Top safety tips for women bikepacking

The first and foremost advice I have is that lying is your best friend. I love lying and I love what it has done for me on my bicycle trips. It has opened up so many doors and at times, given me a much needed buffer when I tour.

Obviously I do not recommend lying to anyone that represents any sort of official capacity such as border agents, immigration officers, and desk agents for airlines. Lying to these people will only cause more trouble and it's not the type of lying I'm talking about.

The lying I recommend is there to help you keep certain distances in order for you to feel safer and sleep better at night.

An example is when a, typically well meaning, stranger asks you what your destination is for the day. Instead of telling them exactly where you're going you can give a more general answer such as the region or a simple "I haven't decided yet".

What I mostly do is give the town before or after where I plan to sleep. This way, if they have any good advice on routes, stores to stock up on food, or things I should go see, it is still valuable to me but they don't know exactly where I plan to be for the night.

Another lie I recommend and which carried me through a twelve month solo tour across 14 countries with varying religious, ideologies, and views of women's rights and independence, was that I was 100% absolutely married. Very happily at that too, so there was no need for a lover in another country.

In addition, my husband was actually meeting me in the next large town to join me on tour. Why wasn't he with me now? Well, he just couldn't get as much time off work as I could.

This allowed there to be a real boundary and allowed conversations to steer away from the inappropriate.

Luckily I wear rings anyway and more specifically already wear one on my ring finger. It doesn't look like an engagement ring nor a wedding band, but when I say I'm married and point to the ring it really sells the lie.

Depending where you are you may also get asked how many children you have. For this, I didn't feel the need to lie and always said none. Some people will be very surprised by this but I would just explain that "we" didn't want kids right now and that where I am from that is something you can choose with contraception.

Personally I love planning, it often gets me very excited for a trip and I do it a lot, ask anyone who knows me.

However, I know many people are not with me on my love for packing lists, expense trackers, and timelines. Trust me when I say I get it, having your options fully open is very exciting and works extremely well for bike touring as so many things can pop up and completely dismantle a well thought out plan.

I truly believe women can still have this kind of adventure with only a one way ticket and an idea of what you hope to get out of it. I do, however, also think some quick, small planning can increase your safety and dispel many fears you may have.

You don't need to have every day planned out or even know precisely where you're going to sleep, but as a woman, I think it's important to do some planning/research on a few things such as clothing expectations before entering different countries or regions, how long a ride will take, and the camping regulations for the area.

When I was in East Africa I knew when I was getting closer to the coast the population was mainly muslim and the dress reflected that.

That doesn't mean I went out and bought traditional clothing to perfectly look like what the local women wore. I mean I was a pasty white 26 year old woman riding a bike into villages that don't typically see any tourists, I was already going to draw attention.

It was more about understanding what my dress could say and putting off upsetting encounters.

When I bike I usually wear a long sleeve sun shirt and bike shirts, when entering the predominantly muslim areas I just switched out shorts for hiking pants as a woman showing her knees would have been uncommon and could have made some men think of it as an invitation.

I also think a little planning the night before a ride so you know how long it will take, so you can avoid biking after sunset as it is even more important not to do that for a woman.

It never feels good to be fighting against time, and if you're in an unknown area trying to find a guest house/hotel/camping spot, you may have to make choices you're less comfortable with than if you have the time and daylight to think things through.

Knowing the camping regulations of an area goes hand in hand with this.

When camping I personally prefer wild spots to campgrounds and the more remote the better for me. When in a group, you can take more chances, but when solo, I camp much more to the book as to avoid any midnight wake ups by strangers. It makes sleeping through the night that much easier.

What I believe to be the most important thing to increase a woman's safety while bike touring is their own instincts.

I mean, you are a woman and have been out living your life so knowing being a woman carries different safety factors probably isn't big news. You need to trust yourself and how you feel in certain situations.

Say you were planning on camping one night but it just doesn't feel great when you get there, go get a room instead!

It is not a bad thing and you are not overreacting, there is a reason we sometimes get those gut feelings.

I have had to make so many decisions based on how I felt in the moment and so far I haven't regretted any of them.

One time on tour I had just arrived in a small town that I planned on being my destination for the day and I went to the grocery store first to stock up on some much needed food.

I was in the parking lot looking up the address of a place I had heard bikers pitch their tent and sleep there for free, when a random man approached me and asked if I was looking for somewhere to stay.

I kept it a little vague and said yes I was looking for somewhere here or maybe a little farther. He then said that he had a spare room I could stay in and to follow him.

He started walking to his moped and I wasn't given much time to make a decision.

I knew following a strange man from a parking lot to his home doesn't exactly sound like the safest thing I could do but I felt that he seemed normal and it's not like I was getting into his car.

It turned out that he and his wife, who he failed to mention before, were both bike tourers themselves and host bikers all the time. Him and a few of his friends even joined me on my ride the next day.

The situation on paper sounds insane but my instinct was that I was okay, however, that doesn't mean I didn't give myself a back up plan.

I always carry a pocket knife with me and I keep pepper spray on my stem bag as an extra precaution.

It felt right to me but with anything regarding safety you should always have a back up plan, in my case it was my knife, pepper spray, and most importantly, giving myself permission to make an awkward exit if I didn't feel right when I got to his home.

Even now, 12 months into living off my bike, the first questions anyone asks me are "What's your favorite place" and "What's the worst thing that's happened to you".

Neither of these are things I really have an answer for.

I have seen too many amazing places that are fantastic for different reasons and I haven't had any real safety issues.

The best I can do is talk about when my bike broke, which was stressful and frustrating, but it was also resolved quickly and in an incredible way.

People just can't comprehend that a solo woman travelling in such an atypical way doesn't have a daring story or two about how I escaped imminent danger.

Even when researching where I wanted to start my trip and different route possibilities, so much of what I found online was a woman asking for advice on a route or packing lists or the best time of year to go and for the comments to be flooded with "Have fun dying", "You'll be raped within a week", and "How could you do that to your family".

Well guess what?

I decided to bike through some of the areas people felt couldn't possibly be safe for a woman, especially alone, and you know what I found?

That people are incredible and kind and that 99% of them are good.

Safety is extremely important while bike touring and in life in general, and as women we need to be more aware of certain things and keep it closer to the front of our minds, but in no way should it be a barrier.

For me, to feel comfortable and safe all it took was some white lies, a bit of planning, and listening to that tiny voice in my head.