For many women, solo travel is something they think they can never do, but as someone who is female and has travelled in various countries around the world many times, all solo, I can tell you that it is fun and worth doing. Don’t be put off.
Safety is one thing that is important and often worries solo female travellers, but in the majority of places as long as you keep your belongings safe and in your eye line at all times and don’t fall for scams, you will be fine.
Do your research as some countries are unsafe for many, let alone a solo female. Make sure you check before you plan to go somewhere.
Tips To Follow
Even in the safest places, I always make sure that :
- Keep my belongings safe and in eye line at all times. I keep zips zipped up and make sure people can’t get into my bag easily.
- In the hotels I make sure I lock my valuables away. Don’t just leave them out.
- Make sure if you take taxi cabs that you use official licenced ones and not some random plain car that some person “claiming” to be a taxi cab driver. Use official cabs!
- I make sure I lock my hotel door and windows at night as I have had people try to get in before. Make sure you lock up!
- Don’t buy from the street sellers that follow you around. Ones that are sat with a mini stall on the ground are often fine, but the ones on foot following you around trying to sell you flowers and things like that, are often scams.
- Bring a rape alarm which is a loud sounding siren on a keychain, so when you pull the trigger, a high pitched alarm sounds which often scares people off as you are drawing attention to yourself. with the alarm. This puts people off. Don’t carry mace unless legal as this is illegal in many countries.
- If someone asks if you are alone, lie and say NO!
- If you are asked if you have a boyfriend/girlfriend, say YES!
- If you are asked if this is your first time here, say NO!
- If you don’t like staying alone, you could stay in a female only hostel where you will meet other females as you will be sleeping in the same room as many of them. You can meet friends like this too!
- Keep your eyes open! No matter how safe you feel, keep your eyes open!
- Hide money and don’t flash expensive items
- Learn to say no. You don’t want to be agreeing to things you don’t feel safe doing because you can’t say no.
- Get insurance. If something does get stolen, you have insurance. This is a must in my eyes as medical costs are not cheap overseas!
The Dark Side
I have experienced the dark side of even safe cities, such as men following me to my hotel and scammers trying to get me to use their fake taxi or buy something from them, but have been ok as I made sure that I had my eyes open at all times. They failed as I saw them and was vocal about it.
The guy that followed me to my room, followed me from the subway and a 2 mile walk.
I saw him following me so I stayed in public and rushed to my hotel while he continued to follow me, where when I got to the hotel and he followed me to the elevator so this was probably going to a rape situation, so I shouted “stop following me!! This man has followed me miles from the subway and now is trying to follow me to my room!” He quickly left! I reported him to reception and spoke to the people in the elevator about it too. They were shocked!
Keeping my eyes open and being vocal saved me.
Don’t let this put you off as this man that followed me was once in 20 years of travelling and I made sure I was in public the entire time. Just keep your eyes open.
Be careful when you travel, but it is usually safe as long as you travel to destinations that are safer. Just keep your eyes open and your belongings safe!