It is a testament to the staggering, awe-inspiring depth of human narcissism that we have managed to frame the literal collapse of planetary stability as a 'planning challenge' for our summer vacations. The news cycle, in its infinite quest to cater to the neuroses of the over-leveraged middle class, has recently discovered 'uncertainty' in travel. To the rest of the world, this is known as 'reality,' but to the Western traveler, the fact that a localized genocide or a continent-wide heatwave might interfere with a non-refundable deposit is the ultimate geopolitical tragedy. We are now being told that politics, military action, and climate change are 'wild cards' on our itineraries, as if the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were simply disruptive flight delays caused by a technical glitch in the Spirit Airlines app.

Let’s start with the 'military action'—that pesky inconvenience where states decide to incinerate one another for the sake of ancient grudges or modern oil rights. The traveler is shocked—positively rattled—to find that the Red Sea is currently too 'missile-adjacent' for a luxury cruise. The Right-wing morons will scream that this is a failure of 'strength,' suggesting we should probably bomb every destination until the locals learn to be hospitable to tourists again. Meanwhile, the Left-wing performatists will post a black square or a flag icon on Instagram, expressing 'solidarity' with the oppressed, right up until the point that the oppression causes their connecting flight through Doha to be canceled. Both sides are unified by their absolute refusal to acknowledge that their lifestyle—the constant, frantic need to be somewhere else—is the very fuel for the fires they are now trying to navigate. We treat the world like a theme park, and we are genuinely offended when the animatronics start shooting back.

Then we have the 'wild card' of climate change. It is charming, really, how the media uses terms like 'uncertainty' to describe the entirely predictable outcome of dumping gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere so we can fly 5,000 miles to buy a 'Live, Laugh, Love' sign made of reclaimed driftwood. The traveler is 'rethinking their plans' because Athens is 115 degrees in July and the Mediterranean is essentially a lukewarm soup of jellyfish and microplastics. The cognitive dissonance required to board a pressurized metal tube that spews toxins into the sky in order to 'witness the majesty of the glaciers before they melt' is the peak of human achievement. We are literally burning the house down to get a better view of the sunset. Now that the smoke is making it hard to see the sunset, we want to speak to the manager of the troposphere.

As for the 'sure bets' of yesteryear—those safe, sterile havens where one could ignore the rest of the world’s suffering in peace—they are vanishing. This is because the illusion of safety was always a marketing gimmick sold by an industry that profits from our collective delusion. There is no such thing as a 'sure bet' in a world governed by greed, entropy, and the law of diminishing returns. The stability we enjoyed was a historical fluke, a brief pause in the carnage of human history that we mistook for a permanent condition. Now that the pause is over, the travel advisors are becoming 'risk assessors,' which is just a fancy way of saying they are charging you a fee to tell you that the world is a dumpster fire. They offer insurance policies against catastrophe, as if a check in the mail can compensate for the fact that the coastal town you wanted to visit is now three feet underwater.

This 'uncertainty' isn't a bug; it's the inevitable feature of our terminal stupidity. We have spent decades commodifying every square inch of the planet, turning culture into a product and nature into a backdrop. Now that the product is defective and the backdrop is melting, the consumers are pouting. The industry’s solution is more data, more apps, more 'flexible booking'—more ways to pretend that we can outrun the consequences of our own existence. But you cannot plan your way out of a collapsing biosphere or a global descent into tribalism. You can change your itinerary, but you cannot change the destination. We are all heading to the same place, and I can assure you, the Wi-Fi there is terrible.

So, by all means, keep planning. Map out your routes through the smoke, the rubble, and the rising tides. Consult your spreadsheets and your risk-assessment charts. Just don't call it a vacation. Call it what it actually is: a reconnaissance mission into the graveyard of your own expectations. Humanity has finally succeeded in making the entire planet as miserable as its own psyche, and now we’re annoyed that we have nowhere left to hide. Enjoy your trip; I hear the apocalypse is lovely this time of year, provided you can find a hotel with decent air conditioning.