As old barriers break down, voyagers in the next century will enjoy more exotic locales, more exotic customs - and perhaps more exotic diseases. This year’s Ebola virus outbreak in Zaïre raises an issue as chilling now as it was in 1347, when traders sailing from the Black Sea port of Caffa to Messina, Sicily, brought back plague, which killed perhaps one-third of Europe’s population. As it happens, plague also cropped up in 1994, in India.

(Time, June 12, 1995)

According to the text, travelers in the 21st century are likely to: