The new travel dangers: flip open any recent newspaper and you'll see stories about young women whose vacations turned into tragedies. Here's what you need to know to stay safe while you roam the big, wide world.(COSMO UPDATE)

These days, indulging wanderlust has become a young woman's rite of passage, and the more exotic the place, the better. Throngs of independent-minded chicks head out each year to trek in Nepal, see the ruins in Greece, and check out the beach scene in Rio and the Caribbean.

One of them was Natalee Holloway, the pretty, blond Southern belle from outside Birmingham, Alabama, whose name is now sadly familiar to many Americans. Natalee's celebratory high-school graduation trip to Aruba last May with her classmates sounded perfectly safe: The seniors traveled as a group, with chaperones, to the popular, low-crime Caribbean destination that calls itself One Happy ...