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Whether you're traveling for business or pleasure, when you're visiting a new town that you're not familiar with, how much do you worry about your own safety? What do you do about it, in terms of educating yourself on the town, mitigating risk, and more? What are your best safety tips for other Corporette readers and women travelers? Just to kick off the discussion, here are some things you COULD do or may do (particularly after dark):
- texting a loved one when you're in for the night, and/or making sure if you part ways with friends that you text each other when you're home
- Ubering/taxiing everywhere after a certain point at night, even short distances if you get turned around easily
- turning on “find your friends” or other location apps while you're traveling, even though they suck battery power
- extensively mapping things out and studying them in your head so you're not the person trying to walk home from drinks or dinner by following Google Maps
- having real or pretend phone conversations while walking back to your hotel at night for safety
- wearing a wedding ring when you travel, even if you're not married
- packing a doorstop or other wedge to add security to the hotel room door
- not going out by yourself after a certain point in the evening
- not going to new places by yourself
Personally, the only thing I haven't done on this list is bringing a doorstop with me or wear a fake wedding ring, but it's because I practiced the “don't go to new places by yourself” rule a lot I was single. I am definitely on the more risk averse side — when I went off to NYC to intern at age 20 my parents warned me to “never get on an elevator with a man if you're alone,” which seemed kind of crazy to me and is not something I'm advising here — but I tell the story to give you an idea of where I come from. Going down the list…
- texting a loved one – yep, all the time, definitely for the “I'm in for the night” message. (Off topic but relevant — the last time my nuclear family (hubs + kids + I) went on a mini-vacation to a town a few hours away I texted my mom every time we hit a new location, not so much for safety but in case there was a shooting or something, because I wouldn't want her to wonder. Yes, yes, I am insane.)
- Ubering/taxiing at night – I have the worst sense of direction on the planet, I swear, and after a recent experience of wandering around downtown Chicago by myself at 11:30 at night knowing my hotel was only a few blocks away… but, um, where? — I decided to just get in an Uber and be done with it. In the future I am totally going to be taking an Uber for even short, embarrassing distances.
- turning on Find Your Friends – I actually have not done that one because I am stingy with apps that drain my battery power, but it's a smart idea!
- extensively mapping things out — I have done this more in the past, when smart phones weren't as omnipresent as they are today, but I would still probably do it if I were truly taking a solo vacation. I thought I was super clever when I went to Paris by myself for my bar trip to write very coded messages to myself for Metro directions, so I could just discretely look at a Post-It stuck in my book instead of waving around a map. (But: am I the only one who thinks Google Maps stinks for walking directions? It feels like once I zoom in to my exact block the street names go away — and then the red dot doesn't move until you've already walked for far too long in the wrong direction… etc, etc.)
- having real or pretend conversations on your phone — another hand raised here. If it's too late or a weird time to get ahold of someone then I just pretend I'm talking to my mother telling me a long story about my aunt, with lots (on my end) of “Oh, no, what was Kathy thinking?!” and “uh huh — and then what happened”? type of dialog. Super spy fo sho!
- wedding ring – I have not done this but a good friend did — on a lark she decided to take two weeks to drive through as many states as possible, and found that she got really creeped out by some of the hotel clerks, particularly in the South. Her solution was to buy a fake wedding ring at Walmart.
- doorstop/wedge – I have NOT done this, but whenever I travel by myself when I'm locking the doors I always have a fleeting thought of, yup, would've been a smart idea, and sometimes I have thrown a towel on the ground in front of the door so it won't open smoothly. (In fact, wow, Amazon auto-filled “doorstop hotel security” when I looked up doorstops (affiliate link).)
- self-imposed curfew — if I'm meeting people or have an event to go to then I don't do this anymore, but I probably would be reluctant to just make a quick run outside the hotel unless I knew exactly where I was going. But when I was young and traveling by myself (again, using Paris as the example), I definitely did not make evening plans just for myself.
- not traveling by yourself — I'm always in awe of friends and readers who take vacations alone — good for you. I'm so risk averse I haven't done a ton of it, and I regret that now. (My friend Auntie M has traveled extensively by herself, and shared her best tips for traveling solo a few years ago with us — she has a whole section on safety for solo travelers!)
I fully realize some of my personal things my tend towards the “crazy” side of things, but not all of it crazy. So I'd love to hear what you guys do — do you worry about this stuff? Do you relax significantly if you're traveling with a colleague, even if you're in different rooms, or if you've stayed at an exact hotel before? What else are you doing that you put in the “smart, not crazy” checkbox? (And hey, share your crazy things with us too!)
{related: our best self-defense tips}
Readers, what are your thoughts — what are your best safety tips for women travelers? Where is the line between Nervous Nellie crazy and smart?
Stock photo via Creative Market / Barn Images.
In-House in Houston
I have a milestone anniversary next June (25 years, yikes) and would really love to go to St. Barth, St. Lucia or St. Martin. I’d like to stay in a really nice resort, but I don’t need Jade Mountain (although it’s gorgeous). Any suggestions? Private pool would be ideal. TIA!
Ellen
My dad got me this attachment I put on the door, so that if anyone tries to come in after I set the attachment on the door, an alarm goes off, and it is loud! He got it when he was in Holland, where he said they have a big probelem with leches who follow women to their hotel rooms, only to come back later trying to get in as staff. Each time I travel, I bring this with me, and attach it to the door once I am in for the night. I must disengage it carfully, or it will go off! I have used it in a number of hotels so far and it has never let me down. I recomend it to the entire hive! YAY!!
Never too many shoes...
Not so much a safety tip, but the idea of texting your mother so she would know where you were in case of a shooting (which is hardly unreasonable in the US these days) just makes me so sad as a human being.
Kat G
I think a shooting had just happened when we went and there was a lot of talk about gun control in the news then, I haven’t been quite so crazy before or since. (But then again there’s also more down time during family vacations so hey.)
Anon Traveler
I was recently on vacation (in a large city) and found that my Apple Watch was great for navigating the city without having to stare at my phone for directions. My watch would buzz my wrist when a turn was coming up and just needed to glance quickly to determine what direction. On previous trips, I was definitely someone who would study maps before leaving anywhere to avoid having to pull out my phone or a map on the street
Kat G
WHAT? I need that app immediately. What was it?
Anon
If you have an iPhone as well, Apple Maps (the native map app) does it automatically.
Anonymous
Yes, you just have to set up the alerts so they show up on your watch.
Anon
I wore a fake wedding ring when I was dating but not engaged and traveling solo for races.
Otherwise, I tell friends (now my husband) the following things:
Itinerary if flying
Route if driving, and if driving, updates from the road
Hotel
When I arrive, when I leave
Name of conference if applicable
Where I am going for dinner.
Hotel rooms stay locked and I use the metal thingie that prevents the door from opening. I don’t stay out late at night, limit alcohol, and try to stay at places in nice areas.
Anonymous
I travel alone often. I will tell call my husband when I get back to the hotel for the night. But I often go out alone at night. I have a terrible sense of direction, so I don’t drink because I need to be able to find my way back to the hotel. I sometimes try to map the route out first, but even then I get turned around so I just try and use my phone directions as discreetly as possible. I sometimes will talk to someone on the phone while walking back to the hotel. I also don’t like to take a purse with me when walking around alone at night so I will usually tuck a credit card, my ID, and a little bit of cash into either my phone case or my pocket. I make sure to lock the hotel door. The one thing I get paranoid about is someone following me to my room. For example, if someone gets off the elevator at the same time I do, I always hang back and let them go first.
Anonymous
When we travel for work or otherwise are separate, my husband and I text each other pictures of the phone in the hotel room (easy way to get hotel info and room number) or send the address of the house/rental.
When walking alone, especially in unfamiliar/dark areas, I stay heads up and alert. Not talking on or looking at my phone.
Anonymous
Walk like you know where you’re going and have somewhere to be. Even (especially) if you don’t. If you want to stroll around gawking at the big buildings looking like a tourist then join a walking tour. Another tip to safely gawk like a tourist – get a fancy camera, go for photographer-chic attire, and look very stern and serious while you’re taking pictures like you’re a professional photographer (or just look normal if you have rbf like me). This also gives you cover for periodically taking out your phone acting like you’re taking notes/checking on your next site. Fwiw, I routinely get mistaken for a local/asked for directions in the language of wherever I’m visiting.
When I first check in to my hotel/airbnb, I spend an hour or so walking around the nearby area. In a city, I’ll walk counterclockwise and then clockwise around the block the hotel is on. That way, I’ll recognize landmarks coming from either direction (because I may have once panicked and thought I was lost when I was actually… standing right next to the hotel, just from a different direction than I had set out. whoops). Then I’ll sort of spiral outward until I hit the nearest major street, then walk back to the hotel from there. Next I’ll identify major landmarks and walk to and from each landmark and the hotel. If anyone was paying attention, I’m sure I would look a little bit like a crazy person, but this is usually midday so I’m sure no one notices me.
Anon
For the past 20 years I’ve frequently traveled by myself on personal and business trips and I don’t think I’ve regularly done anything on the list other than mapping things out. I do use Linkedin to figure out if I know anyone close by to meet for a meal or coffee (or get suggestions for places to eat and visit – it’s a great excuse to network), and I’m not afraid to talk to the locals to get directions and a sense of how late it’s ok to stay on the streets. But following the things on this list means I’d miss out on so much, in terms of exploring the locale, taking time to breathe and experience where I am, and meeting new people – and isn’t that the point of traveling, to experience all that? (Unless it’s a business trip, in which case I’m just trying to get a lot of work done and maybe fit in a run after discussing good routes with the desk clerk or concierge.)
Anon
+1
I do literally none of the things on this list other than mapping out my route to a meeting or dinner or whatever so that I have a sense of how long it’s going to take and whether I want to take the subway, uber/taxi, walk, etc. I travel by myself for work a lot and it’s normal for me to be in NYC solo for an evening or in a foreign city solo for a weekend.
I just don’t understand the level of paranoia in Kat’s post. I live in a major city, so I’m used to being aware of my surroundings, not walking down deserted streets in the dark, etc. but the level of anxiety inherent in that list is so much higher than warranted and would frankly ruin the fun of traveling. I love walking or taking the subway to dinner by myself and it would never occur to me to need to constantly tell people where I am or to use extra hotel security. Realistically, if something bad happened to me, me having texted someone on another continent to tell them where I last was isn’t going to do any good. My credit card and Uber transactions are just as effective of a record.
LaurenB
Agree. These things sound paranoid to me too. My travel took me all over the world – yeah, I’m not going to walk alone in Sao Paolo unless I”m with my client, and I’m not going to jump in a taxi there, but for your standard-issue UK/Western European city? Yeah, I’d walk around by myself and take public transportation and really, not think twice.
Small Law Partner
Yeah, all of this. I had to go solo to less than safe places like Pakistan and Venezuela, and then I’d of course have a driver and never go anywhere outside the hotel alone. But I had no idea people were so paranoid about traveling somewhere like New York or Dallas or London or whatever.
Ponka
1. I don’t walk drunk (and do not drink much alone anywhere, yesterday I got tipsy in my hotel bar and went back to my room
2. I don’t walk by dark streets. But I like jogging in the evenings at some safe downtown streets with some good lights. I just returned from my evening jog being in business trip. Great way to see new city
3. I text my mom when I arrive to new city
Anonymous
I don’t do any of this, travel alone often, and am sad you’re so anxious. I make sure I know my surroundings, I stay in reasonably nice hotels, and other than that I just carry on living life like at home.
anon
I thought the same. Traveling to reasonably safe Western countries and cities, I just make sure either husband or my parents have the itinerary of the journey. I think the places with perhaps the highest crime rates I’ve been to are Baltimore and a small city in Argentina, but I still walked around and explored the place.
Anonymous
after dark, by yourself? you’re braver than I am. I agree with Kat.
Of Counsel
This is super location specific. I have walked around major cities at 1:00 a.m. with the basic precaution of staying on streets with lots of people. I mean I wasn’t walking down dark alleys – but there are more people walking down 5th Avenue in NYC at that hour than live in my home town. On the other hand, I would be very unlikely to walk around in downtown LA at that hour (or any time after dark – Uber all the way – because LA is not a city where people walk and some parts of downtown are pretty scary.
Rome late at night was one of the best experiences of my life and EVERYONE was a tourist gawking at the sites! I do not get hung up on looking like a local. (Nobody is going to mistake me for Italian even if I do not say a word.) Same for most of the other European destination cities. As long as you stay in the major tourist areas, it will generally be pretty safe. And if I find myself walking in an area that suddenly looks sketchy (which happened to me in London and Chicago), I just cross the street and start walking back the way I came. The one thing I do if I am not familiar with the area is ask the hotel clerk/AirBnB host if there are any “no go” areas around.
The other thing I am careful about, especially in Europe and NYC, is watching out for pickpockets and purse snatchers. I carry a purse for my sunglasses, tissues, small change and bills, but my credit cards and main cash is in a money belt.
Honestly, the scariest part of my day is walking from my office to my parking garage at night (when I get security to accompany me). Travelling does not warrant precautions other than what I do at home (except for the part about my purse) and making sure I know if there is an area I should avoid.
Anon
Yeah, like others, I do basically none of the things on this list. I was more reckless in my youth but am now more cautious about venturing out late at night alone. I still do it in plenty of places – I just make sure I’m sticking to well-lit, heavily trafficked areas. Like someone said above, I had a wonderful evening out in Rome once until about 10 or 11 pm, but everywhere I went was crowded with tourists eating gelato, I wasn’t exactly wandering down deserted back alleys. But I would not be comfortable hanging out in a highway truck stop at 2 am, for obvious reasons. I travel quite a bit for work, usually to convention centers, which for some reason are often not in the best neighborhoods. I’ve felt perfectly safe walking around downtown/convention areas during the day and early evening, but probably wouldn’t be up for wandering around late at night by myself in many of the big US cities I’ve been to for work. You have to be smart and trust your instincts but I do think there’s a lot of racism and classism involved in people’s uncomfortableness with certain areas. I was pretty horrified when we visited my SIL and BIL in Atlanta recently and my BIL didn’t want to go to the major downtown museums because “that neighborhood is so sketchy.” Yes there is some homelessness, but the area is INCREDIBLY touristy and during the day I could not have felt safer there. The idea that you would avoid an entire area (especially during the daytime) just because of some homelessness is very strange to me.
I think some people just have good instincts for this and some don’t. I remember my dad – a native NYer! – being horrified at me being alone with a female friend in Times Square close to midnight. But I’ve always felt completely safe there due to the crowds of tourists, especially when all the Broadway shows are letting out (I suppose there’s a risk of a terrorist attack or petty crime like pick-pocketing, but I’ve never felt any threat to my personal safety). He was less bothered by me and my friend riding the subway after the show all the way to Brooklyn, but that actually felt much less safe to me because the subway was pretty damn deserted by the time we got to our stop and then we had to walk a few blocks in a totally empty residential area.
Lee
All good ideas, most of which we practice, especially texting each other all the time (boarding now, just landed, in the rental headed for XYZ, at the hotel, going out for dinner, back in the room, night night!). Another safety idea in hotel rooms: if there’s a chair your can push up under the door knob, that will make it harder for someone to open the door.
LaurenB
I just can’t imagine being so paranoid I’d need to put a chair under the door knob. Where are you people staying??
Sarah
#1 – prioritize hotel location by distance to what you’ll be doing and neighborhood safety! Also, I like to arrive to the hotel in the day time if at all possible. If travelling solo, private rooms at hostels are often nice options, and hostel booking websites do have customer reviews on security and safety, which is uncommon on hotel sites that I’ve used.
In Europe, I always just use my phone for navigation, but I try to look ahead (“3 more blocks then right on Main”) so that I’m not staring at my screen the entire time. But considering how often most people are looking at their phones, you don’t exactly stand out if you’re glancing every so often!
Seventh Sister
Not so much when I go to foreign countries (though I should), but I’m fanatical about having a paper map when I’m traveling in a rural area in the US. My folks live in a very rural place where phone service is spotty even though it’s less than 150 miles from some actual cities. I do NOT want to be driving down some deserted country road and have to ask for directions.
S
Lock the door and yes use the metal thing! And seriously I need to look into the doorstop. When traveling in DC 5 years ago a drunk guest was confused and thought my room was his and tried to break down the door. It was 3 am, and security was light, so it took the hotel over an hour to address. At that point I should have called 911, but didn’t. He really was that drunk and meant no malice, but it was really scary. Thankfully the door stayed nice and shut!
Rainbow Hair
The night Trump got elected I was at a meeting in Las Vegas and a drunk guy tried to break down my door. Metal thing forever.
Anonnymouse
I travel alone for vacations and business. When alone I place a chair or other item in front of the hotel door. If someone opens the door there is a bang or some resistance.I started this after almost being raped in a hotel in Munich. It turned out that the keys in the old hotel where I was staying opened every other room. Fortunately I awoke and screamed loud enough to scare him away.
I have had fake phone conversations with my husband in taxis when I didn’t know the directions. I’ve walked alone down streets every where from Alexandria, Egypt, to Zephyr Cove, Nevada. The basic rules of safety are the same. Be aware of your surroundings. Look like you know where you’re going. Don’t flash cash. There are no absolutes that will keep me safe, but I minimize the things that make me look like an easy target.
Neck blankets in Paris
I try to dress like a local, observing local people and then purchasing some new clothes and accessories. A baseball cap for the local team (Charleston), a cardigan purchased at a local store (Cologne), a raincoat (British Columbia), a neck blanket scarf (Paris), and tight tops with tight pants (Rio de Janeiro) have all been practical purchases for the contexts and suggested that I was not a tourist.
You can also look on Instagram and online generally for ideas on how people tend to dress.
Anonymous
I agree it’s good to look like a local. Don’t wear an NYU sweatshirt in Egypt for example. Try not to stand out. You may not look Egyptian but no need to shine a spotlight on yourself that you are American either.We traveled extensively when I was a child and my parents had a rule of no logos our brand names visible on anything we wore or carried.