What I use to determine safety in a new (to me) country
When planning a trip to somewhere new, it’s always important to find out the safety of the country you’re going to, especially as a young woman. So before buying flights I usually scan a couple of different websites and then decide if it’s the right time to go to said country.
Well, Tanzania was no different, here are a couple of websites I use to determine overall safety.
- https://travel.gc.ca/ This is a link that goes to the Canadian government website. This is one of THE most important websites to check out before leaving the country. This has the most up-to-date information on safety in other countries, the overall political climate, risk factors, health care information (like vaccines- which will be another post for another day) and will tell you what you will need as a Canadian entering that other country.
*** you must know, if the country has been listed as “no travel” with a red banner on the country’s page, this means you should not enter, and travel insurance will likely not cover you in the case of injury or accidents. You will be going against the government’s recommendation.
- https://www.girlabouttheglobe.com/ A friend of mine recently suggested I check out this website because it has a ranking of safety for women, by women, who have already been to the country you wish to travel. It’s got lots of tips and helpful information as well which is fab!
- The last one is Instagram. I always look on the “search” page and type in things like the country’s name, places in that country, cities, cafes and such for example, “Tanzania”, or “Zanzibar”. When I search those words/ hashtags, I will always get to see photos of anyone who has used those hashtags, which is usually travellers and locals. It allows me to see if there are women travelling there, what they are doing, and know that there are tourists around there (which for some reason is reassuring to me). It’s also a great way to find out what to do in certain cities/ countries, by where people are tagging themselves. For instance, when looking up Tanzania, I found a travel blogger from Canada who went there on a tour and went to the Serengeti. I then looked up ‘the Serengeti” and found so many more amazing photos, which led me to click another one, and the blogger had also gone to “Stone Town” which is in Zanzibar, a place I’m also going to. So it’s really great way to get a feel of the country before going!
My results for Tanzania:
When I used the first website and saw the results, I’m not going to lie, I was nervous about Tanzania. I thought that it probably wasn’t a good time to go there, but then a friend of mine suggested that I compare the rating to a country I use to live in Turkey. I lived there for three years, and there were constant tensions rising with religion, politics, and incoming refugees. Once I had compared the two countries, I actually saw that they were almost the same. That made me feel more relaxed, because I felt like I had already been to a country with a similar rating, and felt fine.
Then when I looked into the rating on the Girl About The Globe Blog, I saw that many women/ people had actually ranked it fairly safe. There were tips obviously, like carrying around a fanny pack, instead of a purse, but overall, the ranking was good!
That’s when I started digging deep into Instagram. I saw people’s posts from high luxury, to backpackers travelling in Tanzania, which only got me more excited.
Anyways, as always, hope my tips and tricks are helpful for your next adventure!
-Miss Mac x
