A Note About Women Traveling Alone

There are the usual dangers for a woman traveling by herself: sexual attack, robbery, pick-pockets, uncomfortable stares and whistling from men, etc. On this Galapagos trip I traveled with a group of (mostly older) men and women, and felt quite safe. I have traveled absolutely alone (to Europe) and also had few problems. (Beware of fiends hassling women in the Rhein Valley.) Therefore, it is a sad fact that the most likely problem that the lone female traveler will encounter is loutish chauvinism and unwarranted suspicion from other Americans in our supposedly enlightened culture.

How ironic that we’re “exporting democracy to Iraq” when I have already had to put at least one of my own countrymen in his place at the airport about my conduct, which was blameless, aboard the ship. I will not have – repeat, I shall not tolerate – off-color accusations or jokes made toward me either in person or on this blog regarding my trip to the Galapagos. (I notice that such accusations and jokes are always directed toward the female and not the male alleged tango partner.) If anyone out there wants to make such accusations and jokes elsewhere, there’s little I can do about it, unless the blogger wishes to deal with them, or if they are defamatory, in which case be assured I shall take action. I will not have my family or anyone else’s hurt, and I have done nothing to do so.

It’s sad that I even feel the need to say this (and I know I don't have to say this to most of you), but frankly, I encountered this same set of assumptions and nudge-nudge-wink-winky from certain jerks when I went alone to Germany and Austria years ago – just before the first Iraq War, and I felt the same sense of irony about American attitudes toward women travelers while we were “liberating” the Kuwaitis, the majority of whom, men and women, still cannot vote.