BEIRUT/TRIPOLI, Lebanon — Amr, 35, from the Mansoura suburb of Aleppo, reclines across two seats near the front of a 50-seat bus in the decrepit surroundings of Beirut’s Charles Helou bus station. Sitting up, he yawns, tired, after the 300-kilometer [186-mile] journey that brought him to Beirut from Aleppo the previous day. Amr recounts a time when the journey took around five hours. That was before Syria’s civil war. Now, he says, the journey can take twice as long, due mainly to the proliferation of checkpoints — regime-controlled closer to Damascus and opposition-controlled closer to Aleppo — that line the highway at regular intervals.

“There were no problems on the way,” says Amr of the previous day’s journey, adding that he prefers to travel in areas controlled by the Syrian opposition. “It was normal — just long. Now I just want to get some rest before tomorrow.”

Tomorrow, Amr will make the return journey.

Travel in Syria can be fraught with danger. In contested areas, shelling and the potential to get caught up in skirmishes between government and opposition forces pose an ominous threat, while checkpoints are often a more frequent problem for conscription-age men dodging military service or families with known or perceived political and sectarian allegiances.