The moment unease stops being background noise
There is a particular kind of dread that solo travellers know well — the feeling that something is off, but nothing you can point to clearly enough to explain to someone else. For one Australian woman travelling through Albania on a four-month Europe trip, that feeling arrived early and kept compounding.
It started with being watched on the streets of Tirana. It grew in a taxi, when the male driver took a wrong turn and then yelled at her and her friend when they gently asked about the route. By the time she arrived alone at a beach town further south, the unease had not lifted — it had settled in. The Airbnb had a broken lock. The host knew she was solo. That night, a water-logged air conditioning unit dripping onto power cords became, in her words, 'the final straw.'
She moved to a hotel the next morning — over budget, but full of people. Hours later, she collapsed in the lobby from severe dehydration, having contracted the same illness as her friend. Hotel staff called an ambulance. She was taken to a medical room and put on a drip.
'I don't know what I would have done if I was still alone in the Airbnb,' she said, noting she did not even know the local emergency number.
What 'listening to your gut' actually looks like in practice
It rarely looks dramatic. In this case, it looked like getting out of a taxi at a bus stop instead of continuing a two-hour ride. It looked like spending a little more money on accommodation with other people around. It looked like not pushing through discomfort simply to prove a point about being an independent traveller.
The traveller is candid about the grey areas too. She acknowledges she was not sure whether she was overreacting, or making unfair judgements about a place and its people. That tension — between cultural openness and personal safety — is one many solo travellers sit with constantly, and rarely talk about honestly.
She also holds space for the fact that experiences of any country vary widely. She says she would not rule out returning to Albania, just not alone.
Why this matters for a solo travel audience in India
India has a vast and growing community of solo travellers — women especially — navigating everything from mountain trails in Himachal Pradesh to late-night trains in Tamil Nadu. The red flags this traveller encountered are not unique to Europe. An unknown emergency number. An Airbnb host who knows you are alone. A broken lock. A taxi driver who takes a wrong turn and turns defensive.
These are scenarios that could unfold anywhere.
A few grounded takeaways worth carrying:
- Research accommodation beyond star ratings — check who runs it, read recent solo female reviews, and verify that basic safety features (functioning locks, a responsive front desk) are in place.
- Know local emergency numbers before you arrive. In India, the national emergency number is 112, which connects to police, fire and ambulance services.
- Have a check-in system with someone — a friend, a family member, anyone — who knows your location and expects to hear from you at set intervals.
- When a situation feels wrong, the budget argument is not worth it. A more expensive hotel with people around may, quite literally, save your life.
None of this is about fear. It is about travelling with your eyes open — which is, ultimately, what makes the good experiences possible too.