Fear is holding me back.
This is what, as a woman travelling alone, I haven't talked about until now.
When I set off on my first solo backpacking trip I vowed to push myself out of my comfort zone. "Do one thing every day that scares you", they say, and I did. I went scuba-diving; I jumped out of a plane; I went on a boat in crocodile-infested water; I camped on an island with some of the world's most venomous snakes; I shared my room with white-tailed spiders on a farm for two weeks. To everyone back home it seems like I am doing everything I can to get myself killed. t looks like I have abandoned all of my inhibitions and become an adrenalin-junkie. People have started to tell me that I am "brave".
The truth is that I am not brave. In fact I'm more scared than I'm willing to admit and it's holding me back.
For a female travelling alone the most dangerous threat to me isn't snakes, spiders, jellyfish, stingrays, sharks or any of the other of the creatures that call Australia home waiting to inject me with their venom at the first chance they get... it's other human beings.
So here's where I talk about how I'm lucky. How I'm safer here, despite all of the wildlife, than I might be elsewhere, because I'm travelling in a country where it is relatively safe to be a woman on her own.
Yet even here there are things I won't do because I consider them a risk to my safety. No matter where I am in the world you probably won't catch me walking for longer than 15 minutes on my own after 11pm unless I really have no choice in the matter. Luckily there are usually alternative options such as getting on public transport (although sometimes an equally bad choice) or catching a cab. These options help me avoid becoming a night time recluse and is a part of being a woman that I - and all of us - are used to. It's so much a part of our lives that often we don't even stop to consider how unfair it is or what it would be like not to have to worry about how we're going to get home safely.
In terms of travelling alone though it has become more and more evident to me that my gender is preventing me from doing two specific things that would make my experience easier and potentially richer. I'm talking here about couch-surfing and hitch-hiking.
As a budget traveller I read tons of blog posts every day with tips on how to travel for free. "Don't pay for your accommodation just go couch-surfing!" "Don't have a car? No problem, reach those off-the-beaten-path destinations by hitch-hiking!" These will undoubtedly allow you to travel with very few expenses but I can't bring myself to do them.
I can't do them because I'm scared about the risk that they would put me in. I'm talking about putting your trust in complete strangers who are helping you with the promise of nothing in return. Believe me I'm not cynical enough to think that there aren't an abundance of genuinely nice people in the world who want to meet new people or just help out a fellow human being. In fact I'm sure that 98% of the people offering their houses and their cars are exactly that. It's the other 2% I'm worried about.
Whenever you go to a stranger's house or get into a stranger's car whether they're alone, you're alone or there are other people around, you're gambling that those people are not in the 2%.
I'm sure that I'm missing out on all of the enrichment that these experiences can offer, including the chance to meet some of the most interesting people that you'd never otherwise have come into contact with and hear their stories, but, right now, I'm not brave enough to take that gamble.
This post was originally published on www.katistravelling.com