travelling alone. as a female traveller

The joys and the sorrows of a female backpacker are numerous. The same as it will be for a male backpacker. You might miss someone to talk to, sometimes and sometimes you might be glad to be alone and to get easier in contact to locals as this does happen on a much broader scale when you're a lone traveller. But there are other phenomenas that might hit lone women travellers harder than male ones. At least in some countries.

As I was travelling in eastern Turkey and Syria I had to bear (as nearly any foreign female will acknowledge) the staring, which isn't only an interested „who is this person“-look, but more a checking of all your body features and eyes that are glued to you in a way that make you feel stripped and uncomfortable. Not only people who stare at you when they cross your way, but also from inside a bus. I sometimes felt like an

animal in a zoo.

Besides the staring, I was sometimes enerved by the cotinuous sound around me. „whereareyoufrom“/“whatsyourname“/“hellohowareyou?“ - shoutings formed a steady carpet on which I walked through cities, bazars, places. But this is something, which males might face aswell (maybe not accompanied with questions whether you are married or want to marry as soon as you get in a smalltalk conversation in which the person who poses the question might praise himself as a good object of marriage and proposes (half jokingly) a marriage, but still...)

The shouting got less and eventually absolutely vanished as soon as I came to Iran, where -besides- everyone had warned me that men would go crazy on a blonde woman. They didn't. They were nice and friendly and more calm in coming to talk to me than I had known it before. People were coming up to me, to talk, pracice their english, ask how I find the country, but in a calmer, nicer way than I was used to before.

What is a lot more fun (or annoyance after hearing it for the fourth-hundred time, depending on you), is the „you are travelling alone as a woman in these areas, is it safe?“-questions. These questions come preferably from people when you tell them about you

r next travel targets (for example Iran and Pakistan, or when you tell them some people in western Turkey you'll be going to Eastern Turkey...mostly everywhere when you tell them you're going in the neighbouring country, which is more east...). Or it comes from friends/family at home...

And then I smile. And I think of all the persons who have invited me for a cup of tea in a bus station. Or for lunch.

And ordered extra desert for me. Or I think of my hosts in Iran, who didn't only give me the directions of the busstation, but who brought me to the bus and waited half an hour patiently until the bus set off with me. People, who phoned relatives in other cities to get informations or a place to stay for me. Or the simple facts that you get women-seats and usually never sit next to a man. So: I feel safe travelling alone as a woman and especially in highly islamic countries as in Pakistan: if I will yell at a man in public for touching me inappropriately, for example, there'll be a lot of people coming to protect me, as this is behaviour which is against Islam and is considered a sin to do. So he'll have quite a big crowd of people giving him a hard time.

So, as everything, this has always two sides in it. You might have to adjust to clothing and behavioural rules, but you might find protection, help and interested people more than travelling alone in Europe.