DISQUS

lydiaw · 3 months ago

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.

Snooky · 3 months ago

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.

lil chicka · 3 months ago

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."