Should I Go on Holiday in Sudan?

Sudan suffers from rather bad press, tourism-wise. All we hear is civil war; all we see is thorn bushes and desert. Hence the skepticism, in some quarters, when schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons disembarked at Heath row and informed journalists that she hoped her brief imprisonment and narrow escape from 40 lashes would not put anyone off going there. "I am very sorry to leave Sudan," she said. "It is a beautiful place. The Sudanese people I found to be extremely kind and generous and until this happened I only had a good experience."

She has a point: just because some bits of the largest country in Africa are scary doesn't mean that all of it is. Imagine the absurdity of a ban on traveling to the Hebrides because of the July 7 bombs in London - then remember that Sudan is more than 10 times the size of the UK. It is true that the Foreign Office's advice on travel to Sudan is a veritable litany of bans (avoid the Eritrean border, avoid the Congolese border, avoid Darfur). There is also "a high threat from terrorism. Attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places frequented by expatriates and foreign travelers" - but isn't that rather like what the head of MI5 said of Britain just the other day?

The 2007 Lonely Planet guide to Africa notes that Khartoum and the northeastern desert - where there are ancient pyramids - are among the safest places in the world. Sudan's Red Sea dive sites are apparently as good as Egypt's. The Sudanese, it transpires, are famously hospitable.

The more persuasive argument against going would be political. If you felt that helping the Sudanese economy would indirectly be fueling the genocide in Darfur, then you would be within your rights not to travel there on principle. Otherwise, why not go? Just be careful where, and try not to offend local sensibilities - standard holiday advice, really.