How I Actually Stay Safe Travelling Solo As A Woman

People ask me about safety more than they ask me about anything else. More than packing. More than budgeting. More than how to eat alone without wanting to die. So let's talk about it properly. Not the generic stuff you've already Googled, but what I actually do.

I’ve travelled solo to roughly seventeen countries over the past two decades.

I’ve never been robbed. I’ve never been seriously hurt. I’ve never been in a situation I couldn’t get myself out of.

That’s not luck. That’s a system.

Here’s mine.

The first thing I do is check my government’s travel advisory website. For New Zealanders that’s SafeTravel. You register your name, your destination, your dates, and your country has a record of you being somewhere else so if something happens, people know where to look.

It takes five minutes, and I do it every single trip without exception.

I tell my mum, my best friend, and a couple of other people where I’m going. I email them my full itinerary. I keep physical copies of my documents (passport, insurance, anything important) and I also have them saved in my Google Drive so I can access them from anywhere. There’s a spare set of copies at my apartment, and someone I trust has access to my place while I’m gone.

This is not paranoia. This is just being organised.

This is my non-negotiable.

I travel with a bag specifically designed so that if someone came at me with scissors, they couldn’t cut the straps. The zip sits at the back of the bag, against my back, not on the top or the front. To get into it, I have to take it off and unzip it myself.

Nobody is getting into that bag without me knowing about it.

I also carry a personal alarm clipped to the strap. It’s small. I’ve never had to use it. I’m glad it’s there every time I don’t.

This is where I spend a lot of time before a trip and it’s worth it.

I look for:

Free WiFi is also non-negotiable. More on that in a minute.

When I arrive, usually during the day, I stand outside for a moment before I go in. I look at the entrance, the nearby cafes and shops, how busy the street is, how many people are around. In the lobby I clock whether there are people hanging around who shouldn’t be, and whether the person at the desk seems switched on.

I ask for a room close to the elevator. Not because I’m lazy. Because I don’t want to walk down a long empty corridor alone at night.

I put a chair in front of my door. A door stopper works even better. They’re small, cheap and worth every cent.

During the day I’ll walk, usually up to about 30 minutes at a time. It keeps me close enough to get back quickly if I need to and means I’m not exhausted if something unexpected happens.

After dark I take Ubers. I prefer Uber to taxis because of the built-in safety features:

That’s a level of accountability a cash taxi doesn’t have.

I try to be back at my accommodation by sunset. If I’m out after dark it’s because I’m very close to where I’m staying and I know exactly how to get home.

I want to tell you about the night I scared myself.

I had just finished a walking tour and a friend had recommended a restaurant about 20 minutes away from the end point. Sounded easy enough.

Looking at the directions on Google Maps earlier in the day (street view, always street view), it looked safe. But in reality, and what I didn’t realise, was that at 6pm at night, the walk would take me through a part of the city that was almost entirely pitch black, with no people around, minimal street lights, in a country where I don’t speak the language, on a phone that only worked if I could find WiFi.

I started walking and about five minutes in my gut said no. It wasn’t the low-level anxiety you get when doing something new. This was different. This was: this is not right, turn around.

So I did.

I walked back the way I came, towards the lights, towards the Spanish Steps, towards people and I found another restaurant. I had a perfectly good dinner and the next day I took a taxi to the restaurant my friend had recommended and it was fantastic.

Nobody saw me turn around. Nobody judged me for it. And nothing bad happened, but only because I listened. That’s not to say something bad would have happened if I had continued, but in that moment, my gut told me to pivot and do something different, so I did.

Your gut is the most important safety tool you have. It has done a lot of work to keep you safe over your lifetime so when it speaks, you make sure you listen to it.

I dress like a local. Not fancy. Not flashy. Nothing that signals I’m a tourist with expensive things worth taking.

I don’t accept drinks from strangers. If I’m at a bar and I can’t watch my drink being made, I order a bottle of beer and keep my thumb over the top. A wide open glass is too easy for someone to interfere with. A bottle isn’t.

I don’t carry expensive jewellery or flash my phone around unnecessarily.

I pay attention to who’s around me and whether anyone seems to be paying too much attention to me.

* I wear a ring that I can easily move to my ring finger, I don’t do it often, but if I feel like I’m getting too much attention, I move it onto my ring finger and then can say things like “my husband is on his way” or “I’m meeting my husband” or “my husband is on a call and will be here shortly”.

And if a street, a building, or an area feels off, I don’t go there. A dodgy looking side street is not a challenge to prove something. It’s information. Use it.

Before every trip I research whether I need a local SIM or whether roaming will work. Most destinations I can roam. Some, like Barbados, I’ve needed a local SIM.

Either way, I always know in advance where I can get free WiFi. My accommodation, nearby cafes, the airport. If my phone data fails me I’m not standing in the street with no options.

Trust yourself more than you think you should.

The scared feeling and the unsafe feeling are not the same thing. Scared is normal. Unsafe is information. Learn the difference and you’ll be okay out there.

You’ve kept yourself safe your entire life. You know more than you think you do.

Now go book the trip.

Nobody’s Watching You Eat is a blog about solo travel, solo dining, and all the things you figure out when the only person you have to answer to is yourself. Subscribe below so you don’t miss the next one.