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Reader Questions: Safety as a Solo Woman Traveler

Last of the three questions Lydia sent in was concerning safety.

Did you ever feel unsafe? (I’m getting a lot of “You’re a woman? Traveling alone?! That far? Are you crazy?!” from various people, especially my family.)

I personally feel that traveling in the States is completely safe. I have gone on solo adventures to China, Europe and Ireland. China especially was a little interesting, but completely safe as well.

If in real rural areas, I would often sleep in parking lots rather than alone in the woods. I am a scaredy-cat by nature and so not gutsy enough just to pull over in the woods. One real good tip, that I used A LOT, was actually Wal-mart parking lots. I absolutely attest Wal-Mart; however, all car campers are welcome to sleep in the lot and security usually patrols the area.

I was traveling in a Honda Civic. On occasion I did wish it had tinted windows as I truly had zero personal space (anyone could look in at any time). I slept in the backseat of my car and would often sleep with my boulder pad jammed between the top of the front seats and the back window to kind-of provide an extra covering. (Ha ha! Writing this now sounds a little crazy, but life on the road truly is a different experience.)

I noticed I also felt safer because I was traveling with a dog. There was no way my little dog was really going to protect me, yet she would bark at anything that came near our car.

I was often asked how I planned on protecting myself. I didn’t carry anything in terms of protection (guns, knives, mace, etc). Perhaps I should have, but I just tried to be smart of where I went and where I slept. I have used this tactic in all of my travels and have been just fine.

Picture from my solo adventure to China.  Within hours of landing in Hong Kong, I met two British guys who became dear friends, traveling with them for 3 out of 4 weeks of my trip.  This day we rode camels through the Gobi desert and might be my all time favorite travel memory yet.

I get asked these safety questions a lot when I travel  and I will admit that my mother got emotional when I told her I booked my solo flight to China.  But I guess I have the viewpoint that I would rather risk it and see what happens than stay at home living in fear that something could have happened.

Lydia, just be smart about where you go and you should be just fine. :)

 

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This entry was posted on Sunday, September 13th, 2009 at 6:05 pm and is filed under TripBeta, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • My dad always advises me to carry a flare gun, which he says ( insert stereotypical Western NY Italian hoodlum accent here) "hey, you could do alodda damage."
  • Snooky
    I generally travelled in groups but I've travelled alone in Cuba, Vietnam and accross Europe. Never really worried about it at all. I've never had parents that worry. My mum is pretty well travelled and they just aren't the worrying kind. I just check out any advice from guidebooks before hand and I think I'm generally fairly sensible about how much I drink. I couldn't imagine not travelling somewhere because of fear (unless it was very well-founded).

    The only place I've ever really had any concerns wasn't travelling alone but travelling with just my mum and another female friend in Jordan. I didn't feel at risk but walking around at night you literally saw no women so you did feel we rather looked and felt out of place. Also driving around we did attract quite a lot of attention in rural areas. Even in the cities we made me saw maybe one other female driver so we were quite the novelty. We saw sizeable groups of children travelling to and from school/mosques/home etc. The girls were fine but they boys kept running in front of the car - playing chicken. Again it wasn't particularly threatening but we were really worried of hitting one of them. It was a great and beautiful country and we had a lot of fun and off the streets talked to some really nice men who generally had a really good sense of humour. It was fine in a group but you would have to be fairly strong to travel there on your own.
  • lydiaw
    Again, very helpful! My trip is coming up soon, and I just went through a period of a few weeks (not coincidentally following conversations with some Very Concerned members of my family) where I was certain something terrible was going to happen to me on the trip, or that I would be accosted or worse. I think I've finally worked through that, though, and you make good points about being smart and making good decisions.

    Overall, I've come to similar conclusions that it's worth taking the risk than to sit at home thinking about what *could* have happened. It's nice to hear/read you reinforce that idea.

    Thanks again, Rachel! You've been marvelously helpful.
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