Israel gets so much bad press that you’d think Baghdad was the capital.

Thanks to Gaza, the West Bank and a general reputation of Middle East badness, it’s no wonder many people consider a trip to the Holy Land a suicide adventure. So given the chance to go, I couldn’t turn it down.

The truth is traveling in Israel is far more frightening from afar — something you can milk when you return home. Spend any time exploring this small Mediterranean country, and you’ll quickly realize that you’re in one of the safest most dangerous countries on the globe.

Almost everywhere you turn, from markets to malls (frequent sites of terrorist attacks), you’ll see young men and women in olive green uniforms, rifles slung over their shoulders.

Some 3 million tourists visited Israel in 2008 – a record number – and all of them, tourism officials point out, returned home safely. And chances are, any itinerary you pursue – whether a pilgrimage to a holy site or bar hopping in Elat – is not likely to include Gaza checkpoints or West Bank riots. Hey, it’s not like we don’t have our own problems. How many German tourists do you see spending time in Miami’s Liberty City?

Sure, there are suicide bombings, rocket attacks and car explosions in nearby cities — Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt are Israel’s neighbors and most are a stone’s throw away. Imagine if the United States as the size of New Jersey and surrounded by Nazi Germany, Cold War Russia, Iraq and North Korea — that’s kind of what Isreal has.

Death happens and if you’re in Israel, you’re bound to hear a story about it. Be polite, listen and then walk away. A dollmaker in Ein Hod, an artists’ village in northern Israel, shared with me the story of her daughter who was killed in a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv in 1994.

Those stories are heart wrenching, for sure, but the aura of history — religious and otherwise — and the blending of Middle Eastern and European cultures overwhelms. And although I traipsed all over Israel as tensions heightened in Gaza, I never once feared for my safety.

This is the first in a three-part series on a few spots in Israel. Greg Tasker is an accomplished traveler and writer who never gets scared. Tomorrow: Jews live in Israel or Life in Tel Aviv.