PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALINA HVOSTIKOVA/STOCKSY.COM; GEORGE ETHEREDGE/THE NEW YORK TIMES; TODD HEISLER/THE NEW YORK TIMES; BICUBIK PHOT
OGRAPHY/THE NEW YORK TIMES.
WORLD REPORT
sovereign countries”, travelling
alone means having a long list of
precautions. The US activist practises
Krav Maga, an Israeli self-defence
technique. She carries a GPS tracker
and makes sure someone knows where
she is at all times. “It might sound
extreme,” she says. “But I attribute
having safely travelled to 196 countries
alone to these procedures.” De Pecol
says gender-based violence is an
unfortunate reality for women who
travel. “The awareness of needing to
watch our backs is something men
don’t necessarily need to be aware of.”
Jessica Nabongo, 34, is on a
mission to become the first black
woman to visit every country in the
world. She has been to more than 180
so far – 54 of them alone – and hopes
to complete her journey in October.
Her road map for safety includes
trying to stay in hotels with 24-hour
security. If she stays in an Airbnb, the
host has to have received excellent
reviews and achieved “superhost”
status. She also takes Ubers so
that her location is tracked.
Nabongo acknowledges that
“we tell women what not to do to avoid
being attacked instead of telling men
not to attack women”. But she says she
dresses conservatively until she can
assess whether what she wears matters
in the place she is visiting. She’d prefer
a world where women can just pack up
and travel without having to do the
extra legwork that solo male travellers
don’t have to, but says that’s idealistic.
To help one another traverse the
world safely, women have formed
their own online communities. Apps
provide another level of support for
women travelling alone. Free ones,
such as Chirpey, RedZone, MayDay,
TripWhistle and Noonlight let womenflag incidents and areas of danger,
and contact local law enforcement.
Yet even with the best
preparation, trips can go wrong.
In 2016, at 35, Vasilisa Komarova
embarked on a motorcycle journey
through the Americas. She visited
Cuba and spent time in the Atacama
Desert and Chilean Patagonia. She
was living a dream, chronicling it
all with photos on social media.
Then, everything changed. “At
some point, maybe because everyone
I was meeting was so kind, I think I
put down my guard a little,” she
explains. In June 2017 , while she was
camping in northern Bolivia in an area
people had said was safe, three men
with machetes dragged her out of her
tent. They beat her, dislocating her
arm in three places. While two held
her down, one raped her. They stole
all of her belongings, urinated on her
tent and left her for dead. Afraid they
might come back, Komarova lay still
all night. In the morning she used
her laptop, which her attackers
had missed, to get help.
But what she experienced was a
climate of impunity. The authorities
didn’t want to take her to a doctor; the
doctor didn’t want to see her because
she could not pay. With the help of
the British Embassy, Komarova made
contact with an advocate who helped
her file a criminal complaint and begin
the legal fight against her attackers.
“The attack, the process, it broke me
down,” Komarova says. “But I had
to find the strength inside myself.”
A year later, she watched as
her attackers were sentenced to a
combined 42 years in prison. In
November, Komarova rode out of
Bolivia on her motorcycle. The first
night she put her tent up after leaving,
she was afraid, she admits. She is still
on the road, and wants other women
to travel, but to be on alert – always.
“My guard is really high,” Komarova
says. “People don’t always deserve my
scepticism, but that’s how it has to be.”W
hen Stefaniak’s body
was discovered near
her villa, her relatives
were shattered. Now,
they are fighting for
justice in Costa Rica’s courts and have
also filed a lawsuit accusing Airbnb of
negligence. Their lawyer in Costa Rica
suggested a callous disregard in the
aftermath, noting that the same day
Stefaniak vanished, her Airbnb roomwas being cleaned and new renters
checked in. The family also says that
the local host evaded negative reviews
by changing the name of the listing,
and no background check of the
security guard was conducted even
though he had access to all the rooms
on site. Airbnb, in a statement, said it
had removed the villa where Stefaniak
had stayed from its platform, and had
been in contact with the authorities.
The company also said it had made
strides to address women’s safety
concerns, creating policies that
emphasise women’s needs – including
removing any host or guest accused
of sexual assault and adding a clause
in its non-discrimination policy that
allows female hosts to accept only
female guests.
As for Hannah Gavios, she is still
partly paralysed, but since the attack
has become a yoga instructor. Last
year, she completed the New York City
Marathon – on crutches. She says she
doesn’t want her story to scare other
women away from having the
enriching experience of travelling solo.
“The more we tell women not to travel
alone and the more we send the
message that the world is dangerous,
in a way, we are also supporting that
belief,” says Gavios. “Rather than
horrifying people, I want [them] to go
into [travel] with a little more bravery
and a little more knowledge.” From her
perspective, there are no dangerous
countries, just dangerous people. “You
can’t control the world,” she says. “But
you have to live your life and not let
these terrible stories stop you. Because
otherwise, you let them win.”CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT
Hannah Gavios had to learn
how to walk again after she was
sexually assaulted in Thailand
following a fall off a cliff; Jessica
Nabongo is on a mission to
become the first black woman
to travel to every country in the
world; and Australian woman
Elly Warren was murdered in
Mozambique in 2016.Vasilisa Komarova
managed to
achieve justice
after being attacked
by three men with
machetes while
camping in Bolivia
in 2017.