Tell your family and your friends you want to travel on your own and you can pretty much predict the response. From your family, concern; danger and vulnerability feature in the main objections. From friends, also concern, but more socially-based; do you not have anyone to travel with? Are you going on your own because no one will go with you?
You add the ‘girl’ factor and the objections are firmer, and the suggestions that you find one of your ‘nice male friends’ to protect you from a bucking elephant, are even stronger. This is not an uncommon situation: figures show that 45% of solo travellers are now women, but that 79% of those would prefer to have a companion but have no choice.
But say you do find yourself without that vital ‘other half’; you’ve got the time and money to go, what are the objections? Inclined as I am to take the ‘women can do anything men can do’ approach to life, travelling abroad for any extended amount of time requires some serious thought. Sure, your mum might be a little over-cautious, and your friends a little too socially aware, but the fact remains that for many countries, even those in accessible reach, your friendly Lonely Planet advises a female against solo travel.
While shirking from ever telling you not to travel alone (the progressive intrepid guide that it is), reading the advice can have the same effect. When practical advice in the ‘women travellers’ section (listed in the directory alongside similarly debilitating local diseases) involves ‘carry[ing] a rape alarm to scare away would-be attackers, and if possible, take a self-defence course’ it is nothing if not off-putting. And playing dress-up; ‘wearing a ring on the wedding finger’ or referring to a (very much fabricated) ‘husband nearby’ makes a mockery of your emancipated solo adventure.
Everyone’s first priority is (or should be) safety – that’s indisputable. But there are some important inclusions and exclusions to take into account when reading the generalized and cautious advice that you might find in your local bookshop.
Firstly, any writer is compelled to cover his tracks. Making people aware, even of worst-case scenarios, is crucial in giving safety advice. So reading and assessing the risks must be taken with a pinch of salt by the reader. Remember what could, and is, written about the UK, where we skip happily around, often, and unthinkingly, without companions. Gun crime? Tick. Knife crime? Tick. Date-rape drugs? Tick.
But many of the dangers cited under specifically female ‘dangers’ remain so for both sexes. In this sense, guidebooks have something to answer for. In Lonely Planet’s guide to Peru we are told to ‘be aware that women (and men) have been drugged, here and elsewhere’. Why are the men only in brackets? Sure, this isn’t their section of the guidebook – but instead feebly acknowledging the equivalent danger, don’t pile yet further concerns and obstacles onto a specifically female plight. The same might be observed for the following: ‘if a stranger approaches you on the street to ask you a question, don’t stop walking, which would allow attackers to quickly surround you. Never go alone on a guided tour, and stay alert at archaeological sites, even during daylight hours. Take only authorized taxis and avoid overnight buses.’ All sensible advice, but why should this be solely directed at the female among us?
Directing such pragmatism to the girls leaves us more fearful, but also denies the boys of the much (dare I say more greatly?) needed advice. Whilst women are physically weaker and more vulnerable to attack, good sense should be practised by both sexes. Studies, in fact, show that women remain in control of travel decision-making (80 per cent of travelling decisions, regardless of the situation, are made by women) and that it is the men who make snap and rash decisions.
Travelling in South America for six months, much of it by myself, the only time I found myself in a dangerous situation was when my friend (male) suggested walking home from a nightclub instead of taking a taxi. In Ecuador you are strongly advised not to be alone out of doors at night, but it’s easy to think (stupidly) that the extra nine inches of height on your companion will be able to protect you.
In fact, five minutes into our journey we were stopped by a man with a metal pole, who, yes, demanded everything we had on us and ran away. With or without the masculine presence this situation would have occurred. The difference is, that alone, I would never have been lured into such a false sense of security.
Alone, especially as a girl, you feel more vulnerable. But you are also much more aware. You won’t skip the precautions given to you. As long as you follow the sensible advice of people around you (and your guidebook) it’s unlikely anything will go wrong. Be secure in the knowledge that you’ve done everything you can do to limit your risks, and have some self-confidence. Not only will this vastly improve your trip (rather than making you worry you’re going to be raped around every next corner) but it will also actually increase safety. The feeling of vulnerability is palpable to the street sellers and beggars who are inevitably encountered on the along the way: a hint of indecision, guaranteed they will increase their efforts exponentially.
Quite apart, however, from justifying your personal well-being, there are many reasons why the choice of yours truly as a companion is far from catastrophic. You can do exactly what you want to do, without having to compromise and go to the Museum of Modern Zebra Study. When you’ve paid a significant amount of money to visit a place you may never see again, it seems hard to have to do things you don’t want to just because the person you are with does. And that’s when the compromise works. Most people would agree that it’s just as difficult, if not more so, to travel with a friend who’s hard work than it is being on your own. When companionship means being constantly irritated and bickering it’s much easier and quieter to be on your own; time to enjoy the sights rather than trying to conduct UN-scale peace initiatives. And that’s without even considering the potential explosiveness of couples travelling together.
On your own you’re also a lot more likely to meet new people. Travelling solo does not mean being entirely alone; rather you’ll be much more open to the other people around you, rather than sticking your friend the safety-net. Obviously, its more effort, when sometimes bed and a bookwould seem far more appealing, but every now and then there’s someone who’s worth the effort, and whom you’d have met under no other circumstances. At the times when you’re stuck talking to a 25 year old man who is ‘discovering himself’, you can still say you’re improving your conversation skills (there’s one for the CV).
The pressure in Oxford is to be with people. You mustn’t go anywhere alone: a theatre, a restaurant, a class, Kukui; all time that isn’t library time should be sociable. But actually, learning to be happy in your own company is a skill that will stand anyone, boy or girl, in good stead. In fact, sitting on a bus for five hours, alone and without the faintest possibility of running into anyone you know, watching an entirely foreign landscape pass by, is actually pretty liberating.
