Tips for female lone travellers!
I want to give these recommendations for women that travel alone. I learnt these important tips by myself and yes! learning from my own mistakes. Travelling alone and as a woman, could be hard and more dangerous in the common sense, but experience teaches you to avoid problems and dangerous situations that may happen.
1) As a woman/girl travelling alone, you are never alone! or at least pretend it you aren’t.
Do not reveal to random people that you are alone unless you feel is ok… but If somebody untrustful asks you “Are you alone?” better reply “No, I’m with my friends, or brother, or husband, or parents, etc.”, and maybe add “I’m waiting for them now”.
Why?
Walking around close to Plaza San Marcos in Venice a guy asked me for a photo with his phone and a little chat happened, after that he started to following me, tried to know where I was staying, how much money I had, insisted on drinking beers on a special place he “knew”, etc. It was pretty clear he was pretending to be another tourist. We were in streets with fewer and fewer tourists around, I tried to get rid of him many times, but he insisted on following me, catching him making phone calls, so I thought he called for more guys. He was distracted for one moment and I ran and hid inside a nice and small cookie store. I saw through the window that he was looking for me really upset. Then the owners of the store offered me help when I explained to them what was happening. The old owner stood in front of the door and told me “Aspetta qui, he will not enter”. So I stayed with them a while until he went away and I felt safe. May it be or may it not be a real danger, but better always follow what your senses say you! So, lesson learnt: You never are alone.
2) Don’t trust in strangers.
Could be obvious, but when you are alone and tired, your emotions could make you vulnerable to “fell” in nice traps of strangers that pretend to be locals or other travellers as you. Don’t trust! and don’t give any information about you. My golden rule is that no stranger will be good with you without something in return. There are not good Samaritans in the real world… so better no trust or accept nothing from random people.
Why?
Another similar situation happened me on a different trip. I was doing the Santiago’s Road by bike in the North of Spain in August of 2013 with 2 friends, but they were faster than me and always ahead for some hours. I stopped for lunch in a little town and asked for some directions. When I returned to the road a car stopped in front of me and the driver offered to skip some part of the road by car. I denied gently but, he insisted offering also his house to sleep and dinner. I denied again and he left, turning back to the town… What if he followed me? Just two minutes later I confirmed it: he came back again stopped his car in front of me and he insisted on going with him for a wine by a nice river close… I got really nervous and denied firmly. He left and I looked for other peregrines to join as precaution.. but nobody for 1 km. The car came back AGAIN and insisted on helping me, then he revealed that he heard me asking for indications in a bar where I bought a bottle of water, so I panic. I kept calm and I reply “No” in a rude way with a firm voice, adding that I will call the police if he shows up again. He left again back to the town and I rushed until I found more people finally! And luckily an old French peregrine I met a day ago. I avoided going alone on the main road that day, it was a bad scary situation.
3) Ask for help.
Don’t be shy, if you feel uncomfortable with something or a situation be fast and ask for help, try to explain the situation and wait until you feel safer.
Why?
I wasn’t alone. Travelling by train from Barcelona to Paris with a friend, a weird guy followed us and sit next to us. We ignored him but he stared at us for a long time, making us feel uncomfortable. We decided to move and find other free seats with people around. We thought we were too paranoid about it until the guy followed us. When the ticket control came, we told him that this weird guy was acting strange, he confronted him and told us that he had tickets to drop off the next stop. And he left. Anyway… It was weird. A similar thing happened again at a night train from Bristol to Liverpool. Three drunk old men talking in Welsh were annoying us. But I was the same control guy who noticed it and confronted them, and then moved us to other seats.
4) Risky picture.
Taking pictures could be a simple and free act, but there are places, moments or people incorrect for it and you will be involved in a bad situation.
Why?
Just one picture could be a big mess! Many times I had to apologize and delete it to avoid a bad situation. The first time was walking on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris. When I saw a punk couple sit with a punky bunny. I took a pic and walk away until the punk woman came really upset and confronted me in a bad way. I can say that my first French word learned was “Interdit” as she screamed at me so loud and violent.
Another occasion was in Central Park, New York. I was taking pics to a water fountain and some kids showed up and their reflection on the water was nice to photograph. Then I heard some deep voice screaming “Noo Noo” and I look up and saw a huge father covering the eyes to the kids, really overacting. Also in New York a friend asked me to take a picture of a small and old Asian woman with a huge trail with trash walking that looked by peculiar. I took the pic, but she hid. Then she passed by my side and screamed something so loud in an Asian language that felt she cursed me on something.
The scariest moment was in the central market in Marrakesh, Morrocco. There were so many impressive things to capture: real cobras, presentations of knives, etc. People asked for money any time you take a picture of something. At the moment it was really fun until I took a general picture of the square activities and a huge Morrocan guy came and demanded me money. I complained that he was too far away to ask for money. But he got rude and tried to grab my camera. Then two more big guys came and pushed me back until my friends showed up and called the police in French and them runaway. I was shaking and didn’t use the camera anymore for that day.