Girl travelling alone

What do I do and don't do when I travel alone?

I am doing budget travelling and I am staying at Airbnb private homes for the first month so I make sure to bring a small present e.g. a box of tea, chocolate, or biscuit to my host(s).

I always send my host's contact details (name, address, email, phone) and the date from when till when I stay there to one of my friends and to one of my family members who speak English. I always inform them when I arrived and if everything was OK so they can stop worrying. :) I also let them know when I leave the accommodation and send them info on the next place and/or flight if I am flying somewhere else etc. I do call/ text my mum too about my whereabouts and to say that I am all right. However, I stay quiet about certain details regarding my journey e.g. this time "I have to walk on a narrow path between the motorway and the edge of the cliffs to reach the sandy beach" and such. I don't want to cause my mum a heart attack...not yet, haha!

I always write down my host's contact details (name, phone, address, email) and the confirmation number of my booking in my notebook and also put the info in my phone. Furthermore, I save the local police's, emergency/hospital numbers too, and if there is a chance a taxi company's number too. Yes! :)

As a girl alone I would not book accommodation which is let by a man and the man lives in the house. It does not matter how cheap it is! I rather pay a bit more but feel safe. I get the feminism and nipple movement but there is no reason to prove how brave you are when the crime statics show an increased number of violence committed against women worldwide in the past 4 years! We are still the physically weaker gender and men still have TEN times more testosterone levels than women. It is a different scenario when the man host does not live at the rented home and/or if he has several other rooms let in the same place too. However, I always read the reviews and read the host's comments on the reviews too to find out about his personality and attitude which can be learned from his communication style. That applies to female hosts as well.

Listen to your intuition (the gut feeling!) and if you don't find a safe place for your budget, it is better to spend the night at the airport! Put your needs first, don't let others take advantage of you or blame the language barrier!

For me, it is important to have wifi at the place. It is not just because I write online but I feel better to have the opportunity to connect with my friends/ family whenever I want to share something and because I send the "I am okay" messages via online sources to keep my phone bill low. I feel safer if something happens, I can reach out immediately for free. Plus this time I travel to several different places and I browse, book, check in and deal with other communications online.

I also learn to say 'hello' and 'thank you' in the language that the locals speak.

And this: 'I don't speak Spanish' = No hablo Espanol

Thank you for reading! See you in my next post.