good

Rantz admitted that he used to be one of those people who feared traveling abroad, until a recent vacation to Amsterdam, which he called “one of the most amazing places” he’s ever been. He plans to go back in February. Still, he noted that, especially since his trip was only a couple months after the Charlie Hebdo attacks, he was a little scared and cautious about what he was doing. Rantz said there’s a difference between the fear you might get over being mugged or beat up, versus the idea of a terrorist attack.

“Lots of us changed our behavior after 9/11 and I could make the same argument that less than 3,000 people died in a country of about 318 million people, statistically it’s the same argument that you’re essentially making in Paris, just on a slightly different scale,” he said. “And yet most of us would say that it’s reasonable to make some accommodations to understand that we’re living in a different world now, in which terrorism is a reality.”

Steves said he doesn’t want Europe or America to harden their many “soft targets,” such as concert halls and cafes, believing that people should continue to be comfortable living their lives. He had a similar concern when then-Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot, worrying that it would mean the end of congress people being accessible to their constituents.

“Thank goodness we didn’t overreact to that,” he said. “There’s adequate security, but we don’t have all of our congress people isolated so that there’s no danger at all for them to be on the streets. The terrorists will not win if we can guard our freedom. I think we need to take appropriate security response to terrorism.”

Steves added that terrorism is a symptom of something bigger.

“You could bomb everybody in Raqqa into smithereens and you’d think you’d killed ISIS, but you’ve actually caused it to grow,” he said. “And I think a small or pragmatic approach would be to tighten up your security, get the bad guys who did this terrible deed, but think about the symptoms that are causing this and not capitulate to anybody’s demands, but recognize that there are realities on this planet that we don’t really understand when we live here in the United States. We are 4 percent of this planet. There’s 96 percent of humanity outside of our borders that see things differently than us. They’re not right or wrong.”

Related: Adam Smith: We need Muslim allies if we want to defeat ISIS

Steves is a believer in hearing both sides of a narrative and finding it for yourself. For him, that means going to Paris as soon as possible and advising people to cross the Israeli West Bank barrier to meet the Palestinians.

“You could spend the rest of your travel days going to Orlando, and that’s great for people who can’t handle reality, but I want more than lala-land in my travels,” he said. “I want to go out there and meet people and learn what other people are thinking and experiencing and share what excites them. I would love to go to Paris next week. I would be perfectly comfortable … and it would be a strong statement that we will not be terrorized by these guys and, of course, we’re going to move to stop them and make sure security is as good as possible, but we cannot let their terror keep us at home.”