Travelling alone is an incredible experience, but women should use extra caution when in these destinations.
1. Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabian women made news in recent years by showing the bravery to protest the conservative nation’s female driving ban, which has reportedly led some of the country’s top clerics to consider lifting the ban. On one hand, you probably wouldn’t drive if you visited the Kingdom anyway. But on the other hand, a woman can’t be in public without a male relative in Saudi Arabia, local or foreign, so you might want to go elsewhere for your next trip to the Middle East.
2. Brazil
Brazil is one of the worst places to travel as a woman, in spite of – or maybe because of – its association with bikini-clad women. The country has a disproportionate amount of endemic violence against women, which has unfortunately included tourists at times.
3. India
India’s inclusion in the travel press in recent years has mostly been due to a string of tourist rapes. Local women tend not to fare much better, particularly in cities like Mumbai and Delhi, whose metro has attracted criticism regarding its safety for female riders since it opened in 2010.
4. Kenya
Kenyan women rose up in huge numbers in late 2014, protesting the fact that a local woman was assaulted due to the length of her skirt, but violence against women remains a huge problem in the East African nation, which is better known as a safari destination. “Women of all ages, education levels, and social groups, in rural and urban settings are subjected to violence in Kenya,” says a recent U.N. report on the subject.
5. Morocco
Women, especially from Western countries face day-to-day harassment in Morocco. As a man on the street in Marrakech explained to a traveller, “women with light hair and skin look like the exotic dancers we see in pictures and movies, so many men here assume all Western women must want sexual attention, simply based on their lighter complexion.”
