@thewinevagabond

tl;dr: introduce yourself in this thread.

We must all get sick of the same backpacker travel questions when we meet new friends, I know I do.

You know the ones - where are you from, where’ve you been, where are you going, what do you do, how long have you been doing it - etc.

The novelty of answering these questions wears off after maybe a week, but they’re nonetheless insightful and no matter how much we hate them, we find ourselves asking others.

So let’s bring the dreaded backpacker questionnaire to NomadForum and introduce ourselves shall we?

**

• what’s your name?
• where are you from?
• how long have you been away from home?
• what do you do?
• where are you currently?
• where are you going?
• what has been memorable for you so far?
• will you go home anytime soon?
• what have you learnt during your time as a nomad?
• [insert your own question here]

**

No need to answer them all if you don’t want to
But the more you share… The merrier!

I worked out a few times a week back home, but haven’t been able to figure out how to make it a part of my routine now that I’m living out of my backpack in hostels. I’ve always gone to gyms, but I’d be open to trying bodyweight exercises. I thought that I might be able to do bodyweight exercises in parks/etc, but the past few days in London have been wet and miserable and I can’t find the motivation to go do push ups in wet grass. Any advice?

This is something I’ve not really seen addressed anywhere much but, when you are staying somewhere medium term, say 1-6 months, what you do about cooking? I figure anything shorter than that and you can make do, while over 6 months you aren’t going to mind stocking a kitchen so much. But, for that medium term period, it feels like a waste to spend too much on pantry supplies and equipment but too long to get by on basics.

Anyway, I’d love to know what other people in regards to cooking. Do you eat out for all your meals, have a few ‘go to’ dishes that you can cook anywhere with minimal equipment (mine would be omelettes) or do you adjust to the local cuisine?

Admin edit: Fixed title for spelling & compliance with guidelines.

Hi all!

So, I’m in Colombia at the moment and have experienced some really intense harassment and even violence here. I was shocked because it’s been recommended to me by so many people, and so I thought perhaps it would be useful to start a thread here where we (we being women and other minorities) can talk about places where we recommend either not traveling or being particularly on guard.

So, are there any places you’ve been where you’ve experienced more violence, harassment, or maltreatment? Are there any places that you recommend other women/LGBT/ethnic minorities be particularly careful or not travel to?

I don’t want this to become a super negative thing or a personal preference thing, but I am hoping to get some insight into areas that might be more concerning and/or unsafe for certain groups so that we can all make informed decisions about where we want to spend our time. I really wish someone would have been frank with me about the issues here in Colombia, so I’m hoping we can be frank with each other about places where we haven’t felt 100% safe.

So, I’ll start:

I’ve had little to no problems in other parts of South and Central America, but here in Colombia I have witnessed not only street harassment, but also actual violence and malice and, worse, have seen people who could do something to stop it shrugging it off and saying “it’s normal here.” I would not recommend it for women and particularly women traveling alone.

Similarly, in Morocco I felt very uncomfortable as a female traveler. There wasn’t as much yelling or in-your-face harassment, but there was a ton of staring, men invading my space (standing over me in a bus and staring down at me from less than a foot away, for example), and men treating me like a second-class citizen (refusing to let me pass them on the sidewalk and instead forcing me to go around them into a busy street). I was traveling with a friend and we were both pretty exhausted by the end of the trip.