In this podcast, I'm speaking with Dena-Marie Smith, who just returned from her trip to Israel. With all of the violence in the Middle East, I don't think I could take the risk of traveling over there and thought it would be interesting to get the point-of-view of someone who did visit to see if / what areas are safe for tourists. It's hard to really know what is going on in different parts of the Middle East with media outlets putting their own "spin" on stories. As a media consumer, I'm not sure if any areas in the Middle East are safe or if there are, in fact, places that tourists can visit with a very small risk of something bad happening.

Ms. Smith went with a church group who had visited before, so some group members already knew their way around. After speaking with her, it sounds like Israel is well secured by its army and there are certain parts of the country, such as holy sites, that are safe for tourists and citizens to visit.

Thank you to Dena-Marie Smith, who was thoughtful enough to help me with this project, and a special thanks to Josh Woodward for his song "A Song."