How to be safe while traveling abroad

Rio de Janeiro is notorious for its street crime. All travel guidebooks mention this unfortunate fact. These books caution tourists to avoid favelas (Portuguese for slum), to be careful walking on the streets and the beaches.

Before leaving for Brazil, I read several guidebooks. I also read the novel  “City of God” about life in the Rio de Janeiro favela. This book scared me a lot: two or three shootings on each page!

Our second trip to Brazil included four days in Rio. We stayed at a beautiful waterfront hotel – Sheraton Grand Rio Hotel & Resort. On one side of the hotel was a public beach, on another, right across the road – favela.

Our hotel was well protected on all sides by fences, walls, and guards. A high wall separated the property from the public beach. The movable wooden staircase allowed the guests to go down to the water during the daytime. At night, the guards raised the staircase, turning the Sheraton into a fortress.

On the third day in Rio, we had a choice: to go on the optional tour by bus or to spend the day “at leisure.” We decided to explore Rio’s famous beaches on our own. To get from our hotel to the first beach (Leblon), we had to walk on the narrow, deserted sidewalk.

We made sure that besides taking a bottle of water and a few Brazilian reals, we did not have anything else on us. We dressed casually (as we do during our travels): old sneakers, hats, T-shirts, no jewelry or video cameras.

We were a little uncomfortable walking by ourselves on this stretch of the road (half a mile from the hotel to Leblon beach). As soon as we reached Leblon, we relaxed. We walked all the way to the end of Copacabana (12-mile round trip). During that long day “at leisure,” walking on beautiful Rio beaches, looking at the locals and tourists having “fun in the sun,” we felt perfectly safe.

Alexander worked in India for two years. At that time (the early seventies) India had just (!) 600 million people. He went to all Indian states, worked in big cities and remote villages. He told me that it was safe in India at that time.

Recently, when we traveled to India with a group, that country was different. It grew to 1.3 billion people. With such a dense population, you should expect more poverty,  more begging, more petty crime, like pickpocketing.

However, after our recent trip to India, we think that it is still safe to go there. Alexander even dreams of renting a car with a driver and traveling in India independently.

We visited Mexico several times. In 1992, we spent a whole month there, traveling from place to place by car. It was a memorable trip. We felt safe.

Nowadays, we hear and read many stories about mass killings of people by drug cartels. Violence is rampant because of organized crime and drug trafficking. One Mexican family that I know warned me about the situation in Mexico these days. This family lives in Florida and has relatives in Mexico City. When they go to this city with their 10-year-old son, mom holds him by hand whenever they leave grandma’s house. She is afraid that her son can be kidnapped.

When we were on a Caribbean cruise, one of the stops was Isla Margarita in Venezuela. I read many times about tourists attacked by robbers in that country, and about the advice not to carry a video camera or wear expensive jewelry.

Some passengers went on the optional tour to the nearest town. When they returned to the ship in the evening, we saw a man with a bandaged hand. He said that when he stepped away from his group to videotape the old buildings, two robbers attacked him, trying to steal his video camera. He fought back. One of the robbers wounded his hand with a knife and took off with the camera.

During our trip to Thailand, we talked to a woman from our group, Pam. Pam was a widow, in her seventies. She visited many countries, even those considered to be dangerous. Pam was fearless. Usually, she traveled with a group, but sometimes she went abroad on her own.

Pam told us about her recent trip to see the Mass Games in North Korea. As a US citizen, she couldn’t go to North Korea directly from the United States. Her travel agent helped her to join the group tour which started in China. From China, they flew to Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea.

As a foreigner, Pam got the best place in the stands to observe the parade. She liked this event and the whole itinerary very much. She said that even if the trip was expensive, it was worth every penny.

When we returned home, we watched several documentaries about North Korea and their Mass Games. We agreed that it is something worth watching. However, we decided that our lives and our safety are worth much more.