Some of the world’s most popular tourist destinations — Turkey, Greece, Hawaii and, now, Morocco — have been ravaged by disaster this year, with earthquakes, wildfires and floods razing entire towns and villages, killing residents, and destroying or damaging cultural monuments.

The series of catastrophic events has left many tourists in a conundrum over how to respond. Those already in a country in the wake of a disaster debate whether they should stay or leave. Those with upcoming trips wonder if they should cancel. Can they and the revenue they bring in be of any real help, or will they be a burden? How appropriate is it to let tourism go on while a nation is in a state of collective mourning and rescue efforts are underway?

There are no easy answers, travel experts say. Each disaster’s impact is unique, and while travelers are advised to follow the guidance of government officials in the aftermath of such events, local communities don’t always agree on the best course of action. After the Maui wildfires destroyed much of the town of Lahaina in August, killing at least 115 people, residents on the island, which depends on tourist dollars, clashed over the decision to allow tourism to continue while locals grieved for all that was lost.

In Morocco, however, where a powerful 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck the Atlas Mountains southwest of Marrakesh on Friday, killing thousands, the outlook is more unified. With the high tourism season underway and most of the destruction affecting rural areas far from tourist hot spots, many locals are eager for foreign visitors to keep coming so that they can support the economy and bring in funds for relief efforts.

“After Covid, the abandonment of tourists would be terrible for Marrakesh, where so many resources come from tourism,” said Mouna Anajjar, the editor in chief of I Came for Couscous, a local feature magazine. “Directly or indirectly, all the inhabitants are linked to this resource and would be terribly affected.”

Here’s what travelers faced with the prospect of visiting a country where devastation has struck should think about.

Is the place open for tourism?

Check official government guidance and local media reports to assess the situation on the ground. When the deadly wildfires swept through parts of Maui last month, the local authorities urged tourists to stay home. So far, the Moroccan government hasn’t issued any statements beyond the status of rescue efforts, and the country’s tourism office did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The British Foreign Office advised its citizens planning to travel to the country to check with their tour providers about any disruptions.

While the U.S. State Department has not updated its travel advisory to Morocco, it is a good idea to check the website before traveling to any country that has been struck by disaster.

Establish exactly where the disaster hit and which areas have been affected. When Greece was ravaged by wildfires in July and thousands of tourists were evacuated from the islands of Rhodes and Corfu, many tourists canceled their vacations, even those traveling to unaffected areas. The Greek tourism minister issued a response, highlighting that the majority of the country, including parts of the affected islands, remained safe for tourists.

When the earthquake struck Morocco on Friday, it was felt in many popular tourist destinations, including Marrakesh and the towns of Imsouane and Essaouira, but most of the damage is concentrated close to the epicenter in Al Haouz Province. In the immediate aftermath of the quake, most Morocco tours were canceled as operators scrambled to make critical safety assessments, making sure that all their clients and staff were accounted for and that tourists were not hindering rescue efforts.

But now, having established that the damage is localized in rural areas and following government guidance, most tours are up and running with some amended itineraries. Hotels have largely been unaffected, according to Morocco’s hotel association.

“There are areas inside the Marrakesh medina that have been damaged, some historical monuments are closed, but most areas inside the cities are totally OK to be visited,” said Zina Bencheikh, the managing director of Intrepid Travel’s Europe, Middle East and Africa operations, who was born in Marrakesh. “The majority of the country is open, with airports, schools, hotels, shops and restaurants operating as normal under the shock of the incident.”

Intrepid Travel had 600 customers in Morocco on the night of the earthquake, and only 17 have cut their trips short. TUI, Europe’s largest travel operator, said that some of its itineraries were under review, but that the majority of its guests had decided to stay on after the company carried out safety inspections and chose to support keeping Morocco open.

As a tourist, will I be a burden on local communities?

When a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck southern Turkey in February, Turkish Airlines, the country’s national carrier, canceled dozens of flights across the country to open up resources for rescue efforts. During the Maui wildfires, airlines also canceled flights to Hawaii so that they could use the planes to fly passengers back to the mainland. Most of West Maui is still closed to tourists but is expected to reopen on Oct. 8.

In Morocco, the hardest-hit areas in the Atlas Mountains are currently cordoned off as rescue efforts are underway, and tourists are not advised to go into those areas. But tourism activities are encouraged in other areas of the country that haven’t been affected.

Hafida Hdoubane, a guide based in Marrakesh who takes visitors on hiking and trekking excursions, urged visitors to come, arguing that the danger from the earthquake had long passed and that the authorities in Marrakesh were carefully cordoning off any buildings showing signs of damage.

She said those who called to cancel their expeditions felt uneasy about vacationing in a country that had just experienced such devastation, but that locals did not share that view. “I think it’s best to come and show that life goes on,” she said. “What a mountain tourist can do to help is come, show that they are here and that they stand in solidarity.”

Should I change my behavior?

Most locals will not expect you to, but it is important to be receptive and mindful of the mood around you.

In Maui, the sight of tourists sunbathing on the beach as rescue teams searched for survivors outraged grieving residents, setting off a social media campaign calling for them to leave.

“The people of Morocco will say don’t switch Morocco off,” said Ms. Bencheikh of Intrepid Travel.

Ángel Esquinas, the regional director of the Barceló Hotel Group, which has properties in Marrakesh, Casablanca and Fez, said there was no immediate need for tourists to cut their trips short unless they felt it necessary.

“It is absolutely acceptable for tourists to continue with their planned activities, such as going on tours, lounging by the pool or enjoying nightlife. Morocco remains a vibrant and welcoming destination,” he said. “However, we encourage visitors to be mindful of their surroundings and exercise respect for the local communities’ particular circumstances. It’s important to strike a balance between supporting the local economy and not overwhelm the community.”

Cassandra Karinsky, a co-founder of Plus-61, a popular restaurant in Marrakesh, said she reopened a day after the earthquake to provide an environment for locals to unite at a difficult time. “We’ve had a lot of cancellations, but we’re coming together now to raise money and support our local communities and it’s starting to get busy again.”

She said the mood was more somber than usual and people were still in shock, but that tourists were mindful and respectful of locals.

“People still need to eat, and every day there’s a more optimistic atmosphere to come together to help and move forward,” she said.

What can I do to help?

Visiting a country can be a big support to disaster relief efforts, as many locals depend on tourism revenue for their livelihoods. In Morocco, tourism accounts for 7.1 percent of the gross domestic product and is a crucial source of income for low- to middle-income families. Many restaurants and hotels have started funding campaigns to help their employees and their families in the most affected areas.

You can donate to some of the aid organizations like the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies that are responding to the disaster. And Intrepid Foundation, the travel company’s charity, has begun an earthquake appeal campaign for Morocco to support efforts to provide food, shelter, clean water and medical assistance to local communities.

In Hawaii, the Hawaii Community Foundation continues to run a fund supporting the long-term needs of those affected by the wildfires.

If you are a tourist already in a country that has been hit by a disaster, consider donating blood at blood banks, which are often set up in the aftermath of natural disasters.

“We just came out of a big lunch and saw a blood donation center, and it felt like the right thing to do,” said Tony Osborne, a 52-year-old tennis coach from London who was visiting Marrakesh with his family during the earthquake. “The Moroccans have been so welcoming. I just wish we could do even more to help.”

Aurelien Breeden contributed reporting.

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“That sounds like a baby gator. Did you hear it?” We stopped paddling and listened. Leaves rustled, there was the splash of a turtle sliding into water, and then “pew, pew,” the dainty call of a baby alligator sounding like a video game laser. We saw the hatchling’s mother hauled out on muddy ground. She watched us pass. Giving due deference we moved away, quietly thrilled by the encounter.

We were standup paddle boarding on Silver Glen Run, in Central Florida, an hour and 15 minutes’ drive north of Orlando. Here, water from the underlying aquifer, flowing to the surface through caves and rock tunnels, creates “spring runs,” short, clear creeks and rivers that flow into a larger river or lake.

In Florida, navigable waterways are held in public trust, even if the surrounding land is privately owned. Clear water and navigation rights are invitations to explore these riparian pathways, and paddle boards, which combine portability and a quiet approach, are the perfect vessels for slow travel on them, a way to enjoy wildlife — otters, cormorants, garfish and snapping turtles.

While the waterways are public, access to them is via boat launches on private or state-owned land. Some state parks, such as Weeki Wachee Springs, have limited launching slots, in order to control the number of visitors and protect the habitat, that need to be booked in advance online. Others, like Silver Glen Spring, are popular and have limited parking, which should be booked in advance to guarantee entry. Staying in waterfront accommodations is another way to ensure access. Paddling upstream and drifting back to your parking spot removes the need for a shuttle ride back to your vehicle.

Myles, my boyfriend, and I have explored Florida’s springs over many years. This year his 19-year-old daughter, Lili, had free time between studies and internships, so we brought her to our favorites. We had our inflatable boards, which are lightweight, easy to launch and pack down to check-in size for flights. In a circular route, starting and ending at Orlando, over the course of a week we stayed in three places and paddled on six spring runs. Our trip took place in the spring, but peak paddle-boarding season runs through October, though it’s possible to do year-round.

Braving a tunnel

We started our week with two nights in the town of Homosassa, at the Chassahowitzka Hotel, a bed-and-breakfast with shared bathrooms that suits families or friends staying as a group. It provided the convenience of offering breakfast, while letting us cook dinner on the grill outdoors, and being close enough to the Chassahowitzka River that we could carry our boards to and from the launch. At a nearby campground you can rent kayaks and paddle boards. Just upstream , on the north side of the Chassahowitzka River, is Seven Sisters Spring.

We soon joined a gaggle of people who had tethered their kayaks and boards to trees while they splashed and dived. One man swam through a tunnel in the rock with my GoPro. On the video you can see air pockets like liquid mercury pressed against the tunnel roof, and forest framed by the opening as he reaches the surface.

Swimming through submerged tunnels carries the risk of getting trapped underwater, and I was too timid to try. After getting tips and a demonstration from a local swimmer, Lili swam into a short tunnel. She disappeared beneath the rock for four seconds, and then emerged a few yards away to a high five from her impromptu coach.

To paddle on the Weeki Wachee River, we drove half an hour south to Rogers Park, where we could park and launch our boards without advance booking. Here we saw our first manatee, its tail frayed by an encounter with a boat propeller. Yet it had survived, with wounds healed into scar tissue. We watched it grazing, steering to avoid drifting above it. Kim Kulch, our host at the Chassahowitzka Hotel, told us, “if manatees get spooked, they’ll flip their tails, and they are powerful. Once, someone who had been out paddling told me they’d been tipped over by a manatee, but it was wonderful.”

Avoiding the tubers

Heading north the next day, we stopped to spend an afternoon on the Rainbow River, which begins at Rainbow Springs and flows for 5.7 miles until it merges with the Withlacoochee River at the city of Dunnellon. We parked at KP Hole Park, 1.5 miles downstream from Rainbow Springs where, if you have your own paddle craft, you can launch in the afternoon and return in the evening, avoiding flotillas of tubers.

This river is heavily carpeted with strap-leaf sagittaria, its linear leaf blades interspersed with white flowers that open underwater. Looking down from our boards the view was rippling green, punctuated by passing fish and cormorants chasing them.

A little further on, we saw fluid bodies diving and resurfacing: a pair of otters catching fish. Unbothered by our presence they ate their fish, and then vanished up a creek into the forest.

On our return downstream from Rainbow Springs State Park, we pulled over for a swim about half a mile upstream from KP Hole Park, our starting point. A cormorant surfaced next to me. I ducked underwater and got a close-up view of the bird swimming with silver bubbles slipping off its feathers.

From black water to turquoise

Our next stop was a house on stilts we’d rented on Vrbo for three nights near the junction of two rivers, a 10-minute drive from the town of Fort White. Walking across the lawn we put our boards into the Santa Fe, a black-water river tinted by tannins from decaying vegetation. After 350 yards we turned into the Ichetucknee River, where the water under our boards shifted to turquoise. We paddled upstream, past houses set back from the river with raised wooden walkways over waterlogged ground and bald cypress tree knees leading to their riverside docks.

Two boys were snorkeling, bringing up handfuls of small black shells and sifting through them. The man with them said they were looking for fossilized shark teeth. Sandy clay on the riverbed and banks erodes to release an abundance of fossils. The Florida Museum in Gainesville has more than 11,000 from the Ichetucknee River.

Defeated by strong current where the Ichetucknee flows through a culvert under Highway 27, we let ourselves float downstream. Nearing the junction with the Santa Fe River we could hear music; a crowd of boats was anchored along the forest edge. People gave us friendly waves and we were offered beer.

The next day we drove 10 minutes to Ichetucknee Springs State Parks south entrance, and started our paddle from Dampiers Landing, a canoe and tube launch. We went upstream, the opposite direction of tubers floating down to South Takeout, the last exit within the park.

Above the tubing section the Ichetucknee widens and its current steadily increases. Around Grassy Hole Spring, where the river threads through islands of vegetation, we saw scattered canoes, each with a band of snorkelers. I accidentally nudged one who had been zigzagging across the river. My apology was overridden by his exclamation, “I didn’t catch it!” He explained that the group was catching turtles for the annual survey carried out by the Santa Fe River Turtle Project.

Close to two miles after starting, we passed the outflow from Blue Hole Spring, the largest spring in the group that feeds the Ichetucknee, and paddling became less strenuous. We reached North End launch, where the river begins with water from its headspring. It was an easy drift back to our rented house, lingering over views of gar, popping through the culvert under Highway 27 and loitering to watch a grazing manatee.

Watch out for the manatees

The next day, on our way to Ocala National Forest where we would be staying for two nights, we stopped at Silver River. After days spent on spring-fed rivers, I thought that my sense of wonder would have run dry. But wide aquatic panoramas bordered by red cardinal flowers and blue spikes of pickerel weed flowers were a heady combination.

Someone passing in the opposite direction described where to see a group of manatees. In the lee of a submerged tree were three adults and a calf resting on the bottom. One of the adult manatees slowly surfaced to breathe and we listened to its exhalation.

Reaching an island swinging with monkeys — rhesus macaques deliberately released in the 1930s — I heard familiar voices. In the heart of the Ocala National Forest, there is a cabin built by the Civilian Conservation Corps called Sweetwater Cabin. Because of its popularity, you have to enter a lottery months in advance to get a permit to rent it. My friends Cassy and Marco won and we’d planned our trip to overlap with the week they would be at the cabin and arranged to meet at Silver River.

Because of lack of coordination, Cassy and Marco had booked kayak rentals with Silver River Kayak Rentals an hour before our launch slot at Silver Springs State Park. They deliberately dawdled on their journey and we caught up with them on Silver River. Marco excelled at snake spotting, pointing out water moccasins camouflaged among tree roots on the water’s edge. We got out at Ray Wayside Park, approximately six miles downstream from the Silver Springs State Park’s canoe launch and were taken back to our cars by shuttle service, booked with our launch slots.

As dusk fell, we sat next to Sweetwater Spring with cocktails and listened to a barred owl, which Cassy and Marco said had been there every evening. At Sweetwater cabin, with its plain décor and without TV or Wi-Fi, nature is entertainment and ornamentation; watching fish in the bright turquoise spring, seeing a stripy Eastern coral snake crossing the path, listening to the songs of unseen birds.

After a morning at Silver Glen Spring, we returned to the cabin and used its metal canoes to explore Juniper Creek, a spring run that flows from Juniper Spring to Lake George. Sweetwater Spring has a short and shallow run, just enough to lead a canoe into Juniper Creek. It would have been difficult to navigate the tree branches that cross the creek on paddle boards.

Cassy and Marco thought there was a hiking trail near the cabin as they heard people talking and passing by. Out on Juniper Creek, they realized it was paddlers they had been hearing. Meeting other people while out on the water is as much a part of the experience of Florida’s spring fed rivers as seeing wildlife.

In Silver Glen Run I saw cages of eelgrass planted by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to restore aquatic vegetation after Hurricane Irma. Next time I’m there it might have spread outside of its protective enclosures. If you’re on these rivers in fall, leaves on the bald cypress trees will be a tawny contrast to the blue spring water. With each visit to Florida’s spring-fed rivers, there is something new to see.

Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram and sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to get expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2023.