I’ve been wanting to have this conversation for awhile.

As a solo female traveller I have encountered numerous men who I feel have crossed boundaries in what is appropriate to say to a foreign woman visiting their country.

Before I get into this I want to explain that I understand cultures differ from home and that is expected – why else would I travel? But what is appropriate in another culture may make a traveller feel uncomfortable and as a female, at risk of something more horrible.

On my first trip to Thailand back in 2013, I was walking down a street by myself (I travelled with a friend but we had done different things that day and thus separated). I was stopped by a friendly Thai man who spoke good English. He asked me where I was from, my name, how long I was in Thailand and which other parts of the country I was travelling to. Not wanting to be rude I stood there for the 5 or so minutes and entertained the conversation although I knew he was a salesperson from the shop we were in front of and I wasn’t interested in buying a tailored made suit.

He then asks me, “which hotel are you staying at?” My mood suddenly changed. Out of all the things he asked me, this one was the one that struck me the wrong way. Why did he want to know that? How could he possibly benefit from my answer and knowing this information?

Now I am a pretty honest person and I hate lying, I just pointed in a general direction and said it was somewhere down there.

“Are you staying alone?” he asks. No, I have a friend, I answered.

“Is your friend a man or woman?”

Now this is where he went too far. Although he could just be curious and wanting to sell another suit to my friend, I instantly felt uncomfortable and wondered if he had intentions other than wanting to sell me a suit.

I promptly closed off the conversation and continued on my own and made a mental note not to walk down this street again in case he were to recognize me.

Since that incident, I have travelled extensively on my own and have numerous more encounters like this.

Where are you from? Where are you staying? Who are you with? Are you with a man or woman?

Most of the time I wrote them off as someone who just wanted to sell me something by making conversation. Maybe to them it was harmless to ask a solo-travelling woman where she was staying and who she was with. But AS the solo-travelling woman, I have a guard that I don’t want to let down.

When you’re on your own in a foreign country, you have to watch your back in ways much more than you would at home. If you haven’t made friends with other people in the new town you’re in or if your guesthouse staff haven’t gotten to know you, you can go completely unaccounted for in the absolute worst case scenario. So you have to watch yourself and take care of yourself. And this could mean forgoing the feeling of needing to be polite.

I often found myself way too nice with people I didn’t know. I didn’t want to lie to someone even if I had just met them but I always questioned in my head their intentions. Why is it acceptable to stop a woman walking alone on the streets to ask her where she’s from, who she’s with and where she is staying? If that happened at home, would that be acceptable? Why should I approach either situation differently, whether I am in my hometown or a foreign country?

I brought this up with a group of female travellers I met in Nepal and they all had stories to tell me. One woman mentioned how the other day she was sitting and writing her journal in a cafe when a man at another table started talking to her. Feeling the need to be polite, she closed her journal and chatted with him even though she really wanted to just write in her journal and be left alone. After a few minutes she realized what she was doing was by instinct and told the man that she was going to continue writing. And she did. And he left her alone.

The same traveller told me a few days later that she was walking back to her hotel after saying goodnight to us and was chased down by a man who was most likely drunk. She was terrified as the street was quiet and dark and ran back to her accomodation while this man yelled after her, saying things like “Why are you running from me? Where are you from? I want to speak English with you!” I felt so bad for her, that shouldn’t happen to anyone anywhere.

But it does.

Harassment exists in all forms yet it seems that it’s nearly always men approaching women on the streets, in the cafes, the stores etc. One woman on the Annapurna trail told me she was sitting by the lake in Pokhara, Nepal when a man came up to her and started telling her about his trekking agency that provided guides and porters. She was cordial with him, as we all learn to be with people we just met, but was firm on her decision that she wanted to trek without a guide or porter. The man, realizing he wasn’t going to be able to sell her anything, then propositioned her for sex. Yes, you heard me. The conversation went from trekking to sex. How absolutely disgusting and inappropriate. If that isn’t harassment, I don’t know what is.

My friend told him NO and to leave her alone. She walked away, her evening tainted by this incident that left her feeling dirty.

The thing that gets me is, we don’t put ourselves in these situations. We are minding our own business, sitting in a cafe, by the lake, not making ANY communication yet it’s always the men starting these things.

And before anyone gets into saying that women shouldn’t travel alone or go to these countries – you can just exit my blog now. It is perfectly safe to travel alone as woman and I think everyone should do it. I don’t need someone to travel with let alone a male companion. We just have to have more street smarts and ways of dealing with situations that don’t happen to male travellers.

So how you can deal with these situations?

Well I’ll tell you of another incident that happened to me.

Back in Kathmandu, a local Nepali man tried to be a “tour guide” for me as I walked around the streets. After just meeting me for a few minutes asked me if I had a boyfriend. On the spot I came up with the answer, “That’s personal”. He put his hands in a prayer and apologized.

But after that I still felt the need to make something up. I said I had a friend joining me from Australia in a few days. He then asked me if the friend was a man or woman. I said it was a man, thinking that in some way, him thinking that I had a male joining me in a few days “protected” me from anything this guy may or may not be considering.

In the end this guy showed his true identity as a scam artist by asking me to buy $30 worth of food for his “sisters” in which I refused and walked away. As if him probing me about boyfriends and male companions wasn’t annoying enough, I was internally really angry at being taken for a dumb tourist.

But what I can take from this incident is my response of “that’s personal”. This answer denied my naiveness of answering anything he asked me.

How else can you respond to someone who is harassing you?

Well, I find that being blunt to someone who is bothering you is the best thing. Being nice makes you vulnerable and easy to take advantage of. We female travellers cannot be afraid to seem impolite to someone you have just met and may never see again. Remember – you don’t owe anyone anything.

While travelling, you have to be selfish. It’s probably one of the best ways to travel because if you’re not selfish, your trip isn’t going to turn out the way you like it. Got invited out to an event you don’t want to go to? Why go? Your time in a foreign place is likely limited and if you’re a long term traveller like I was, every dollar spent is a dollar taken away from a future thing I may want to do (though I have to say it’s one thing to want to try new things and another to go along with something you know you don’t enjoy). But still, it’s silly to give into doing things and wasting your precious time while on the road. And this includes chatting with someone who has approached you, maybe wanting to sell you something or try to scam you. Be firm and walk away.

Of course if you think you are in any danger, de-escalate the situation and try to get away. Unfortunately sometimes being blunt/firm may come off as rude and taken the wrong way. Generally speaking, shopkeepers/travel agencies have been turned down numerous times before so they are used to it, but if they are having a bad day or if you encounter someone who is drunk, they can act even more out of line and you may feel even more threatened (like my friend who had a drunk man follow her to her hotel).

I was prompted to ask other female travellers this and write about it because of the #metoo movement. When talking about harassment, I think solo female travel is a place to have this conversation. It’s not about criticizing other cultures and expecting them to be what we think they should be – it’s about actively saying it’s NOT OK to ask me these things or treat me this way and finding a constructive way of dealing with it. Harassment is NOT OK anywhere you go and we should not accept it blindly because of fear.

Remember, fear holds you back. Don’t let it stop you from experiencing the world.

Have you had an unsavoury encounter while travelling? Was it a misunderstanding or intentional? How did you respond?