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Solo Travel for Women
As if the thought of heading on a solo backpacking journey isn’t daunting enough, many women have
the added fear for their personal safety while out on the backpacking trail. Stories seem to be
filling the newspapers at home more frequently about women being attacked at popular backpacker
locations such as Thailand and Australia and they might be enough to persuade an already nervous
first-time solo woman traveller to unpack her backpack and stay put in the comforts of her hometown.
Ok true, there have been some terrible things happen to backpackers out there in the big, bad world but there
are plenty of terrible things that happen on home soil. It seems to be the view of the general public that
travelling alone is a strange, dangerous thing to do, and that attention should be drawn to this fact in order
to prevent women from becoming another backpacker casualty. The media grabs a hold of these rare, tragic stories
and makes it seem as though backpackers are a target for criminals around the world.
The huge majority of women who travel the world do so without anything bad happening beyond running out of tampons
or a few whistles and stares from sleezy old men. It’s true that bad things can happen, but they can happen at home
too. If you keep yourself out of obviously dodgy situations and keep your wits about you will probably have a fantastic time.
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Staying out of dodgy situations generally means the obvious – don’t walk alone at
night, don’t wander into dark alleys by day, don’t get stupidly drunk if you don’t have someone
you trust to take care of you, don’t leave your drink unattended, all that sort of stuff. If you
plan on getting drunk it’s a good idea to have a mobile phone programmed with a local taxi number.
I’m a terrible role model who tends to do all of the naughty things mentioned above and I’ve come
out without any frightening stories or near misses so if you stick to them and are more responsible
than I am then you will more than likely never find yourself in a tricky situation.
All of that said, although you’ll head off on your travels alone, unless you have terrible social
skills, chances are you’ll never actually be alone. Meeting people along the way is easy, especially
other solo travellers. Backpackers have a great camaraderie and it is especially easy to meet other
solo women backpackers. If you keep your plans flexible you might even find yourself finding travel
companions for longer periods of time. The good thing about picking up travel companions along the
way is that you can go your separate ways if your interests are different or if you get on each
other’s nerves.
Solo travel will leave you feeling very empowered and give you a lot of freedom knowing that you
won’t have to wait around for friends to decide to go travelling with you. It will open your eyes
to new experiences and new friendships and you will see that the world is not that big, scary places
that the media sometimes wants us girls to think it is.
By: Kirsty
August 2006
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