Namibia: Is It Safe? – allAfrica.com

Is it safe?

As a solo woman traveller, people ask me this as if I’m in cahoots with Destiny, The Fates and all the gods.

They ask as though I’ve had my palm read, sacrificed by the light of the moon, or made some dastardly deal with the devil.

My mother asks when I travel to Thailand during a military coup replete with soldiers, curfew and travel advisories. My friends wonder as I set out to find a childhood hero in Ghana armed with nothing but the name of their art studio. When brave, beautiful Juliana Marins falls down Mount Rinjani on my first full day in Indonesia, people around the world inquire.

All kinds of people, especially women, ask me if solo travel is safe. But what many really want is a pact of some sort, a promise from someone who has gone before. They want me to tell them that, should they embark on a similar solo quest, they’ll come home soothed somehow and unscathed.

The question of safety is one I can never escape, but the truth is: I know what everybody can know. I’ve Googled the relevant country and added words like “solo” and “black” and “African” and ‘woman’ and absorbed the highlights and the horror stories.

I’ve said my prayers for the souls lost in recently crashed planes and hoped I’m never on one. I’ve booked a taxi to the airport and asked the driver to make a turn at my parents’ place, so I can hug my dad and receive a flour blessing from my mother. And I’ve come to terms with the fact that the sight of them may be my last.

“Is it safe?”, people ask in the wake of the Air India crash, and I’m not sure what to say beyond the statistics.

Experts say flying is safer than ever. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently put the risk of dying through air travel at one per every 13.7 million passenger boardings.

In Namibia, between 1 January and 7 December 2024, 385 people lost their lives in car accidents. So, I’m far more likely to die on the road here at home than when going somewhere by air.

Once there, of course, there are dangers: strangers with ill intent, turbulent sea voyages on valiant ferries and slippery slopes near mountain peaks.

But there is also the whole world.

There is human history and culture that will fill you with wonder and make you weep. There are points of connection that will forever bond you to your fellow man no matter their race, creed or colour. Roads you’ll walk down that you’ll feel sure you’ve traversed before, smells that will unlock memories of your former, unknown selves and landscapes far prettier than the pictures.

Travel is all this, but it is also the people. The souls whose whole lives have led to days, weeks or just a moment with you and vice versa. It is the person who cooks on the roadside conjuring tastes your tongue will never forget and the single serving stranger who outlines their entire existence as you cross a continent at a heart-opening 42 000 feet.

“Is it safe?”, people ask.

And maybe I should say that solo travel is utterly dangerous. If you fear the thrill of self-discovery, of knowing who you are beyond the everyday, past the people and places you have got used to and without the weight, judgement and expectation of your little city, village or town.

Maybe I should say that solo travel is terrifying if you’re afraid of changing your reality and landing on what feels like another planet, a place where people may not look like you, speak a different language and worship other gods but are still beautifully, brilliantly human.