Stop Asking “How to be Safe as a Solo Female Traveler”
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Read about the solo female traveler “trend” and you’d think there is only one topic of concern for us: safety. That’s all traveling women have to care about, apparently, and thus it is our market value. Our fear is pandered to and marketed to for views and followers. While articles about “how to be safe as a solo female traveler” claim they are aiming to help, the overabundance of them almost doubles down on the idea that we should constantly put fear at the forefront. As a result it can be further internalized.
I’m in a lot of Facebook groups for solo female travelers, which can be truly fun and helpful. For instance, one group is for women living out of their cars, and the types of Macgyver tips and tricks that get posted are genuinely enlightening and often hilarious. I’ve learned a lot from those ladies. I’m in another group where women who own property offer up free temporary parking spaces to other women traveling on the road, which is rad as hell. I’ve already met two wonderful hosts that way who helped me out when I needed a safe place to park in North Carolina in between hikes. It’s heartening to see women providing support for other women and coming together to have each other’s backs, for no other reason than solidarity.
Other groups seem to exist entirely so that 20 women per day can post some repeat variation of “how do you feel safe while traveling alone?”, “what countries are safe for solo female travelers?”, “what countries are safe for hiking solo?”, and the like. It drives me absolutely insane, and not just because they could easily use the “search” function to find the last million responses and tips about the same exact question.
The reason these questions are annoying is because they’re actually a veiled attempt to ask something else. I don’t understand what they’re really trying to ask. I’m not sure if they do either. What does “safety” mean to this individual?
Female Solo Traveler Hiking Safety
What criteria would make a hiking trail “safe” for a solo hiker in comparison to a couple or group? Are they asking if the terrain of the trail is difficult? If so, wouldn’t that terrain be equally difficult even if you’re with a group of hikers? Having an additional person around isn’t going to make your muscles or lungs any stronger. One friend on Twitter mentioned that some routes require a second person to belay you. This is the only case I can think of where you might recommend a trail to a larger party that you would not also recommend to a solo adventurer, but this situation is more specific to climbers.
Is Group Travel Always Safer Than Solo Travel?
Does a “safe” trail to them mean one without steep drop-offs, loose scree, lions, tigers, or bears? Is it a question about unpredictable weather? Are they asking if the trail is easy to get lost on, or if it requires route-finding?
Again, these are concerns equally shared by groups. Having more people around is certainly more of a deterrent for bears, but if that was their question they could have asked “are bears active in this area”, “is this trail popular enough that I’ll see other people”, or somehow focused their question to be about wildlife and remoteness.
Regarding route-finding, the bigger concern should be finding the appropriate maps and doing adequate pre-trip research, maybe even taking an orienteering class. These are all things hikers should be doing no matter what. Even if you always hike with other people, you need to be comfortable enough in yourself and your resources that if something were to go south with your hiking buddy, you still have the ability to get yourself out of the situation. It is unsafe to rely on others fully. I love this Jon Krakauer quote from the Vanity Fair story on the tragic 1996 Everest attempt where guides died in the midst of trying to save their amateur clients:
According to Krakauer, the debate “raises the question ‘What are you doing on this mountain if you can’t get yourself down?’ There’s only so much you can ask of a guide or a sherpa.” In his view, guided climbers may have a lot of experience, but that does not necessarily translate into great ability or judgment. He emphasizes that these climbers are never without guides—“high-altitude baby-sitters”—which is very different from doing it on your own. “You don’t have the mind-set to take care of yourself. You learn to operate within a client framework, which is that other people are going to haul your loads, other people are going to look after you.”
The Real Story of Sandy Hill Pittman, Everest’s Socialite Climber
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Is the question supposed to be, “are there axe murderers in this wilderness area?” Because how is anyone supposed to know that? Are they hoping someone who works for the local police force happens to be in the group, and that they’ll comment “definitely do not hike in this location because that’s where Brian Laundrie is”?
Female Solo Traveler Safety Abroad
When asking about traveling in other countries, I suppose their hidden agenda is to ask whether there is a sexism or harassment problem within that culture. They might be wondering if they will encounter men who believe women shouldn’t be out doing things alone, and who could react aggressively or suggestively towards them as a result. Unfortunately this is a problem that does not recognize borders. Two minutes on Reddit or a TikTok influencer’s comment section will show you how many of these men live right here in America.
As far as countries where misogyny is seriously rampant to the point of being systemically enforced in the culture, either through law or religion, I don’t think most people need to be told this advice as if it’s news. Take a moment right now and think about what countries came to mind when reading that last sentence. Can you think of a few places in the world that are stereotyped as forcing women to still “live in the Dark Ages”? Have you ever read that it’s best for a woman to hire a local male guide in X country, or to dress a certain way, lest she face harassment?
The person asking the question “what countries are safe” has already heard this advice too. They already know what countries they wouldn’t personally feel safe visiting. I know this by nature of the fact that they were paranoid enough to ask the question in the first place. Even if someone countered with, “actually, it’s safer there than people believe, I’ve been there solo many times and loved it”, I guarantee the inquirer is still not looking to hear “Afghanistan” in response to their question. If they were looking for unique travel ideas or meant to ask “what places get a bad rap unjustly” they could have worded it that way. I surmise they’re asking something more akin to “what places will I personally feel safe in”, and that’s something no-one else can answer.
Common Female Solo Traveler Safety Tips
What sort of common sense answers come to mind as a response to “how do you feel safe when traveling/hiking alone?” I bet you just thought of at least five. We’re all adults here. Carry weapons, do your research, carry maps, download offline maps, pack the ten essentials, carry an emergency GPS spot tracker, practice Leave No Trace, tell a friend where you’re going and when you should be back, try not to look like a tourist who doesn’t know where they’re going, don’t have valuables where people can see them, try to look mean, check the government travel advisories, never post your location until after you’ve left, blah blah blah, on and on. I refuse to believe that any woman actually needs to be told any of this.
We internalize methods to keep ourselves safe from a very early age. Isn’t that part of the massive conversation going on in the wake of #MeToo? The idea that men might not realize how much mental and emotional effort women expend on a daily basis just to feel safe while going about our daily lives? The way men can just go for a jog at night with abandon, but if a woman does that she has to be paranoid the entire time and carry her keys in between her knuckles? The way women text their friends when they get home after a date to let them know they haven’t been murdered?
The question “what do you do to feel safe as a female solo traveler” angers me because it is not a revelatory question. It’s so ubiquitous as to be ridiculous. If you have to ask this you need to wake up. At the very least you need to hit up google.com or use the search function in the Facebook group. Is it possible that no-one else has asked this in the history of time? In a group called “Solo Female Travelers”? Or elsewhere on the internet? Eve probably asked God this question the first time Adam looked at her weird.
I suppose there can be unique, rarely-heard advice in this category, but if you want specialty advice then you’re going to have to get more specific. “How to feel safe while stealth parking overnight as a solo female” merits some unique answers. “How to feel safe as a solo female in a country that speaks another language” merits unique answers. Give us something to work with. I might have some wisdom about a particular locale or lifestyle, but I cannot tell you how to be a woman in the world. None of us can. None of us have solved it.
The Better Question: How to Accept My Fear
Often I think the questioners don’t realize they’re subconsciously asking how to assuage their fear. It is something that must be done internally. You can take every precaution in the world and be thoroughly prepared for worst case scenarios, you can buy the mace suggested by Barbara from Ohio on Facebook, but if your mind is in a paranoid place it doesn’t matter.
We all know the planet is a dangerous rock, so unless the very atomic structure of this dimension miraculously changes, or we wake up from a simulation, ultimately the work to “feel” safe has to be done in your gut. This is the human condition. You have to move forward anyway. So, you tell your inner wuss to suck it up and be courageous. You remind yourself that the things you want to do, see, and accomplish in your lifetime are more important than your fear. Meanwhile, you also trust yourself to be capable of handling a situation if it does go awry. Trust yourself to be intuitive and flexible enough to make the right call or change your plans when you do sense red flags. Grant yourself the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Grant yourself a plane ticket.
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I love this and I agree. Though, I will say… many women have been conditioned by society to believe that the entire world is a death trap and that they couldn’t possibly do anything on their own. When you’re trying to break free of endemic societal structures the path forward isn’t always clear— you’re bound to ask some inane questions along the way.
I run a community for female travelers in Mexico and I get these questions constantly. This post helped me realize I need to stop coddling them 🙂
Sounds like a cool group re: Mexico! Thanks so much for taking the time to let me know your reaction. It’s good to hear that a few people get where I’m coming from, because I know the post oozes with sarcasm and isn’t in line with the common discourse on this topic, but it comes from a place of frustration. There are maybe 1,000,000,000 articles out there that take a gentler approach and will just reinforce what people want to hear and have already heard over and over; I really felt like there needed to be at least one differing perspective. Not all solo women are going to fit the character/personality mold that’s being constantly and exclusively represented by most articles about solo female travelers. Not all women are looking for hand-holding with this sort of “basic” elemental advice. I feel like most articles treat solo women like tiny naive children. (I’m back on my soap box I guess, lol).
I do think that’s true about societal conditioning. I’ve definitely had times in my life when I sort of “woke up” from the matrix and realized I needed to decondition myself, and not just in the realms of travel or gender. That’s a good reminder and I should make an effort to remember what that feels like.
Love this! Especially the end part “remind yourself that the things you want to do, see, and accomplish in your lifetime are more important than your fear.”
I was worried about travel on my own when I first went to Japan. But it was more because at 19, I’d never lived in a city and I didn’t know much Japanese yet – Having said that, I am not sure my mum would have let me go if Japan didn’t have such a “safe” reputation.
Nowadays, I like to know if the culture is a place that tends to rip foreigners off. That’s not about safety… it’s just I really didn’t enjoy some places (like Morocco) that were sooo full of scammers. Most of my friends loved it there. I just didn’t (until I got to the mountains where the culture is different…)
And lastly, now we’re starting to hike in the snow/avalanche terrain, it’s not really safe to hike solo. I’d only snowshoe solo if it was *not* in avalanche terrain. After doing the avalanche training Marc and I decided not to enter into those areas unless we’re in a group of 4 who all have the training and equipment to dig us out if the worst happens. It’s hard work probing and digging someone out quickly so if Marc was caught, I’d want other people there to help me!
That’s a great point about avalanche safety! I hadn’t though of that. I guess there are a couple types of terrain where it would make sense to not recommend a trail to solos. (That’s cool that you guys did avalanche training – I’d love to sign up for a class!)
I think those are all great concerns to have. I’m nervous about being in France this summer since I’m not fluent, and the scammer culture is definitely a good thing to ask about and research before visiting an unfamiliar place. I think these fall under general travel concerns or possibly solo travel concerns, but not necessarily gender-based concerns.
As an aside, I do think I would be worried to go to Morocco solo specifically as a female. There was that horrible story about those two hiker girls, and I know someone who studied and lived there and she said there’s constant harassment. If I were to go there solo it would just be despite these concerns, I guess. Not because someone gave me a revolutionary tip that helped me forget that women experience harassment.