The Jetpacker

The U.S. State Department is just releasing their final tally of American citizens who died outside the country in 2009… and the number is slightly more concerning than normal.

Here’s the bad news: the number of Americans who died from “non-natural” deaths abroad jumped to 881, the highest total on record dating back to data available from 2002.

That’s 156 more than last year and 233 more than 2006, the lowest total on record (648).

For the morbidly curious, here’s how the deaths break down by category:

252 vehicle accident
190 homicide
134 other accident
119 drowning
114 suicide
25 air accident
18 drug-related cause
13 maritime accident
10 terrorist action
6 disaster

A few important things to notice here:

–Boats are more dangerous than terrorists.

–Americans need to learn how to swim.

–Not everyone wants to kill us!  Looks like we’re more likely to die by getting hit by a bus or accidentally driving on the wrong side of the road than getting shanked in an alley.

–I’m not exactly sure what the vaguely titled “other accident” category encompasses, but it either means Americans are really clumsy, or they’re doing crazy things like cliff-diving and sky-diving and a host of other dangerous adventurous activities I never plan on doing in my life.

–Apparently Americans don’t want to travel abroad to get high.  Those 18 drug-related deaths abroad are nothing compared to the 17,000 people who die from overdoses every year in America.

So where are you at greater risk of death?  Here are the top 5 most dangerous countries to travel to:

#5  Thailand – 24 deaths

#4  (tie) Germany, Honduras & Philippines – 25 deaths

#3  Dominican Republic – 32 deaths

#2  Costa Rica – 33 deaths

#1  Mexico – 229 deaths

Holy shit, Mexico is a death trap!  That’s far and away the most dangerous place for Americans to travel — almost 7 times more deadly than the second deadliest city.

91 of those deaths were the result of vehicle accidents, meaning they really need to reevaluate their driving test in Mexico.

And 79 deaths were the result of murder, many of which took place in Tijuana and Cuidad Juarez where the drug war is violently out of control.

So if you’re planning to cross a border for vacation, head north instead.  Canada is a much safer alternative:  only 19 of the approximately 12 million Americans who visited Canada in 2009 perished, and not one was murdered.

In addition to the 881 “non-natural” deaths figure, the State Department estimates that over 6,000 Americans die abroad each year.  I really don’t know why that number is so much higher — I doubt that the other 5,000+ plus people that died abroad all died of “natural” causes.  So don’t look too much into these numbers…

Because here’s the good news: your risk of dying abroad is infinitesimal.

According to a report from the CDC, over 60 million Americans travel abroad every year.  So if 6,000 of those people die, that means your odds of dying abroad are 0.0001%.

So go travel.  Have fun.  Watch out for traffic.  And don’t go to Mexico.