when it’s time to leave
or that time I stayed at a "Murder Hotel"
I have been solo traveling for eight years. I have slept in my car and in three star hotels. I have ridden in rideshares with my thumb ready to dial 911 and worked in a room with a chair in front of the door. I love traveling alone and the freedom it provides me, but I would be lying to you and myself if I told you I have always felt 100% safe while doing it.
I travel a lot for my content; a large part of what I am known for is event reviews and am referred to as “the event chick” on occasion. I also love solo traveling for leisures sake but I am doing that less lately because of my personal no buy year which adds rigid rules to my frivolous spending. The discussion of me hiring security for events has come up both from my father and my management team. I have a decent size audience and many people know my face and that I very publicly travel alone, and some fan interactions I have had over the years has raised more than a few red flags with the people around me.
I know the statistics. I am more likely to be harmed by someone I know than someone I don’t. Random acts of violence are far less common than the nightly news would have you believe. However every woman on the internet will tell you the people (see: usually men) that you need to worry about are the ones that you don’t know about. I can add account and message screenshots to my “creepy people” folder all I want, I probably won’t know someone is going to be a true problem until they have me cornered in a convention center bathroom.
But I refuse to let that dictate my life and I have no qualms about going for the throat, dick, or eyes thus I persist with my solo adventures.
In bringing this up I don’t want it to seem that I was targeted for being, well, me at this hotel. I don’t think I was targeted at all, for being a woman or otherwise. I think this was a weird coincidence that scared the fuck out of me. I think you could argue I was never in any real danger at any point. However this scared me, and I think it’s important as someone who publicly travels alone and encourages other young women to travel and do things alone to share these instances of where I felt unsafe, because they do happen.
It doesn’t mean you never try again. It doesn’t mean you give up on trying new things that scare you. Assess, pivot, adapt. And flee or fight like hell when necessary.
