on the gender gap in travel

thepicturealive:

I recently responded to an email from an acquaintance of mine who is finishing school in the spring and is entertaining ideas of backpacking in foreign places upon graduation.  “How did you do it alone?” she asked.  After answering with a “you got this girl!!!”, I revisited a more recent article on the gender gap in travel by the Seth Kugel, the resident “Frugal Traveler” for the New York Times.     The subject of traveling alone as a girl is one that I haven’t discussed on this blog often;  I was partially conscious to have this site give off a vibe of “safety” and “well-being” for the anxious familial readers.  Well, I’ve made it back with all limbs in tow and I hope some stories and insight can now make their way out of the woodwork.  To start, here’s my response to Kugel: 

Traveling alone as a woman is an experience of extreme freedom and fun(!) but it can also be exhaustingly difficult due to the hassles of unwanted male attention.  Kugel speaks truth in that “waiters turn out to be the some of the most absurdly, self-anointed ladies’ men of all time.”   Such servers in Turkey, for example, seemed to have the least boundaries of all;  they were persistent in asking to pose for photographs while their hands inched south and shameless in talking about my body parts in the midst of taking an order for lentil soup.  I was out to dinner with my lovely mother one night in Istanbul and was forced to convince yet another local that I wasn’t from Latin America.   “But you must be!” he pleaded as he refilled my mom’s water glass,  ”your eyes, your lips, your breasts!  The women in Turkey don’t look like that.”  (Casual service industry banter, no?) The brash gestures continued past talks of my chest size to the scribbling of love letters on the back of our receipt.  

The cat-calling, groping, grabbing, stalking and staring can, without question, have a sinister intention.  The key to traveling (and to enjoy traveling) alone as a female is to filter the torrent and to be open to honest and exciting invitations.  On her time in Cairo,  author Elizabeth Eaves writes that, “this filtration of bad from good, as though we could separate smoke from a heady hit of nicotine was the trick:  If you shut yourself away too much, you shut out the whole world, and there were delightful things here too. “  Traveling alone as woman is balancing act between being on guard and surrendering to the adventure.   It takes time and experience to feel comfortable, but it’s worthwhile in every way.  

A few tips if it’s your first trip:

1.  Don’t hesitate to use someone for their Y chromosome—ask a guy to tag along on a trip for a couple of days.  Don’t be independent to a point where you’re a stubborn pain in the ass.  It’s not worth looking over your shoulder five times a minute and having a man around can keep inquisitions and invitations at bay.  

2.  Pack a rubber door stopper.  Weights nothing, costs nothing, and amounts to that extra door security in those dank and sketchy hostels.

3.  You have a boyfriend back in New York.  Your fiancee proposed on top of a mountain.  You’re married to a stock-broker named Harold.  Have your story ready before someone offers to marry you in exchange for a few camels.  

4.  Ask the local woman for advice.  For example, the local busses in South America always seemed to drop my friend Colleen and I off in new cities in the dead of the night.  Getting into a taxi blind is dangerous or in the least, unnerving.  We developed the habit of asking una mujer which cars were the safest, how long it should take to get to our destination, etc.  Have your map out.  Act alert.  

5.  No push up bras.  Loose, simple clothing is flattering to your safety, not your figure.