Any number of concerns are on our radar as we plan our next trip, from serious issues like how destinations are working to mitigate tourists’ environmental impact to inconveniences like months-long passport wait times. In this column, our travel expert addresses your questions about how to navigate the world.

I’m going to Mexico City and have heard that the food scene is incredible. But a friend of mine just went there and got a parasite, and she thinks it came from a meal at a food truck. I’m an adventurous eater, but I want to avoid getting sick. How can I protect myself when I’m traveling and eating out all the time? —A Queasy Foodie

Whether you’re having carnitas from a roadside taco standĚýin MexicoĚýor dumplings from a teahouse in Nepal, experiencing local food culture is one of the joys of travel, as it sounds like you well know. But contracting a foodborne illness far from home can be traumatic, dulling even the most adventurous palates and even scaring travelers from returning to a destination.

When Anne Driscoll told friends that she and her family would be visiting Punta Mita, Mexico, she received unanimous advice: be wary of what you eat and drink. At least a halfĚýdozen friends who had already traveled to the small Pacific-coast surf town had experienced gastro disasters. Forewarned, she took every precaution, from increasing her normal probiotic doses before theĚýtrip to avoiding fresh produce while there and only drinking bottled water throughout her stay. However, theĚýentire family still gotĚýextremely ill. “It was catastrophic,” she says. “I was violently expelling the contents of my stomach through both ends.”

Driscoll was the first to fall ill. She thinks a hamburger she ate at the resort restaurant might have been the culprit. SheĚýassumed it would be harmless if cooked well-done. Her husband and two teenage daughters relaxed their guardĚýthe final day of vacation and had ice in their drinks. The ice potentially could have caused the 24 hours of intestinal agony that, unfortunately, overlapped with their flights home to New Mexico. “They used up all the barf bags on the plane, and my youngest got sick in four different places throughout the Dallas airport,” she says. Driscoll has no plans to return to Mexico anytime soon. “I know it’s not logical, but the experience was so bad that I can’t imagine going back and risking it again,” she says.

Each year one in six Americans comesĚýdown with food-related illnesses caused by bacteria, viruses, or parasites. Some countries, like Mexico, have a reputation for felling travelers with gastrointestinal bugs (who hasn’t heard of Montezuma’s revenge?). Developing countries, especially ones with humid climates where bacteria breed more easily, tend to be dicier, says Dr. Kyle Staller, director of the Gastrointestinal Motility Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “But you can get sick from contaminated water or an improperly handled burger patty anywhere in the world, including the U.S.,” he adds.

Causes of GI Distress

Food-related illnesses are caused by , including salmonella,ĚýE. coli, norovirus, and giardia. They often fester on raw or undercooked meat, raw vegetables, food stored at unsafe temperatures, or food prepared in an unsanitary manner or with contaminated water.

“Don’t drink the water” is a common travel precaution, especially when visiting third-world countries. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 180 countries, including popular vacation spots like Mexico, Thailand, and Belize, have tap water considered unsafe for consumption. Even if it is potable, drinking waterĚýin a far-flung locale can still cause GI distress, cautions Dr. Lynne Ahn, an integrative gastroenterologist in Boston. “Everyone’s gut biome is unique,” she explains. “If the mineral or salt content of the water in a destination is different from what you’re used to at home, you could experience discomfort or worse.”

Traveler’s diarrhea is a common illness, affecting between 30 percent and 70 percent of people on the road, according to the CDC. Depending on the bacteria, parasite, or virus, you could end up suffering a few hours or even a week, and experience vomiting, stomach cramps, body aches, and a fever. People who have irritable bowel syndrome or a compromised immune system are often at greater risk of more serious side effects,Ěýsays Staller.

Best Practices

No one wants to spend vacation sitting on or hovering over a toilet. A good rule of thumb is to drink filtered or bottled water (although try to avoid single-use plastics, opting instead for glass bottles or cans) when traveling to a destination with questionable water quality. Ahn also recommends making sure all beverages arrive sealed, and wiping off the container before taking a sip. Even small quantities of dirty water can have serious repercussions, so it’s smart to avoid ice and use filtered or bottled water to brush your teeth, she says.

If you really want to play it safe, stick to familiar foods, says Kendra Weekley, a gastrointestinal specialist at the Cleveland Clinic. Different diets create different gut flora, which is why locals in Kerala, India, are able to handle a fiery curry but that same dish, even if the ingredients are uncontaminated, may leave anĚýAmerican traveler with an upset stomach. In high-risk gastro-disaster destinations like India and Nepal, travelers may find it’s wise to carryĚýa stash of snacks like protein bars and instant oatmeal, especially if they’re undertaking an adventure like trekking or mountaineering.

Unfortunately for healthy eaters and vegetarians, fresh, unprocessed, and highly nutritious foods like vegetables and fruits will most likely get you sick in a country without rigorous sanitation standards, says Staller, who advises avoiding lettuce as well as produce that doesn’t have peelable skin. And like at home, travelers should be wary of raw and undercooked seafood and meat, he adds.

If you’ve been justifying an extra glass of cabernet or vodka and soda, thinking it can help ward off germs, think again. While some studies have suggested that drinking alcohol with a meal can reduce the chance of food poisoning, due to increased acidic content in the stomach, Staller says alcohol cannot kill foodborne pathogens and will most likely just leave you dehydrated.

Where You Can Safely Eat

It may sound like you have to live off packaged snacks, but avoiding gastro issues doesn’t necessarily mean sacrificing culinary pleasures. Food is one of the best vehicles to explore a culture and can typically be enjoyed without incident if you take proper precautions, says Staller.

In general, eating from street-food vendors is riskier than dining at a restaurant. That’s because in many developing countries, hawker carts and food trucks aren’t held to the same food-safety standards. If you do choose to eat street food, however, try to catchĚýa glimpse of the preparation area. Does the kitchen look clean? Are food handlers wearing gloves? Are raw meat and raw vegetables beingĚýhandled separately to prevent crossĚýcontamination?

A long line is often a sign of good quality, says Staller. This tenet applies to restaurants, too. “When there’s a high degree of turnover with diners, ingredients are being used versus sitting in a refrigerator that might have an unreliable power supply,” he says. Foods left out for long periods, especially in humid environments, are more likely to put the eater at risk of developing food poisoning. Which is why experts always suggest skipping the buffet.

Ed and Christy Rossi learned this lesson the hard way on a trip to Marrakech, Morocco. The weeklong conference they attended provided a daily lunch buffet, with dishes heated by warming trays and salads kept fresh with misters. But it wasn’t long beforeĚýthe couple succumbed to vomiting and bloody diarrhea. “I thought we were dying,” recalls Ed. Upon returning home to Colorado,Ěýthey immediately went to their doctor for antibiotics and discovered they’d contracted shigella, a gastro superbug. The experience hasn’t prevented them from returning to Morocco, but they’ve sworn off buffets in general.

Avoiding fresh fruits and vegetables extends to condiments, something even cautious eaters may overlook, says Staller. A bowl of salsa looks inviting when you’re noshing nachos, but anything made from raw vegetables or fruits can be trouble. And it doesn’t hurt to wipe off the opening of that bottle of hot sauce or ketchup before use.

Preventative Measures

Some evidence suggests that taking probiotics two weeks prior to travel, and while traveling, can reduce the rate of traveler’s diarrhea, says WeekleyĚýof the Cleveland Clinic. However, different strains of “good” bacteria affect people differently, so find what works for you and take an effective dose (ask your doctor or pharmacist). Side effects can include bloating or gas. If the thought of getting sick is causing you stress, probiotic pills are a low-risk, potentially high-reward precaution, she says.

But also: travel anxiety can often unsettle your stomach before you even reach your destination.ĚýSays Weekley, “If your mind is stressing over packing and getting to the airport, your gut will feel it.”ĚýBreathing techniques and free meditation apps like Breethe or Headspace can help calm your nervous system ahead of travel or while on the plane.

And be sure to stay hydrated on the flight. “People don’t want to get up to use the bathroom and end up dehydrated and constipated,” says Weekley. If you’re prone to getting backed up from flying or an atypical diet, she suggests traveling with soluble fiber supplements or a stool softener like MiraLax.

Staller regularly works in developing countries and says he has a tendencyĚýto suffer from GI problems. His go-to? That tried-and-true recommendation: Barbie-pink Pepto Bismol. A of students traveling to Mexico showed that those who took two tablets of Pepto BismolĚýfour times a day were 60 percent less likely to experience traveler’s diarrhea. Staller says that’s his regimen the minute he hits the ground and throughout a trip. He notes, though, that Pepto Bismol’s active ingredient, bismuth subsalicylate, can cause alarming but harmless symptoms such as black stools or a black tongue.

What to Do if You Get Sick

If you contract a foodborne illness, symptoms such as stomach cramps, chills, vomiting, and diarrhea typically start within hours but can also occur several days after ingestingĚýtainted food or drink. When you’re ill, your body tendsĚýto lose a lot of liquid, so staying hydrated is crucial. “It’s often dehydration that makes you feel more sick,” says Staller. He recommends traveling with oral rehydration salts, which are absorbed more effectively by the body than water alone. “It’s like the equivalent of an IV,” he says.

Traveler’s diarrhea is largely resistant to antibiotics, he says, so your best plan is to be close to a bathroom, stay hydrated, and ride it out. If you have severe symptoms, like a fever or blood in your stool, seek out medical care.

If you’re an omnivore and an intrepid traveler, chances are you’ll be hit with a gastro catastrophe at some point in your journeys. Often disaster strikes when you let your guard down or simply don’t trust your gut. I tend to have a stomach of steel. TheĚýtwo times I have gotten food poisoning I questioned what I was consuming yetĚýproceeded anyway to be polite to my hosts. All it took was the smallest sip of a lassi that had been sitting out in the sun in Varanasi, India, and a tiny bite of goat stew in the Omo Valley of Ethiopia to cause me 24 hours of anguish. Lesson learned: table manners don’t always apply on the road.

Have a question of your own? Drop us a line at Traveladvice@outsideinc.com.Ěý

şÚÁĎłÔšĎÍř correspondent Jen Murphy became an omnivore after an eight-year stint working at Food and Wine magazine. She’s since eaten everything from guinea pig to grasshoppers to fried cod sperm sacs and has remarkably only been hit with two major gastro disasters in all of her world travels.Ěý

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As the earth warms, our mountains, rivers, glaciers, and oceans will change, some inĚýunpredictable ways. So we pored overĚýthe research and called a few experts. Here’s a little of what we have to look forward to.

Backcountry Skiing Becomes Bony

In the past 50 years, average snowpack in the western U.S. has declined as much as 30 percent. One projection for the next century has the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada dropping another 60 percent from today’s levels. Resorts are investing in snowmaking technology to help offset the decline, but backcountry skiers will have fewer and fewer options.

Surfers Have More Giants to Ride

Climate change is contributing to larger, more intense storms, particularly in the tropics. The same systems likely to devastate coastal communities will also create enormous swells for big-wave surfers—­including, perhaps, the fabled 100-foot wave.

Rivers Change Course

The Fourth National Climate Assessment, a Ěýproduced by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, reported that heavy rains have increased in intensity and frequency since 1901, though not evenly across the world or the U.S. In the arid Southwest, precipitation is expected to decrease, spelling the end of paddling on some sections of the Salt River and the Rio Grande. In the Northeast, rains may increase, opening up new whitewater in places like the Adirondack watershed.

The Route to the South Pole Shrinks

Antarctica’s Ross Island is home to Ernest Shackleton’s hut, the historic launch point for expeditions to the South Pole. Soon, though, explorers starting out here might need a boat. A section of the California-sizeĚýRoss Ice Shelf, a frozen mass over the sea that adventurers ski or sled across to reach the Antarctic continent, is losing nearly six feet of ice each year—a number that’s only expected to increase.

The Northwest Passage Gets Busy

It took centuries to find a navigable route through the sea ice of the Northwest Passage, and hundreds of adventurers lost their lives along the way. But as the Arctic has warmed, the ice has receded. Now cargo vessels and even cruise ships make regular trips through the widening waterway. Next year, adventurer Karl Kruger will become the first to attempt to paddleboard the passage.

Deserts Are Deserted

Scientists project that entire swaths of the Middle East and northern Africa will soon be nearly uninhabitable for humans, due to drought and heat waves that will spike temperatures to upward of 122 degrees. Areas like Oman’s Wadi Bani Awf region, long known for its canyoneering adventures, could become too hot to visit, while ˛Ń´Ç°ů´ÇłŚłŚ´Ç’s multi-day 156-mile Marathon des Sables, already touted as the world’s toughest footrace, might become impossible.

More Avalanches on Mount Everest

In 2018, scientists at the University of Geneva found that over the past 150 years, the number of slides in the Himalayas has increased dramatically. As researchers Ěýin Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, recent warming is “the most plausible explanation.” As snowfall remains consistent and temperatures rise, the destabilized snowpack may lead to more frequent releases. In the past five years, 32 people have died in avalanches on Everest.

RIP Great Barrier ReefĚý

In 2016, high water temperatures caused a massive bleaching event in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef that killed nearly 30 percent of its 134,634 square miles of coral. A new Ěýfrom the Climate Council, an Australian think tank, projected that by 2034, similar bleaching events could occur every two years, “effectively destroying the Great Barrier Reef.”

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The narrow, rutted road leading into Imlil, the gateway town to ˛Ń´Ç°ů´ÇłŚłŚ´Ç’s High Atlas Mountains, usually rumbles with activity. On a typical day, sand-colored taxis bringing day-trippers up from Marrakech, 56 miles to the north, share the road with hulking tour buses and snub-nosed vans with Transport TouristiqueĚýwritten in script across their hoods. Taxis crammed with budget-minded backpackers trundle behind luxury SUVs from the nearby Kasbah Tamadot, Richard Branson’s luxury retreat, where rooms cost more than $600 a night. In warm weather, German motorcyclists riding BMWs laden with gearboxes zoom past cyclists in bright helmets powering up the twisty mountain road.

Imlil, the central town in a valley with around 10,000 inhabitants, was once a sleepy out-of-the-way place, little known even to Moroccans. In recent years, though, as more hikers attempt to summit 13,671-foot Mount Toubkal, northern Africa’s highest peak, ImlilĚýhas become something of an adventure travel hot spot. For residents, the regular hum of traffic is reassuring. It’s the sound of more people coming to spend money in a region where most locals now derive their income from tourism.

The town has undergone an astonishing transformation since the first time I visited, in 2006, when I was living in Morocco as a Fulbright fellow. Back then, the valley was adjusting to electricity, which it had just acquired for the first time. NowĚýit has well over 100 Airbnb listings. This spring, when I walked through Imlil with guide and guesthouse owner Mohammed Idhali, he pointed out the businesses that had opened since my last visit: the argan-oil cooperative, the orange-juice stand, the carpet shop, that guide outfitter, that other guide outfitter, the pizzeria-creperie. şÚÁĎłÔšĎÍř a tea shop, a half-dozen local guides wearing North Face jackets and secondhand boots awaited their clients, shouting out greetings to passing friends: Ya, Rashid! Ya, Omar! Muleteers let their animals graze the stray roadside grass before loading them up for treks into the mountains. “Everyone works, so it’s better now,” Hassan Azdour, another guide and guesthouse owner, told me. “And everyone works with tourists. Out of every 100 people in the village, only five don’t work with tourists.”

But on a winter day last year, all that bustling energy came to a sudden halt. On the morning of December 17, vehicles with government insignias sped along the road leading into Imlil, while the center of town remained eerily devoid of action. By midmorning, word of something terrible had begun to spread through the community: hikers—two young women, one from Denmark and the other from Norway—had been found dead on the trail leading up to Mount Toubkal, less than tenĚýmiles south of Imlil. Phones buzzed with rumors and assumptions. Perhaps, some people thought, the women had lit their camp stove in their tent and died of carbon-monoxide poisoning. But as more information emerged, it became clear that the deaths were not accidental. The women had died violently.

Four law-enforcement helicopters from Marrakech descended onto the rocky riverbed near the Toubkal trailhead. A team of investigators from the Central Bureau of Judicial Investigations (BCIJ), ˛Ń´Ç°ů´ÇłŚłŚ´Ç’s equivalent of the FBI, arrived on scene.ĚýClusters of Imlil locals watched anxiously. The dominant emotion was shock, with a strong undercurrent of fear. They said the kinds of things that people often say when their home is made strange by the sudden incursion of violence: How could this have happened here? Who could’ve done something like this? And what will happen now?

A month earlier, on November 21, Louisa Jespersen, 24, posted a question to her Facebook followers: “Dear friends, I’m going to Morocco in December. Any of you guys who’s around by then or any mountain friends who knows something about Mount Toubkal?”

Jespersen’s friends called her Lulu, a nickname that suited her playful personality and abundant appetite for life. Jespersen, who wasĚýfrom Denmark, described herself in a YouTube video as “very enthusiastic about outdoors and outdoor activities.” Her social-media presence bears this out: there’s Lulu doing a handstand on a beach, and hoisting an ice axĚýin the air, and pumping out push-ups, and whitewater kayaking, and diving off a rock into a blue pool of water. She liked to mug for the camera, sticking out her tongue and twisting her face into silly shapes; in photographsĚýshe’s often captured laughing in a wide-open way. Her former boyfriend, Glen Martin, who remained close with Jespersen even after they broke up, described her on social media as a “bundle of joy.” She was as tough as she was cheery. On a 2018 trip to Australia, she tried surfing for the first time. “I’m ready to fall a thousand more times on this board if it means that I one day will be able to stand on it,” she wrote on Instagram. The year before, Jespersen had applied to be part of a grueling polar expedition sponsored by Swedish apparel company Fjällräven. In her video application, she explains her hunger to experience “the magnificent, untamed Arctic.”

Like Jespersen, Maren Ueland wasĚýworking toward a degree in outdoor life, culture, and ecophilosophy at the University of Southeastern Norway, in Boe. Ueland was from a small lakeside town in Norway, where she spent her childhood immersed in the outdoors. Shy as a child, she grew into an adventurous, idealistic young woman who cared deeply about others. She lived her life “both spontaneously and purposefully,” her parish priest would say later. She dreamed of working in outdoor therapy, according to her mother, a career that would’ve engaged her interest in nature and nursing. (I reached out to friends and family members of Jespersen and Ueland, but they all declined to comment.)

Ueland didn’t careĚýmuch for Christmas—all that holiday materialism put a bad taste in her mouth—and often traveled over winter break. Morocco, with its winter sunshine and abundant trekking opportunities, was an appealing destination for the two frequent travelers and aspiring outdoor guides, who’d recently become friends. On December 8, Jespersen and Ueland arrived in Morocco. They planned to stay aĚýmonth.

In the past decade, Morocco has become one of the most popular tourist destinations in Africa. As other countries in the Middle East and North Africa have been riven by political conflict and instability following the Arab Spring, Morocco has traded on its reputation as a safe and tourist-friendly vacation spot. The country’s sporty 55-year-old monarch, King Mohammed VI, has prioritized tourism, and the country has set the ambitious goal of becoming one of the top 20 travel destinations in the world by next year. In 2018, more than 12 million foreign tourists traveled to Morocco, setting a new record. Most visitors stick to ˛Ń´Ç°ů´ÇłŚłŚ´Ç’s cities—Marrakech, Fès, Tangier—which are justifiably famous for their mazelike medinas and carpet-haggling opportunities. But over the past decade, as tourists have increasingly sought outdoor experiencesĚýand local culture, a growing number have also begun to visit ˛Ń´Ç°ů´ÇłŚłŚ´Ç’s countryside.

Like many outdoorsy adventurers, Jespersen and Ueland were drawn to ˛Ń´Ç°ů´ÇłŚłŚ´Ç’s High Atlas, or Idraren Draren—Mountains of Mountains—as they are known in the Berber language. The range extends from the Atlantic Ocean toward the Algerian border,Ěýand it’s rugged enough that Martin Scorsese used it as a stand-in for the Himalayas when he filmed his 1997 epic,ĚýKundun. The two-day trek up Toubkal is one of the most popular hikes in the region, not only because it offers peak-bagging bragging rightsĚýbut also because it’s a nontechnical climb that’s accessible to fit hikers. Earlier this year, CNN deemed it one of the world’s best trails.

Jespersen and Ueland arrived in Imlil by taxi, according to local sources, and soon set off for the hike to the summit. They opted not to enlist a guide. “If you have considerable experience reading maps in mountain regions, you may not need a guide from a navigational point of view,” Lonely Planet Morocco advises, “but you should seriously consider engaging one anyway… If for no other reason than to be your translator, your chaperone… deal-getter and vocal guidebook…. If something were to go wrong, a local guide will be the quickest route to getting help.” That said, local guides told me that experienced, well-equipped hikers who were fit enough that they didn’t need a pack mule to lug their gear—hikers like Jespersen and Ueland—often opted to climb the peak unaccompanied.

In December, wind, snow, and below-freezing temperatures dissuade some visitors from the High Atlas, but Toubkal remains popular. After leaving Imlil, Jespersen and Ueland would’ve first ascended a narrow mule trail that crossed a rocky floodplain near the village of Aroumd, which marks the official start of the trail. From there, the path snakes steadily upward. Despite the sharp-edged mountain faces rising in front of them, the two friends likely wouldn’t have felt as though they were in a notably remote or desolate place. They shared the path with a number of trekkers, guides, and muleteers, several of whom later remembered the women as smiling and friendly. If they felt a sudden craving for a tin of Pringles or a package of wafer cookiesĚýor, for that matter, a Toubkal T-shirt, they could’ve stopped at one of the small shops—known as hanouts, in Moroccan Arabic—scattered along the lower elevations. After a couple hours of walking, they could’ve paused for mint tea at a cafĂŠĚýin the small settlement of Sidi Chamarouche, where the trail briefly levels outĚýnear a series of cascading waterfalls. From there, the path continues another three and a half miles to the Refuge du Toubkal, a mountain hostel at 10,521 feet. Hikers typically spend the night there, taking advantage of its basic restaurant and hot showers, before waking up before sunrise to tackle the summit the next day.

Above the refuge, the hike gets more serious, with crampons a necessity well into April. In December, snow cover can make it easier to navigate Toubkal’s notorious scree slopes—dubbed “heartbreaking” and “awful” by one TripAdvisor reviewer—but biting winds make the winter journey more arduous than many expect, although presumably the conditions were nothing surprising for two Scandinavian women with glacier-climbing experience. The broad, rocky summit is often crowded with hikers taking triumphant selfies in front of the pyramidal peak marker. On a clear day, if you squint at the horizon, you might be able to spot the shining dunes of the Sahara Desert.

At the same time Jespersen and Ueland were navigating the Toubkal trail, four men from the outskirts of Marrakech were approaching the peak from the opposite direction. At one of the mountain passes, the men crossed paths with Brahim Baakenna, a local guide who was accompanying two Danish tourists. The encounter seemed unremarkable at the time. Baakenna exchanged greetings with the men, who appeared to be in their twenties and thirties, then pointed out the path leading up to the refuge. Perhaps unprepared for the snowy conditions, the men didn’t make it to the refuge and remained on the lower-elevation trails. They had a brief, cordial conversation with a hanout owner (who asked to remain anonymous for this story) and, according to Moroccan security services, they also spoke with a British hiker, asking him if he was Muslim. He reportedly said that he was.

According to local sourcesĚý(who could not confirm whether the women summited), on their way down the mountain, the pairĚýdidn’t pass by the refuge until sometime after 4 P.M., significantly later than most descending hikers. Guidebooks note that it takes around three or four hours to make it from the refuge back to Imlil, and starting early is particularly important in December, when the sun sets around 6:30. The man who runs the hanout closest to the trailhead shuttered his store around four, then headed home without having seen the women. By the time Jespersen and Ueland reached his shop, it would’ve been near sunset, if not already dark. If they had continued to walk another half-hour or so downhill, they would have reached the village of Aroumd, where they could’ve rented a room and eaten a hot meal. InsteadĚýthey opted to pitch their tent on a flat piece of ground next to the hanout and spend one more night on the mountain.

The men from Marrakech spotted them around 7 P.M., after the women had set up camp. They pitched their own tent a couple hundred feet downslope. They now numbered three, one member of their party having already headed back to the city in order to find a safe house, according to security officials. At midnight, the three men, armed with knives, approached Jespersen and Ueland’s camp. One of the women (authorities still haven’t said which) was stabbed to death in the tent and another just outside it. Shortly after the attack, the three men fled the scene, leaving their tent behind.

The next morning, two French tourists staying in Imlil set out for an early-morning hike. After about an hour, they reached the hanoutĚýand discovered the two bodies. They ran down the mountain to report the crime. “We saw a tent and that it was open, and we saw the two girls,” one of the hikers later told . “It was horrible. They were broken. We warned everyone we saw in Imlil not to go up there. I did not want more to see what we had seen.”

Soon the mountain was swarming with emergency medical technicians and forensic investigators. Residents of Imlil clustered near the trailhead, trying to make sense of what had happened. Some surmised that the killers had come from Sidi Chamarouche. The small community on the mountain is centered aroundĚýa shrine honoring a saint reputed to cure mental illness. Perhaps someone mentally unwell had caused what they were all starting to call, with horrific understatement, “the problem.” It was unthinkable to imagine that such a crime had been committed by a member of their close-knit community. An attack on a tourist was also an attack on the underlying economy of the entire valley. “You would rather hurt yourself than hurt a tourist,” Mohammed Idhali told me, “because if you hurt a tourist, you hurt everyone.”

By Wednesday, two days after the bodies were discovered, a disturbing video was circulating on Facebook. Over the course of its 76 seconds, it purportedly showed the stabbing and decapitation of one of the women. In the background, a man declares that the murders are revenge for ISIS defeats in Syria. When the video popped up on local guide Baakenna’sĚýfeed, he realized that he had met the killers on the hiking trails above Imlil. “I was crying,” he told me. “I was very afraid.”

Moroccans were stunned by the murders, which the prime minister called a “stab in the back of Morocco and Moroccans.” For some, they provoked flashbacks to the country’s last terrorist attack, a 2011 bombing at a popular cafĂŠĚýin Marrakech’s central square that left 17 dead, most of them European tourists. “I was in Marrakech in the immediate aftermath of [the 2011 attack], and that was quite striking,”Ěýsays Amine Ghoulidi, a researcher at King’s College in LondonĚýwho focuses on geopolitics and security in North Africa. “The city was very much deserted, the hotels were empty, the mood was down. That was not a good sight for a city that’s usually pretty vibrantĚýand that’s very dependent on tourist activity.”

The Saturday after Jespersen and Ueland’s bodies were discovered, hundreds of Moroccans gathered for candlelight vigils outside the Danish and Norwegian embassies. In Marrakech, tour guides convened to collectively condemn the murders. (All this despite the fact that Morocco has had notably fewer domestic terror attacks than the U.S. or most EUĚýcountries.) Nonetheless, the gruesome details of the murders—and the visceral horror of the video—were fodder for racist agitators. On Ueland’s Facebook memorial page, some people uploaded photos of her bloodied body alongside comments advocating that all Moroccans be expelled from the EU.

˛Ń´Ç°ů´ÇłŚłŚ´Ç’s security forces moved quickly in the wake of the attack. A few hours after the bodies were discovered, law enforcement arrested a 33-year-old plumber named Abderrahim Khayali in Marrakech. Three days later, three other suspects were arrested as they attempted to travel by bus out of Marrakech, with the murder weapons still in their possession, according to investigators from the BCIJ. They allegedly hoped to travel to Libya to join ISIS.

The four men, aged 25 to 33, lived in neighborhoods marked by high rates of poverty and unemployment on the outskirts of Marrakech. That city, ˛Ń´Ç°ů´ÇłŚłŚ´Ç’s biggest tourist destination, “is a victim of its own success,” Ghoulidi told me. “It attracts millions of people every year, and it’s become quite gentrified. Prices are not accessible to the average Moroccan, so families move more toward the periphery of the city, which creates more isolation and stimulates grievances that might have shaped these people’s perception of ‘the other.’”

The men had low educational levels and marginal jobs, , a Moroccan intelligence spokesman. Abdessamad Ejjoud, the alleged ringleader of the group, had previously been caught attempting to travel to Syria to link up with ISIS, and he spent a year in prison. Afterward, he became part of this plot closer to home, one allegedly targeting “security services or foreign tourists.” A week before the murders, the four men filmed themselves pledging allegiance to the Islamic State, although Sabik insists that they were “” who did not coordinate in advance with ISIS. (ISIS has not taken credit for Jespersen and Ueland’s murders, although the group doesn’t tend to claim attacks when the perpetrators are in custody.)

The men “were part of a terrorist cell meeting regularly to plan attacks in Morocco,” Abdelhak El Khiam, director of the BCIJ, told me. The group’s strategy allegedly included potential attacks against a synagogue in Marrakech and the Gnaoua World Music Festival, in the coastal city Essaouira. “But the four men decided to detach themselves from the rest of the group and take action immediately,” El Khiam says. The men suspected correctly that their group was being surveilled by Moroccan security services, and “Imlil was the perfect remote location to evade the surveillance and finally take action,” he says.

“We’ve already dismantled some terrorist cells that were much more dangerous and more organized, with many more resources than this one,” El Khiam says. “There is a change in the terrorist profile, not only here in MoroccoĚýbut everywhere else in the world. They’re now taking action with only their own small resources. That was the case in Imlil—just four people and cheap knives.”

The three main suspects who were present for the murders admitted to the crime in a trial this spring. On , while Khayali, who’d reportedly left before the attack, was sentenced to life in prison. Twenty-one other Moroccans, allegedly part of the terrorist cell, remain on trial. The group includes a Spanish-Swiss citizen named Kevin Zoller Guervos. Guervos had a number of run-ins with the law as a teenager before converting to Islam in 2011. Guervos, who now goes by Abdellah and lives in Marrakech, was accused of recruiting the four men and teaching them how to use encrypted communications and fire a gun. According to investigators, he targeted “ignorant people who have nothing.” (Guervos .) In Denmark, 14 people—including two children under age 15—were charged for sharing the video filmed at the scene of the crime.ĚýThatĚývideo,Ěý, was subsequently used as ammunition to condemn Islam and even to mock the victims’Ěýtolerant views.

After the arrests, the murders continued to trouble the small community where they took place. The hanout owner, disturbed that his shop had been the site of such brutality, left it shuttered for more than two weeks. To guide and outfitter Mohamed Idhali, the valley he knew so well felt suddenly strange, full of unseen menace. For the first time in his life, he was scared to walk home in the dark. The fear coursing through the Imlil Valley wasn’t just visceral; it was also economic. A family from Denmark had reserved Idhali’s entire guesthouse for three days over New Year’s. After the murders, they cancelled, as did other groups. Imlil’s economy was increasingly entwined with tourism, and it seemed possible that the attacks, and the international publicity they received, could shatter the town. “I worried! I worried about the future,” IdhaliĚýsays.

He had reason to be concerned. “Tunisia used to be the example in the region, the ‘good student’ that everyone looked to,” Amine Ghoulidi told me. “The quality of hotels was outstanding, the service was impressive.” More than 400,000 British tourists visited Tunisia in 2014, but after a handful of widely publicized terrorist attacks, that number plummeted to just 28,000 in 2017. Egypt, where tourism was a cornerstone of the economy, saw visitation drop by two-thirds after the Arab Spring and subsequent political unrest. “Tourism is an extremely fragile industry,” Ghoulidi says.

On January 21, Maren Ueland’s funeral was held at her hometown’sĚýlocal parish church in Norway. Her family’s dog, an enormous Leonberger named Alf Herman, sat quietly in the front row.ĚýThe country’s minister of health, Bent Hoie, addressed the gathering. “We must continue to climb the mountains and paddle in the rivers,” he said. “We must continue to move freely and fearlessly into the world…like Maren did.”

By April—high season in the High Atlas—fears of a decimated tourism industry seemed unfounded. The Berber Family Lodge, Idhali’s guesthouse, was at capacity, and its owner bustled around the living room, stressed but smiling, a man keenly aware that he was at the mercy of TripAdvisor reviews. His guests that week included a pair of fit, efficient Germans; two Romanians working in Canada; and a Russian “digital nomad” who, after living in the Yucatán for the past five years, now identified as Mexican. Most of them had booked their trips before Jespersen and Ueland’s murders.

“Bad things happen all the time,” says Octavian Grecu, one of the Romanians. But he also admitted that he’d become preoccupied with the women’s murders. “I started reading a lot about terrorist cells and ISIS,” he says. “It got stuck in my head a little.” He’d decided to bring his bear spray with him from Canada to Morocco “for people, not bears. It’s good to have it on me. It makes me more relaxed.”

Grecu and several others had planned on hiking Toubkal the next day without a guideĚýand were alarmed when Idhali informed them that they would not be allowed to climb the mountain without official accompaniment.

“It should be free, it’s an open mountain!” Grecu said.

“An open mountain…with cutthroats,” another guest chimed in darkly.

“But if you want to dare it,“ Grecu replied.

Idhali shook his head. There were officials stationed at all the mountain approaches, he explained. Everyone in the village knew one another. If the guards saw an unaccompanied foreigner, or a Moroccan theyĚýdidn’t recognize, they’d call the gendarmerie. A guide was an absolute necessity.

“Since when?” Grecu asked.

“Since…the problem,” Idhali said.

In recent years, Morocco has responded to threats against tourists by ramping up security. The police’s Brigade TouristiqueĚý, checking identity cards and arresting Moroccans for public drunkenness, theft, begging, and not having a guide license.ĚýAfter the murders in Imlil, authorities decreed that any foreigners who wanted to walk the Toubkal path would have to enlist a guide, even for short day hikes. There are now four checkpoints along the trail to the summit, mandatory stops where a uniformed official records your passport information and confirms your guide’s credentials. It’s also no longer possible to sleep in a tent on the mountain as Jespersen and Ueland did.

The strictness isn’t limited to Toubkal; there’s a new police checkpoint on the road leading into town, where gendarmes hand outĚýtickets to people who aren’t wearing their seat belts. The stepped-up police presence has made Moroccans more conscientious about conforming to local laws lest they face hefty fines.ĚýThe new requirements were causing headaches, with many more visitors than available guides. That night, Idhali was on the phone for hours, attempting to line up a guide for Grecu and the others. (He finally found someone at 10 P.M.)

Generally speaking, the residents of Imlil preferred not to discuss the murders that had shaken their small community. “We try all the time to forget,” guide Lahcen Amerda told me.ĚýEven if it wasn’t spoken of, though, Imlil has changed in other, more subtle ways since “the problem.” Locals admitted to feeling a new wariness toward unfamiliar Moroccans. “It’s like we were sleeping before,” saysĚýAmerda. NowĚý“if you see someone and he is not from the valley, you see where he is going. If you see something that’s not normal, you can call the police.” I heard a story about a couple of Moroccan men on motorbikes who stopped a local man. They explained that they didn’t have the proper registration for their bikes and wanted to know if there was a way to evade the checkpoint at the entrance toĚýtown so they wouldn’t get a ticket. The local man demurred. When the strangers were out of sight, he called the cops on them.

On a bright spring day, I traced Jespersen and Ueland’s steps from Imlil to Sidi Chamarouche. As per the new regulations, Idhali agreed to act as my guide. The path was packed with hikers of various ages and abilities, as well as mules laden with bags of gravel—construction materials for another new police checkpoint being erected along the trail.

There was no marker or memorial commemorating the place where the women had been killed, just a few tables where a handful of hikers sat drinking orange juice and looking out over the valley where birds swooped down between very old mountains. Idhali chatted with the hanout owner as I sat and thought about the last time I had been on this path. In 2007, when I was the same age as Jespersen, I spent a year living in Morocco. The most eventful moment of my hike up Toubkal that summer was when my two friends and I witnessed the birth of a baby goat. We rushed ahead to alert the goatherd, who seemedĚýamused at our wonder. I remember the slowly dawning realization that goat births were not as momentous for Moroccan goatherds as they were for American tourists. It was one of those travel moments when the world, in all its mundane dailiness, seemed suddenly new. Sometimes it felt as though I spent that whole year learning over and over again that I knew less than I thought I did.

Idhali stood up, ready to press on down the path, but I wanted to stay and think a little bit longer about Jespersen and Ueland—how open they seemed to the world, and how the saddest legacy would be if their deaths left the world more rigid, more suspicious, and more unlike them.

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Starting on June 17, Brazil will join the ranks of countries that don’t require a tourist visa from Americans. This will save travelers from having to track down one of only ten Brazilian consulates in the U.S. and pay theĚý$40 fee (which we recommend putting toward post-swim caipirinhas, the country’s tart national cocktail).

The change in policy has been a long time coming. For the past several years, Brazil has experimented with streamlining entry requirements for citizens of the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Japan, four countries deemed a significant source of tourism revenue.

Brazil’s Ministry of TourismĚýfirst tested the waters with visa waivers during the 2016 Rio Games. Then in January 2018, it introduced an electronic visa program for the four countries mentioned above and slashed the fee to a quarter of its original cost, from $160 to $40. The move paid off, helping contribute to aĚý in travelers compared to 2017. NowĚýyou’ll be able to enter and stay for up to 90 days—with the possibility to extend to 180 days total—without having to do any paperwork.

“This is one of the most important achievements of the Brazilian tourism industry in the last 15 years,” said Marcelo Alvaro AntĂ´nio, the country’s minister of tourism, in aĚý. “We are confident that it will be extremely beneficial to the country.”

Meanwhile, if you’re looking for this kind of hassle-free international adventure, you’re not limited to Brazil. Americans have long been able to visit our closest allies, like Canada and the European Union, with only a valid passport, and globally there’s a fairly even split between nations that require visasĚýand ones that don’t. Here are sixĚýother outdoor meccas for Americans that don’t require a visa in advance. Ěý

Thailand

Want to deep-water solo this Southeast Asian nation’sĚý? You’re in luck. You can vacation in Thailand for up to 30 days without a visa—plenty of time to climb in the famed Railay Beach area, then hightail it to the country’s southern islands to dive world-class coral gardens among angelfish, manta rays, and whale sharks. Just ensure you have a passport that’s valid for at least six months past your date of entry, as recommended by the U.S. State Department. Ěý

Guatemala

While this is not the only Central American country that lets you duck the red tape—the whole region is pretty much fair game—it’s a risingĚýhub for mountain biking and a longtime surf mecca. As long as you have a return ticket booked, you’re free to ride its jungle singletrack and catch consistent surf at at El ParedĂłn for up to 90 days.

New Zealand

It may take 12 hours or more on a plane to get there, but trust us—it’s worth it. New Zealand’sĚýjaw-dropping scenery provides an epic backdrop for hiking, biking, and backpacking, and from theĚýfamous Milford Track in the South Island’s Fiordland National Park to the rugged Tongariro Alpine Crossing up north, adventuring in Kiwi country is unlike anywhere else. And you’ll have 90 days to play as long as your passport is valid for three months after your date of departure.

Morocco

This North African nation is famous for its Atlantic coast, which is lined with year-round surf spots in places like Taghazout and Imsouane. Morocco has great climbing, too. Head inland to theĚý, a 1,300-foot-tall rift between the High Atlas Mountains and the Sahara, to sendĚý. There’s a 90-day limit on your stay, and you’ll need a passport that’s valid for six months and has one empty page.

Japan

If you get depressed scrolling through the proliferation of posts on Instagram every winter, know that a quick trip to Hokkaido is actually pretty easy—excluding the international flight. Lift tickets often cost less than elsewhere in the world, too. Once you’re there, you can stay for three months sans visa. Just make sure there’s at least one blank page in your passport for the entry stamp before packing your bags.

Tahiti

Voyaging to French Polynesia may seem like a pipe dream, but it’s relatively easy to get there these days. Not only is there the standard 90 days of visa-free travel, but with the introduction of a new direct route to Tahiti from San Francisco, courtesy of the budget airlineĚý (from $329 one-way), a direct last-minute trip is within the realm of possibility.

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Aziza Raji grew up running with her brothers, but when they refused to race her, she turned her focus to marathons. This episode of fabric company ’s, Ěýprofiles her rise inĚýMorroco’s budding distance running community.

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Don’t get us wrong, we love winter. But sometimes you need a break from the frostbite-inducing temperatures and layers and layers of wool and down. Plan an escape to a warmer localeĚýand the sunshine, clear trails, and empty beaches will give you the strength to make it through to spring.

Todos Santos, Mexico

Todos Santos overlooks the Pacific Ocean, on the western side of the . Visiting in winter means swimming with whale sharks, snorkeling with sea lions, and sipping mezcal on the beach, with a chance to spot humpback whales and hundreds of fish species. Fly into and reserve an oceanfront casita at (from $145). Through the hotel, you can book daylong guided hiking trips into the nearby Sierra de La Laguna range or overnight glamping trips in the Sea of Cortez on , a UNESCO World Heritage site that you’ll reach by boat.

Nelson, New Zealand

A reminder: When it’s winter here, it’s summer in the Southern Hemisphere. Hop a flight to New Zealand for a complete seasonal shift. Abel Tasman National Park, on the northern edge of New Zealand’s South Island, is known for its multiday treks and golden beaches. Stay in one of three guest suites at the (from $724)Ěýfor access to isolated beaches, saltwater pools overlooking Tasman Bay, and five-course tasting dinners. Or sleep on a nearby sheep farm in the (from $131), built of reclaimed timber and with mountain biking out the door.

San Diego, California

You’ll surf in a wetsuit midwinter in —the water can get chilly—but air temperaturesĚýhoveringĚýin the 60s meanĚýyou can run in a T-shirt and shorts. Head to this laid-back coastal city for surfing, hiking trails, and a thriving year-round triathlon training scene. The (from $159) has a private marina, evening fire pits with s’mores fixings, and local bands on weekends. You can rent bikes, paddleboards, and sea kayaks directly from the hotel.

Essaouira, Morocco

You’ll come to the charming seaside town of Essaouira, on ˛Ń´Ç°ů´ÇłŚłŚ´Ç’s Atlantic coast, for windsurfing, a legendary music scene, and seafood dinners with ocean views. Book through and a savvy travel agent will arrange everything from private surf lessons to a camel ride on the beach. Or check out for gear and guidance on everything from kitesurfing to stand-up paddleboarding. The big summer music festivals here draw thousands of people, but you’ll still find quality live music and fewer crowds during the winter months.

Naples, Florida

Retreat to the white-sand beaches of , along the Gulf of Mexico, for sea kayaking, paddleboarding, and reading on the beach. Ěý(from $247)Ěýoffers a frostbite-relief package with discounted winter rates and a $50 nightly resort credit toward things like dinners on the beach and Himalayan salt-stone massage treatments. While there, you can take yoga and strength-training classes, charter a fishing boat, or have cocktails delivered to your beach chair.

Ruaha National Park, Tanzania

Head to in January or February and you stand a good chance of having much of the place to yourself—most safari-bound tourists from Europe and North America drop in during summer holidays between June to September. (from $820Ěýper night per person), a new safari lodge that opened in September inside Ruaha National Park, has eight high-end suites built into granite boulders, an infinity pool and spa, and three-course dinners under the stars.

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is one of those lucky few who travels to exotic places for work—it comes with the territory of being a director of photography for a rad company called . That said, even in the most beautiful locations, when he's working, he's working. So, Max took some time off to travel to Morocco with his brother. Unsurprisingly, his go-to gear setup for traveling made its way into his pack, allowing him to create this breathtaking visual time capsule of their trip. You can follow Max on Instagram and Virus on Facebook .

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“Would you send your elderly grandfather across the desert?” Rory Coleman, Britain’s marathon maestro, asked me this in February as we discussed Sir Ranulph Fiennes’s entry in the . The six-day ultramarathon, which winds 155 miles through the Sahara in southern Morocco, has been called the toughest footrace on Earth. Coleman, a performance coach, holds 11 finishes to his name and has trained over 100 registrants this year, most prominently, Fiennes.

Fiennes, the 71-year-old explorer whom Guinness World Records calls the world’s greatest living explorer, is attempting to become the oldest Brit to complete the race. He is the first person to have reached both poles by surface travel and is the most senior Brit to have summited Mount Everest. He once suffered extreme frostbite on a solo trek across the Arctic and .

“The only thing he hasn’t done is go across a desert,” Coleman said.

Fiennes'Ěýparticipation is in support of , a foundation for terminally ill patients in Britain, for which he’s raising funds. On Sunday, Fiennes toed the start line alongside Coleman and 83-year-old Frenchman Joseph Le Louarn, the most senior finisher of all-time.

şÚÁĎłÔšĎÍř chatted with Fiennes about his upcoming ultra, avoiding beauty in the Arctic, and recovering from near-death.

OUTSIDE: In 2003, you . What did you learn from that challenge and how has your training for MDS differed?
SIR RANULPH FIENNES: It’s a fact of life, and it’s a pain in the neck, but it’s called geriatric status. You have to fight very hard to keep going at all. When we did the marathons [in 2003], I could still jog at a reasonable rate. I think back to the days when I could do a reasonable London Marathon in about three and a half hours, and now a marathon seems to take about seven hours. So you can see the big difference. And it could be disastrous during this Marathon des Sables, but I won’t know until I try it. I just want to try and complete it. I do not want to be removed by French helicopters or whatever they have, like vultures, waiting for geriatrics to be removed.

I know you’re a big fan of Sugar Puffs and chocolate, which appear at odds with a runner’s diet. How have you managed this?
In the days when I used to do a lot of ultra stuff, I obviously listened to what the editor of Runner’s World said, “eat lots of pasta.” Everyone ate rice and pasta and was drinking orange juice. Now, it seems that pasta is described as near sugar, and people like me who have pre-diabetes have to steer clear of it. I’m told there’s more sugar in fresh orange juice than Coca Cola. So everything is the opposite of what it used to be. I’ve never been involved with heroin or other drugs, but I can really understand why it’s very hard to give up. I certainly intend to give up [sugar], but my hands get out of control. You know, you’re paying for gasoline and you can’t pay for gasoline without being surrounded by chocolates. I find it very, very difficult to stop.

What gear adjustments have you made for the Marathon des Sables?
I like to wear big spikes or mud claws, but Rory said, “No, in this race you must just use low running shoes.” So, of late, I’ve been slipping and sliding all over the damn place because they don’t grip.

The expansion of air travel in the 1980s and '90s has made remote excursions much more accessible. As you’ve said, “pretty much everybody’s granny” goes to Mount Everest nowadays. How has this changed your approach to expeditions and your perspective on what it means to be an explorer?
I never call myself an explorer, and only one of the expeditions I’ve done in the past forty years has genuinely explored. I call myself on my passport a travel writer or expedition leader, not an explorer. The expedition which did explore was probably the last terrestrial mapmaker—i.e. we were in an area where there were no satellites making maps. When in 1979-1980 we did the first complete one-way crossing of Antarctica, we used Aneroid barometers to map the area from where we spent the winter to the pole. It was about 800 miles, which was unexplored. Nobody had been there, no satellites, nobody knew how high it was above sea level. Nothing was known. We crossed it and mapped it.

You’ve visited so many nooks and crannies of the world that most people will never visit. What’s the most startling thing you’ve ever seen?
The active volcano in Antarctica, . Seeing the flames and the steam coming out of a place of ice and snow is interesting. We didn’t look for anything other than whiteness. In Antarctica, any beautifulness or wonderful views mean problems. If it’s just white, you won’t get crevasses and that’s good because it means we can continue without problems. In the Arctic Ocean, the same is true, only the ice is on the sea, not on land. Because if you get color, it will mean either that the ice is split or that two million ton ice loads have come together and they create big ice blocks that are difficult to cross. So to get beauty means problems from our point of view.

It can be easy for people to make the excuse that they don’t have enough time to exercise. How do you fit in your runs and plot your day?
I run when my [nine-year-old] daughter is in school. When I’m lecturing, I will take running shoes, and when I get to the hotel, I find out from the reception a local place for an hour’s run. The very worst thing is a hotel gymnasium or a machine. I don’t like them. Now, I’m running about four days a week. If Rory says it’s gotta be more than that, then it will be more, but generally speaking, four one-hour sessions per week. For the last six months, Saturday has become a four-hour jog instead of a one-hour jog.

What do you consider uncovered ground in terms of your explorations?
There’s really only one left, and that’s to cross Antarctica during the polar winter. We have not managed to do that, largely because of the governmental rules, which prohibit UK citizens from traveling down there in winter because there’s no rescue facility on or near the continent during the winter. Therefore, if you run into trouble, you won’t get rescued and will become an embarrassment to your country.

Some people get carted off to nursing homes at your age. You’ve had your own health scares—multiple heart attacks, double bypass surgery, and a cancer operation—not to mention the dangers of your expeditions. What’s motivated you to keep going?
I would consider life not worth living if there weren’t some form of challenge of a physical nature. It’s just what I’ve always done since I can remember, and it would be pointless existing without a challenge

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