Could a Traveler Overestimate a Risk Because It Is Easy to Imagine?
Visibility and probability are not the same thing.
Sometimes. Dramatic risks often feel more likely than ordinary risks because they are easier to remember and imagine.
A traveler spends weeks worrying about a rare crime while ignoring dehydration, exhaustion, or transportation mistakes that are statistically more common.
The hidden mechanism is imagination bias. Events that produce vivid mental images tend to occupy more attention than events that are merely probable.
People often judge risk through memory rather than frequency.
The dangers that feel largest are not always the dangers most likely to arrive.
