Travel During Conflict: How to Navigate Middle East Travel Safely in 2026

If you’ve seen the news lately, chances are you’ve seen headlines about escalating conflict in parts of the Middle East and Europe. And when those headlines start appearing, many travellers immediately ask the same question: Should I still travel?

It’s a complicated space to navigate. Safety matters, of course. But the world is also far more nuanced than a breaking news alert or a dramatic headline.

In this episode of Tourist to Traveller, I’m sharing the process I personally used when this event impacted my travel plans, and how I recently made the decision to pivot my upcoming trip.

Because becoming a confident traveller isn’t about ignoring risk, it’s about learning how to navigate uncertainty with clarity and good judgement.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• The simple “pause, re-assess, pivot” framework I use when evaluating destinations
• The exact decision-making process I used when reassessing my own upcoming trip
• Practical ways to adjust your itinerary rather than cancelling travel entirely

When global tensions rise, it’s natural for travellers to feel uncertain about their plans. Ultimately, this episode is about shifting the mindset from fear-based travel decisions to informed travel decisions. With the right information and a flexible approach, travellers can continue exploring the world responsibly, even when global events create uncertainty.

Helpful Resources & Links

If you’d like a simple framework to help you plan your next trip, my guide Travel Planning Like A Pro In 5 Easy Steps walks you through the same decision-making process I use so you can plan trips with confidence.

If this episode helped you think differently about travel during uncertain times, feel free to share it with a fellow traveller who might need the same reminder: pause, re-assess, and pivot... but don’t stop exploring the world. 

Connect & Explore

Find destination guides, travel planning resources and more at touristtotraveller.com, and follow along on Instagram @_touristtotraveller for behind-the-scenes planning and future travel inspiration. 

Transcript

Speaker 0:00

Welcome to the Tourist to Traveller Podcast, the show that helps you go beyond the guidebook and turn your bucket list dreams into real adventures. I'm Tahnee, a travel blogger, podcaster, and everyday explorer who's been ticking off epic destinations for over 20 years while balancing a 9 to 5. Each week I'll bring you inspiring stories, destination deep dives, and practical tips to help you plan smarter, travel deeper, and capture those unforgettable moments along the way. So, grab your passport, pack your curiosity, and let's get started. So lately, unless you've been living under a rock, you'll know that there is a new conflict in the Middle East. And whenever situations like this escalate, I noticed the same question popping up again and again in travel communities. Should we still be traveling? It's a really valid question because, on one hand, safety absolutely comes first. But on the other hand, the world is complex, and conflict in one place doesn't automatically mean the entire region is unsafe. Recently, I actually had to go through this decision-making process myself while planning an upcoming trip. I had to pause, reassess, look at the information available, and decide whether to continue, change plans, or pivot completely. So, in this episode, I want to walk you through how I approached travel decisions during times of conflict and exactly what I went through to pivot my current trip. The process that has allowed me to travel responsibly without letting fear shut down my sense of adventure. Because smart travelers don't ignore risk, but we also don't let headlines make all of our decisions for us. This is the episode I really hoped not to record, but it's a very hot topic right now, and it's a question that a lot of people are wondering, and that is what is the future of travel? With the war currently going on between the US, Iran, and Israel, travel is in chaos at the moment. Airspace has been closed, flights have been cancelled, people are stranded around the world, even if they're not currently in the Middle East or trying to get to the Middle East, and it's really disrupted a lot of people's travel plans. Flight costs have absolutely skyrocketed, and the fuel prices are also rapidly increasing, which impacts flights as well as on-the-ground transportation. So, what do you do in a time like this regarding travel? It's a question that's really fresh in my mind because I have been planning a trip. And I'm gonna start with the obvious, and that is we don't know. None of us have a crystal ball, so we can't really tell what is going to happen over the coming months or coming years when it comes to travel or when it comes to this war. How long is it going to go on for? Which locations will be impacted, and what does that mean? We simply do not know. But it's a really hot topic for me because I have been planning a really epic trip for a long time now. And the current situation has really thrown a curveball. So I want to talk you through my thoughts on the situation, my thoughts on the future of travel, and what I have decided for my upcoming trip. I am about to turn 40. I know, super scary. I really wish it wasn't happening, but it is. And all I wanted to do for my milestone birthday was to go on a bucket list adventure. As a really passionate traveler, I have a really long list of places around the world that I wanted to go. My birthday is in April, which is typically shoulder season, and it's not great weather for a lot of countries around the world. It's either too hot, too cold, or just an awkward season. So the list of locations that I could travel to was already fairly limited. And I narrowed it down to three. Those were Oman, Namibia, and Vanuatu. Let's start off with Oman. Oman was my number one choice, and I have been eyeing Oman off for years now. So I thought this is the perfect opportunity to head to this beautiful country. I'll be traveling with family, and they were also excited to go to Oman as well. So I've looked at everything from the activities to the accommodation to car hire, flights, everything that we need to consider when it comes to going to Oman. Now it goes without saying that a war in the Middle East that Oman has been brought into is going to impact my ability to travel to Oman. And even before this war broke out, the travel rating for Oman that is that is determined by the Australian government went from being a very safe country to being a higher risk country to travel to. And this was in anticipation that a war might be coming. So already in the lead up, I was a little bit nervous about booking this trip to Oman with that in mind. And that was really my main hesitation and the only reason I hadn't confirmed all of the details. And by confirmed, I mean actually book the flights, pay for the accommodation. So because of this, I was looking at alternative destinations. Now another huge bucket list destination for me that has reasonably good weather at this time of year is Namibia in Africa. The challenge with Namibia is the flights from Australia are quite lengthy with multiple stopovers. And that's fine when there's not a war going on. The more trustworthy airlines typically have their stopovers in the Middle East. And with Namibia, I'd already ruled out Oman. With Namibia, I had gone as far as to book all of our accommodation with free cancellation, of course, and also our hire car with free cancellation. I planned out our entire itinerary, everything was booked bar one location because there was nothing there that had free cancellation, and I didn't want to risk it. Really, the only thing left to do was to book our flights. Now we were booking flights basically the day that all of this happened, and of course, the flight prices skyrocketed, but also the trustworthy airlines are now no longer an option. So the different routes that we had to go through to get to Namibia added 10 plus hours each way onto our flight time. And I'm talking like 34 to 44 hours in transit each direction, which is a lot, especially for family members who don't love travel as much as I do. That is extra days of annual leave and extra days of not being in your destination. The stopovers became more risky. We were stopping over in countries that some were safe, some were really unsafe. The thing that made me more nervous than anything was the length of the stopovers. So for flights that were a reasonable price, the stopovers might have been two hours, three hours. And if we had just a slight delay, the chance of us missing our next flight was significant, which means that we would be stranded. And if we are stranded in the current climate, finding a new last-minute flight would be really challenging and really expensive, meaning that we might not make it to our destination and we might miss a really epic component of our trip. So, with all of this in mind, and this absolutely killed me to make this decision, I had to let go of my dream of spending my 40th birthday in Namibia. I had planned the most epic villa for my actual birthday, and I thought I would feel relieved after I made the decision knowing what was going on, but I just felt disappointed. But it is what it is. These things happen unfortunately, and at the end of the day, it was the most logical decision to make. So, where did I end up going? Well, we've now booked a trip to what I would deem my backup destination. It was a destination that is much closer by that I knew my family would be happy to go to with a short flight time, with cheap flights, and it's a place that they've talked about going for a long time. So I knew it was a safe bet for them, but it wasn't as exciting and as much of a bucket list item for me. But with everything else that had been going on, it was just the decision that we had to make. So we are now going to Venuatu. It is a very short flight from Brisbane, which is great. It is just one flight, no stopovers required. So we have a much higher chance of getting to our destination. So after a lot of last-minute planning, scrambling, trying to find very last-minute accommodation, very last-minute flights that were reasonably priced for about three to four times the cost of the flights when we had initially been looking at Vanuatu. We now have a trip fully planned. So that has been the process that I have been through over the last couple of weeks to navigate the current situation when it comes to my travels. So let's now move on to what are my thoughts around the current situation and how you should plan your travels. First of all, if you already have a trip planned, I completely understand if you have a level of fear, anxiety, or hesitation around taking that trip. And no one can make that decision for you whether you continue with that trip or you reschedule that trip. I will say anywhere with a stopover in the Middle East obviously has a really high risk at the moment the flights will be cancelled or there will be disruptions to your travel because at the moment there is a lot of flight space or airspace that is closed around that area. If your destination was the Middle East, I would highly recommend reconsidering your travel. And most governments around the world are recommending the same. If you are looking to cancel your trip, it's important to note that in a lot of cases, canceling will be deemed a change of mind, which means that often you either won't get a refund or you won't get as much of a refund as you would if the flight itself was cancelled by the airline. So it really comes down to what is important to you. If you don't want to go on this trip anymore because you feel unsafe or you feel nervous about going and you are absolutely canceling your flight, anyways, really clearly read the terms and conditions on your flight as well as your travel insurance, because most travel insurance will not cover war. An alternative, of course, is to change your flights. And that could be changing your flights to a later date where you hope the situation will have improved, or you might change the direction of your flight, whether that is the destination or where you have stopovers. Just keep in mind that at the moment, that is probably a very costly exercise. And I know that from people who have been trying to change their flights to not go through the Middle East, and the cost that they've been telling me has been insane. And of course, there is a risk to traveling right now, even if you're traveling to a destination that is not currently impacted by the war, you never know what other countries might be dragged in over the coming days, weeks, or months. Once again, I don't have a crystal ball. We don't really know what is going to happen. And I think a lot of people are already surprised by the number of countries that have been brought in to this situation. So, what about if you don't have a trip booked and you're looking at booking your travel for 2026? This is purely my personal opinion, but I think do it. Because life is too short not to. But this might mean that you need to pivot and you need to compromise on your destination or your timing. Consider destinations that are not near the Middle East or Europe or even Northern Africa at the moment, because they're probably more high risk just being closer to the war-impacted areas. Look at flights that don't have stopovers within those areas and don't fly through the airspace around the Middle East. And choose your timing wisely. Keep an eye on flight prices because at the moment they're really high because so many people are trying to reschedule their travels. I anticipate that over the coming weeks and months, that will all start to quieten down and flight prices will come back down. I don't think they'll go back to normal in the coming weeks because the fuel prices are so high at the moment. But I do think they'll become lower than what they are right now. You can use platforms such as Google Flights or SkyScanner to set alerts on flight prices so you can keep an eye out for when they either increase or decrease to your destination. And if you can be flexible with time and destination, I guarantee you'll be able to find somewhere that you can travel to that is reasonably priced and still gives you a really great experience. If you're not sure, you can go to the explore section of Google Flights and just put anywhere. So flights anywhere, you can be flexible with the timing. So you might put a couple of maybe a month or a couple of months window, and then you're going to get a list of the flights that are the cheapest, and it'll show you the destinations that are the most reasonably priced. So if you can be flexible on destination and timing, you can still get some really great deals. And if all of this still feels scary and it still feels risky, rather than not traveling at all, I would encourage you to look more local. Even traveling to a regional or a hinterland type area in your current state can be a really positive experience. Because often we don't explore our own backyard. So rather than letting the current situation squash your travel dreams for 2026, my recommendation is to pause, pivot, and find a new direction. And I will keep you in the loot with how my pivot goes, which is my trip to Vanuatu. P.S. If you have any hot tips for Vanuatu, please let me know. And of course, get the travel insurance even if you don't think you need it. So if there's one thing I hope you take away from this episode, it's this. Travel doesn't have to stop when the world feels uncertain. But it does require thoughtful decisions. The goal isn't to ignore what's happening in the world, it's to stay informed, stay flexible, and make choices that are both responsible and empowering. And if you're someone who loves diving deeper into the planning side of travel, I've also written a guide on how to research before any trip. I'll link that in the show notes. Thank you for coming on this adventure with me, and I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in to the Tourist to Traveller Podcast. I hope today's episode has inspired you to travel more authentically and plan your next adventure with confidence. Don't forget to head to touristtotraveller.com for today's show notes, resources, and free guides to help you plan like a pro. And if you love this episode, please hit subscribe and leave a review. It helps more travelers like you discover the show. Until our next adventure. Go beyond the tourist track and level up your travel experiences.