"To be great is to be misunderstood." - Ralph Waldo Emerson, An Essay on Self-Reliance

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I was listening to the Solo travel as a woman episode of the Amateur Traveler podcast. Basically this girl had ditched her job in the corporate world and been traveling around the world (mostly in the developing world, and solo a third of the time) for just over a year (at that point) and she was sharing her experiences.

One thing that really pisses me off about Singapore girls is that when they express envy at my travels and I tell them to go off backpacking too, they usually give me the chestnut of "oh, but I'm a girl".

Yet, while listening to accounts of eating the local delicacy (rat) among the hill tribes of Northern Thailand and tree-climbing goats in Morocco, what struck me by its scarcity was talk about the difficulties and challenges faced by women traveling alone. She didn't recommend any place for solo women NOT to go, and basically said you must be smart. For example, in Morocco and Egypt don't walk alone at night (even as a guy I probably wouldn't do that idea), and if men follow you you must be aggressive and forceful. She said you don't see women walking around in those countries - you can spend an entire day at a lovely cafe and see only men (though strangely enough she didn't complain that she felt "oppressed" by the lack of women).

Her advice was to work through your fears, but everything works out in the end and it's worth it, yet it was quite clear that this referred not just (or even particularly) to women traveling alone, but rather to going on the road for extended periods of time (and leaving your job behind etc).

Other things she talked about during the interview were how you meet more people when alone and how she prefers developing countries - the more difficult the better, since you get a new perspective on the world.

(The interviewee also has a blog at http://ottsworld.com/ - you will notice that only two posts are tagged solo female travel - and neither actually talks about it!)