The Travel Show: "The groping, the muttering, I'm just so sick of it"

Despite questions over race issues, the video of a woman being harassed on the streets of New York demonstrates that it can be difficult and frustrating for a woman alone, even when walking the streets of her own neighbourhood. The prospect of becoming a solo female traveller, with the added uncertainty of an unfamiliar environment, is even more daunting.

On this week's Travel Show podcast, Fionn Davenport talks with a panel of female travellers about steps women are advised to take when travelling alone. The measures themselves are a depressing indication of the double standards that apply.

Put on your blinkers – don’t make eye contact or smile. Be polite, but reserved.  

This may be effective in preventing unwanted advances, but there is a price, suggests Fionn. “Engaging with the world is the purpose of travel. It just seems to be antithetical to the idea of travel, and very sad as a result”.

“The politeness aspect is quite unfair,” says Rebecca Meehan, “when a man can turn around and say “eff off”. A couple of times, I felt like I had to be ‘oh thank you, no, no thank you, you’re fine, I have a boyfriend’”.

“It does smack a bit of ‘how a lady comports herself’, and that’s Victorian thinking,” says journalist Angela Long.

The Travel Show producer and journalist Sinead O’Shea is simply exasperated. “The injustice of me really overwhelms me’” she says. “I have always seen it when I go away, men are welcome everywhere, they’re treated always as equals. I just find it mind-blowing”.

Stay sober and never leave a drink unattended.

This seems like common sense advice for travellers of both genders. But whereas most would consider it foolish for a woman to ignore this advice, even on occasion, for male travellers failing to bring home a tale or two or debauchery till sunrise might be the greater sin. “It seems a desperately unfair thing,” says Fionn.

“For me it wasn’t the risk of leaving a drink unattended, it was how much I was going to drink on a night out,” says Rebecca. “It was more watching my own levels of drunkenness, and always being aware that, if I got to that point where on a normal night out with friends, id have one or two more than then home, I’d call a stop to it.”

Limit the amount of information you share about your travel plans

Pretend that there is someone else sharing your room? Assume a false name?  “I read something similar before I went travelling,” says Rebecca incredulously, “that you should use an alias on a night out”. Such paranoia is a step too far, feels Angela. “If you have to do that, don’t go, if it’s going to be so bad that you have to pretend you’re not a woman.”

“My answer is just to not to go to those places anymore.  It’s really sad. I think travel has closed my mind,” says Sinead.

To listen to the discussion, log on to the show’s Soundcloud page or subscribe for free via iTunes or Stitcher.