Is India safe? I have lived in this magnificent country for 22 years and on top of it, travelled extensively for 3 years as a solo female traveller, while camping and hitchhiking across the North. Here are 10 friendly safety tips I have for the solo women out there.

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I can’t pinpoint the timeline. The time has neither flown by, nor has it plodded at a slow pace. The experiences are so nourished that the time feels full, whole, and substantial. Three years of traveling across this gigantic country, and my plate is not even half-full!

Throughout the journey we call ‘India’, while teaching in a school in the remotest part of Uttar Pradesh, or spending nights alone at railway platforms in Bihar, from hitchhiking across North to camping alone in off-center villages, the curious faces bombarded the question of safety.

India needs no introduction. Immense in size and obese in an overbearing population. The country is so vast and engaging that a lifetime cannot do justice to its rooted civilization, the diversity that is in its head, waist, toes… But it also a dubious stance.

Did I Ever Feel Unsafe While Travelling in India?

Did I ever question how safe the experience of traveling across India would be? Did I ever categorize it from a solo-female-traveller perspective?

There are two Srinagars in India. One is in Kashmir, and another is in Uttarakhand. By the graceful stretch of water clotted in circles, a local man started following me for kilometers, in the seclusion of Uttarakhand’s Srinagar. I had to keep my pepper spray in my grip, and flash it to the guy. Even then he followed me to the first sight of humans.

In an empty compartment en route to Jaisalmer Rajasthan, a man deceitfully held my hands very close to my breasts. I charged him with the sharpest of words and he accused me in return! Shall I ask him the question of safety in India?

While pahadi people are notorious for all the goodwill in the world, a local truck driver from a village near Almora Uttarakhand squeezed my breast as I hitchhiked solo in his truck from Bhowali to where he left me, impromptu.

A coolie at Amritsar Railway Station in Punjab started masturbating looking at me, with a pleasurable and naughty smile. I started photographing him around, until he vanished inside one of the rail compartments, scared.

5, 6, 7….

Do you understand traveling solo or otherwise has no isolated relation to the incidents? Travel and life integrate, and intertwine, so much so that they value one another as a truth of life. Women who have never traveled solo outside their cities are equally exposed to vulnerable encounters. Sad, but true.

So I can never brand the concept with, ‘Yes, it is safe to travel across India solo’, ‘No, it’s not’, because the question of safety specific to traveling is subjective, and honestly, irrelevant. Women need to be more cautious, travelling or not, that is true. We live in that world.

‘You are doing what most men won’t think of doing.’ A biker complimented me, as I sat behind his bike, hitchhiking to Kausani in Uttarakhand. It’s not a compliment, believe me, men. Having a threshold is not a compliment.

I am sure my experience will contradict someone else’s. I cannot vouch for your safety. But I can say one thing, the incidents you just read about and a few more instances of being eve-teased (regular events in some parts of Bengal) are a fraction of the entire spectrum. Among the 200 times I had hitchhiked, I had one bad experience. You can’t expect to have a few rotten apples? Particularly in an overpopulated country like India? Or anywhere else?

Also read – Kasar Devi in Almora – The Worst Volunteering Experience

Specific Regions of India I Found Safe for Hitchhiking

North is always a great place to start if you are skeptical about hitchhiking as a solo woman. I have hitchhiked in bikes, cars, jeeps, trucks, camper vans, a Maruti car with no seats, and even inside the trunk of a car! Here are some of the regions I always feel my best to ‘go out and get it’!

• Ladakh: I don’t want to over-portray, but Ladakh is the safest place in India for solo women.

• Uttarakhand: Of course there are isolated incidents, but in my six months of hitchhiking across Uttarakhand, I felt nothing short of contentment!

• Himachal Pradesh: Interestingly, the first car always gives me a lift in Himachal! Especially, Spiti and Lahaul. I can’t emphasize more on the freedom of the desolate desert-lands of Himachal. There is no place safer for female travellers than this Northern region of India. For a woman stepping into the shoes of exploration, Spiti-Lahaul is the friendliest choice.

Would You Feel Safe in India as A Solo Female Traveller?

You may. You may not.

I remember when a friend of mine called me almost a year back. She lived in Delhi and she wanted to book the overnight bus from Kashmiri Gate to Rishikesh. That was her first time going someplace alone, so I can understand the doubts she may had. But ‘Do you think there would be other women on the bus?’ defeated her own first step. She didn’t board the bus ultimately.

No, chances are you will find more men around you. But that doesn’t necessarily have to be a terrifying thought. It’s highly unlikely that something terrible would happen to you, if you follow some safety rules of conduct on your travels around India.

The enormity of India will baffle you. So would the cultural waves, anarchy of the cities, the breeze of the Himalayas, kash phool of Bengal, and the sanctity of rural India! And you will also be stupefied by how safe people will make you feel even at the remotest of the remotest corners, and in some cases, uncomfortable (thanks to the obvious eve-teasing and offensive passing remarks in some regions).

I have found a home in every corner of India. Traveling in local buses, in long-distance trains with no tickets, and hitchhiking in pick-up trucks and tractors with last-ditch enthusiasm, I have received love and kindness to an immeasurable degree. And yes, there are always some creeps. And as a solo female traveller, you are susceptible to rooting them out even more.

Also read – Volunteer Tourism And How It Can Shift Your Travel Experiences

Safety Tips for Solo Female Travelling Across India

And I mention this gravely, giving safety tips is irrelevant and this is something you figure out for yourself, but I can only share my list of 10 tips I have followed along in my whirlwind adventures around solo traveling in India, healthy and sound.

1. I Always Wear A Scarf

Since I travel in local buses, long-trains (often unreserved without a ticket), and hitchhike every now and then, I make sure that I have something wrapped around my upper body, more so a scarf, in a way that covers my breasts the eyes of the onlookers strip-search (A shoutout to Punjab for making me feel uncomfortable all the time).

2. I Don’t Wear Anything Too ‘Attention-Driven’

Unless you are in a perfectly safe space, and that is as per your own understanding of safety at that moment, it’s better not to wear anything too attention-driven. I prefer to wear local clothes, not just for safety issues, but also to stay inconspicuous and blend in with the local culture, without risking standing out as an outsider. While hiking on a remote trail all by yourself, as a female, you sometimes have to choose discomfort over convenience. My dehydrated body can’t always wear comfortable shorts and a sports vest as I hike solo in callous heat.

That is to say, do not draw too much attention to yourself. Staying a little unnoticeable pushes you to understand your surroundings as an observer and keeps you away from the center. See, everything is circumstantial and how you present yourself to that particular surrounding depends also largely on how the situation itself is making you feel. Use your judgements.

3. I Trust My Guts….

How else to be safe in India? And this has been said a million times, but your instincts will take you forward. There is no hard and fast rule to the magic of guts, especially for solo female travellers. If anything, it can go either direction. Yet in 96% of cases, your gut will likely convey the truth of the minute. Parallelly, in a moment of crisis or decision-making, you have no choice but to rely on you, and yourself, and therein lies the beauty of backpacking solo. With the course of experiential traveling, you will develop the compelling skill of understanding and assessing the grounds, and the people who fall into your hands.

4. I Carry A Pepper Spray with Me

Pepper spray is a safety guard. I feel more reassured with the pepper spray slightly hidden under my thighs on a hitchhiking ride. I have never really used it. When travelling to the remote corners of India, hiking solo, or camping at all hours, the pepper spray lets me take more leaps of foot. When hitchhiking, I keep it ready just by my side, sometimes hidden, and sometimes intentionally-conspicuous.

5. Note Down Numbers to Stay Safe While Hitchhiking Solo

Since we are on the topic of solo-hitchhiking across India, ideally, you should note down the number from the number plates and forward it to a friend. The motto is to make the driver (or whoever is in the car) significantly aware that information has reached another end. You can make fake calls, or as I have preferred over time, do not disclose that you are alone. Make up some stories as to a certain ‘someone’ will pick you up. Hitchhiking in North India can be safer in comparison, and depending on the region, you may module the necessities.

Even though this rule is very important, I have hardly followed it myself. Maybe once or twice I had actually taken a picture of the number plate. But I highly recommend it.

6. Follow the Number Plates of the Cars

Simply I have a list of places in mind. If a car is registered under any of those places, I neither ask nor accept lifts. Delhi, Punjab, Chandigarh, Haryana – I am strict. I would also avoid Uttar Pradesh, but people from UP are not that travel-inflicted, and there generally are not many cars from Uttar Pradesh. Mind you these places in India are not particularly unsafe, and I myself have solo-travelled through these regions with no holes in my pockets, but I like to be cautious.

7. I Stay at Railway Stations if It’s Too Late

Train stations always had a place for me. The warmth of a waiting room on cold nights, the comfort of that one bench often leading to oversleeping or undersleeping, or the decision to put my backpack down in the Food Court for the day, I have been at strange hours in the platforms of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan… Not willingly, no. it was just too late! No matter how ‘safe’ or ‘unsafe’ the new destination officially is, I never leave the railway station if it’s already 10 or 11 PM. And I am extremely stern about this rule.

8. As A Solo Traveller, I Don’t Roam Around A City at Night

Even when looking around a place I may have known for sometime, you would be surprised that I always return by 7 PM… Even before! I anyways prefer early-morning explorations with a minimal crowd and I had almost never smashed this rule. Nightlife is not something I enjoy anyways. So that puts me off the hook. Also, even if I am out with a friend or maybe hanging out at a hostel, I never drink more than I can handle, unless I am with a very trusting friend.

9. How to Make the Crowded Places Safer

The streets of Old Delhi, North Kolkata, railway stations of Uttar Pradesh, or jam-packed cities like Varanasi, Lucknow, and Sealdah, can be overwhelmingly crowd-jammed. It’s rather uncomfortable to smear yourself with the sea of humans. And in these crummy scenarios, I use my hands as shields. I create an extra space with my hands by wrapping around the circulars a few inches off my body. As I cut my way through, the general crowd casually can’t touch my upper body. I have found this quite an amorous (and armour-ous) protection tactic!

Being exposed to the roads of India, its bright and dim lights, the circumstances may break its own set of rules. In one instance, I had to hitchhike in a truck at night in Himachal. The key to hitchhiking is to relieve, through escapades, raw and uncertain.

Home, and the outer world, also the other way around, both are equally unsafe. It’s better to be in the outer world. Choose to be brave, not desperate, and it’s highly likely that India will be a safe experience for you, my fellow solo female travellers.

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Being safe in India comes with watching over some societal aspects. As a solo woman, how do you navigate through the world? Has India made you feel safe?

Would love to hear from other solo female travellers!

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