10 countries where I would never travel alone I've been to over 60 countries by myself I've been to
over 70 countries on planet Earth I'm a big fan of solo travel I'm a huge advocate of it for so
many reasons however there are definitely places where it is just better not to be by
yourself these are 10 of them 10 of them with one honorable mention that keeps popping up on
all of the do not travel lists that I just don't agree with starting off with my number 10 would be
the Maldives the thing about the Maldives is that although it is this beautiful beautiful
country full of all of these islands that have beautiful resorts on them thinking over water
Bungalows this white sand perfectly aquamarine Blue Water sounds like the perfect place for a
couple right for a honeymoon Escape for people who are not traveling by themselves I don't love
honeymoon destinations as a Solo Traveler and I just don't think that Maldives a super romantic
place that is just geared towards couples is the place to do that there are so many places
on planet Earth that do have beautiful water that have so much to see and do that I would
pick before that southeast Asia really anywhere there would be a great example there are so many
solo Travelers that you can meet and is just way more set up for people who are traveling
alone this video is not about politics but the next place I would mention is Iran there are so
many wonderful things that I have heard about traveling to Iran I have heard that the people
are just amazing I've heard that it's insanely welcoming it is a place I would have loved to
go as an American I never had the opportunity to go without joining a tour but I have friends from
Germany who went and they came back saying the most wonderful things that said now is not the
time there is so much going on there especially for women Travelers it is just not a safe place
for us right now and I just wouldn't Advocate going to a place where kidnapping and sudden
detention for unknown reasons are common things that are happening to people so there's a long
list of countries where that is also the case also use your best judgment I don't want this
video to only be about places that are dangerous because there's a lot of other places that are
good to not travel by yourself that would bring me to my next one which is French Polynesia if
you've been following my Instagram any of my other videos you will know that I have spent
a lot of time in French Polynesia it is one of my favorite places on planet Earth it's like
a postcard more than almost anywhere I've been honestly that said it's just not a great place
to travel independently you can do more of you can do Tahiti pretty easily I wouldn't Advocate Bora
Bora for the same reasons that I wouldn't Advocate the Maldives it's just full of Honeymooners but
as soon as you start to head out to the more remote Islands in French Polynesia it's gonna
start getting a lot lonelier the accommodation is set up for more than one person so you're going to
be paying a lot just for the privilege of being the only one there the activities are often set
up where you need to rent the whole boat so if you don't have people with you it's going to be
really hard to do that most people there are not traveling alone and independently so it's not as
easy to meet other people to do these things with another thing you really need to know some French
uh before Tahiti
if you don't know some French you're going to really struggle to talk to anybody that said
you can absolutely join tour groups who are doing amazing things like swimming with whales I happen
to run one of them you can check more about it in the show notes but it is not off the menu for you
if you're a Solo Traveler I just think joining a group joining their boat splitting costs is a
good idea next is another place that I truly love with all my heart but just don't think
it's a great place for solo Travelers and that is Namibia I actually met my partner there and
he was solo traveling through Namibia and when I asked him yesterday he actually brought up that
it's not the best place as a Solo Traveler the reason why is not because it's dangerous Africa
I don't even don't even feed into that the reason why is because it is desolate there's
only two million people who live in Namibia and this is a vast fast country especially if you're
in the southern part of the country you need to be resourceful you need to know how to change a
Time fire you probably need to have a satellite phone to get some kind of backup even once you
reach that backup it might not get to you for a very long time and if you're by yourself I just
find that all that much more nerve-wracking so I would certainly recommend going absolutely
but maybe go with somebody else maybe go with an organized group I actually run one of those as
well this is not just to plug my tours I promise but this is just another country where I do run a
tour there because in my opinion although I love traveling it independently it's not something I
would do completely by myself another one that is a little bit surprising because I'm eating my own
words a little bit here in the past I've said that Las Vegas can be a great place to travel
and I'm back pedaling a little bit on that I want to clarify that the Las Vegas Strip I don't think
is a great place to travel alone if you're going to Las Vegas to see the beautiful surroundings and
yes the surroundings are beautiful you've got the Valley of Fire you've got Red Rock Canyon
you've got places to even ski if you're gonna go explore all of that that could be great I
just don't think the strip is a place to go by yourself you could probably meet people easily
but I think the biggest problem with it is that you need to keep your wits about you and Vegas is
a place where people let loose it's a place where they party and if that's what you're gonna do you
need to have someone there who you're with who's looking out for you and who you're looking out
for as well you don't want to get too intoxicated and sometimes that's too easy to do and you could
end up with one of those stories that you don't talk about from Vegas so in order to avoid that
I would just go with other people go to celebrate things go to have fun with your friends but don't
go completely by yourself they're just better places in the world than Vegas for that next one I
hate to bring up because I do love this country is Chile I bring it up from personal experience so I
spent about two months traveling throughout Chile I even hitchhiked through part of it with a friend
of mine at the time in Patagonia and I didn't have any issues or feel unsafe that whole entire
time time until he and I were no longer traveling together my first night as a Solo Traveler there I
was in an elevator and three big guys got in with me and they were just harassing me the whole way
down saying all kinds of threatening things and doing it like standing over me huddling over me
it's still one of my worst travel memories and in that situation what do you do so I just got quiet
and hoped that nothing would happen thankfully it was a short elevator ride and they just got
out when the time came but it's not a situation I would want to find myself in again and there is
a machismo culture that can be present in much of the South American region where this could
be a big issue I did travel by myself through Peru after that I even backpacked throughout
the mountains by myself never had any problems there I'm happy to say but I just have to bring
up chile because that was a problem that I had in Santiago and it is unfortunate since it is
so beautiful next is the Alaskan Backcountry so there are so many Wilderness areas in in
the United States that are just breathtakingly beautiful you can go to any national park in the
U.S you've got Yosemite you've got Death Valley you've got so many beautiful things to see here
although you can get so remote and so alone and not see a person all day if you want to you can
be around other people pretty quickly and easily within like an hour or two drive if you want that
too and so all of that is to say that I don't recommend the Alaskan Backcountry because you
don't have that same access and it's not really the type of place where I would Advocate solo
hiking and solo backpacking even though this is my love I love to solo hike I love to solo backpack
some parts of Alaska are just too remote to be safe alone if you fall if you have an issue if
you break something if you're knocked unconscious no one's going to be able to get help for you and
you're going to be so remote that no one's going to know where to look for you so I wanted to ask
my community on Instagram for more ideas more experiences that they've had at places that
they didn't feel were good to travel alone and this is what they said Morocco came up several
times a big reason why people said it is that although country is beautiful and overall a lot
of them still enjoyed their experience what they didn't like is the feeling of being in
the cities alone they felt that they were using their words harassed a lot that there was a lot
of just unwanted attention as well especially for the women on their own it's not a place
I've actually been and part of the reason why is because I've heard things like that about it and
although I would love to go I personally would prefer to do it with a friend with Garrett or
with a group another one was Brazil and it's not because Brazil wouldn't be a wonderful place to
travel I mean there is so much going on in that country you've got the jungles of the
Amazon you've got beautiful waterfalls you've got so many famous things to see however the cities
in Brazil can be a little bit on the dangerous side and the other big thing about it is that
it is a big vast country and it can be hard to navigate if you don't speak Portuguese there's a
lot of countries in this world where if you cannot speak the local language it will be harder for you
there's also a lot where that's not the case where if you're mostly in English speaker you can still
get by because the locals learn it or the people at least who work in tourism will learn it but
Brazil's just not one of those places it's not as super heavy tourism Reliant country the last
one I feel like we have to talk about is South Africa it has come up on so many lists when I
was doing research for this video of places that are dangerous to travel by yourself and I will
not deny that it is a dangerous country I think everybody knows that there's a lot of violent
crime unfortunately there's a lot of muggings and I will tell you right now that I've traveled
there three times by myself quite successfully and had the best time I met so many people the
locals there of every background were so amazingly welcoming to me there's very few places I've been
that were like that I think what you need to know is to just be very careful you can't have anything
showing in your car because the break-ins are common and carjackings too you just need
to know that in the cities you don't walk you don't walk anywhere especially by yourself so
these are just things to keep in mind when you're traveling in South Africa would I recommend it to
someone who has never traveled alone anywhere maybe not because there's other places you can
go where it's going to be easier and I think easy is great when it's your first time but I just had
to address it because it is one of my favorite countries I will always love South Africa and
just never know one person's bad solo experience can be someone else's amazing experience so I'm
actually curious to hear from you what do you think of this list what would you add what
would you take away if you want some of my best suggestions for places to go watch this video
foreign [Music]