Preparing to Depart

Finally I gained  the guts to purchase a plane ticket to Lebanon. I will be departing the 19th of September at 6:45am PDT. I was lucky enough to find a cheap ticket through Delta Airlines for only $1277. Traveling around the fall is definitely a factor in the ticket price since the most desirable time to go is in the spring. Lebanon has a mild to cool climate of wet winters with hot, dry summers. Not matter the season though the mountains always get a lot of snow. Going in the fall the weather will be very unpredictable.
Through the planning process I discovered that visas are required for entry, however I have a Lebanese passport, so that made the process very easy. All I hade to do was renew my passport in June, 3 months in advance, no other documentation required. I also made sure to check with my GP around 8 weeks before my trip to check whether I needed any vaccinations or other preventive measures.
One major think I had to keep  in mind when planning was the area that I would travel to.
According to the map the safest area seems to be inland towards the Mediterranean. There have been an increasing number of violent incidents in the north-eastern Bekka Valley. Armed incursions and shelling across the Syria border have occurred in several locations including Wadi Khaled, Al Qaa, Hermel, Baalbek and Aarsal. These have resulted in a number of casualties and is a area I plan to avoid. Another area I plan to avoid is the southern tip because of the Palestinian refugee camps where the Lebanese state has limited capacity to impose law and order. There is a history of violent clashes in particular in Ein El Helwe camp near Saida around southern Lebanon. Based of these warnings I have decided to travel to the heart of Lebanon, Beirut which has over 2 million people, even though I am advised to avoid the southern suburbs east of the airport road since that is an area of target for terrorist attacks, bombings, and missiles from various extremists groups and the Israeli boarder due to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It seems that due to Lebanon's neighbors; Syria, Palestine, and Israel, they continue to be unintentionally in the middle of conflict.
This is a current articles that I read about the Syrian refugees during the planning process: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29755970.