Is it Safe to Travel Alone in Central America?

Sometimes I feel like a broken record talking about my recent backpacking trip in Central America and South America, because I’ve written so much about it on my own blog.

But here I am on a brand new website, with a brand new audience, and I guess I’d better start from the beginning.

I had this grand plan to spend a year backpacking from Mexico City to Santiago de Chile, completely by bus, boat, train, car; anything except from flying. This was for a few reasons. The first being that I am, very irrationally of course, scared of flying. The second, that I want to reduce my carbon footprint whilst I travel. The third reason, if I’m being honest: I knew it was going to be difficult, and I’m always up for a challenge.

During the many months that I was planning this trip, I decided to make Portugal my new home. My travel plans were put on hold in favour of tedious paperwork, and before I knew it I was legally resident in a whole new country. But this came with a slight problem: If I was outside of Portugal for more than four months of the year, I would not be eligible to renew my visa.

I’d already spent three months gallivanting around Mexico a couple of years prior, so I decided to scratch that off the list and start in Guatemala instead.

And that is how I ended up backpacking solo from Guatemala City to Santiago de Chile in just four months.

Now, if you’re not sure exactly how far that is, I can tell you it is quite far. 

It’s the equivalent distance of travelling all the way from my hometown in Sheffield, England, to the very tip of South Africa.

It’s the equivalent of travelling from New York City to San Diego and back again.

I went through eleven different countries, crossing eight borders by land, one by sea, and two by air.

I’ll tell the stories of how I failed in my mission to travel without flying another time (if I am so lucky to be able to write here again). The point of this article is about safety, and about how it feels to travel solo as a woman in “dangerous” countries.

Travelling Alone(ish) in Guatemala

I arrived in Guatemala City alone after a twelve hour direct flight from Madrid. I was supposed to be meeting a friend, Ellie, in the airport, but she’d missed her connection and gotten stuck in Houston.

Well, not a good start (and you might be thinking “I thought you said you did this trip alone?” but we’ll get to that).

Ellie and I had confidently decided not to book any onward travel from the airport, because we had figured that not much can go wrong when you’re a team of two. Well, here I was, a team of one, and a bit stuck.

The airport was more or less deserted. Confidently remembering the small amount of research I had done, I walked up to the yellow taxi booth and enquired about the shuttle services they run to Antigua. She told me I was the first one in line, and I’d have to wait for at least three more people to turn up before the shuttle bus would leave. I looked around the empty airport and a metaphorical tumbleweed trundled past. Otherwise, a taxi is $50.

I was a backpacker. $50 was more than my whole day’s budget and I wasn’t about to start overspending half an hour into my four-month trip. So, I sat in the waiting area and checked Uber prices. There were still a few hours to go before sunset.

Twenty minutes later I saw a tall, grey-haired man walk up to the same booth. I tried not to stare at him too obviously, but sure enough the woman came bouncing up to me and said that this man was willing to share a taxi with me for $25 each. I figured this was about my only option, so I got in.

After a short conversation with this man, it quickly became apparent that he had wanted to take a taxi by himself but the woman in the booth had convinced him to share with me by telling him that I was in a rush. In doing so, she’d surely lowered her own sales commission.

And that was the first time I discovered the running theme of my trip: in these so-called dangerous countries, the locals are willing to help you much more often than they’re trying to do you harm. The difficulty is knowing which ones are which.

Two Women in Nicaragua

Of course, Ellie caught up with me the next day and I have some truly wild tales from our first week in Guatemala. Our second week was spent a) on a fifteen hour bus crossing through El Salvador, Honduras and into Nicaragua all in one go and b) in Nicaragua.

I felt lucky that Ellie had decided to join me for Guatemala and Nicaragua, because in my opinion they were the unsafest countries of my entire trip. I’m sure that I would have felt out of my depth in these countries without her, and my original plan had indeed been to go alone. Luckily, the universe had other ideas for me.

Before I move on to the part where I was actually travelling alone, there is one more story I want to share with you.

One night in Leon, Nicaragua, Ellie and I were followed home by a couple of strange, drunk men. Now, this isn’t a situation you want to be in anywhere, never mind at one in the morning on a deserted street in Central America.

Taking initiative, we walked into the nearest hostel and explained to the small Nicaraguan man at reception. He was the only member of staff there, but it was obvious he didn’t want to send us back out into the night alone. After a short moment of deliberation, he ushered us outside, closed the hostel doors behind him, and walked us safely back to our own hostel.

A note for fellow backpackers: don’t take the shady out-of-town hostels just because they’re $2 cheaper!

Travelling Alone (Yes, Really This Time) in Costa Rica

Ellie and I travelled on to Costa Rica together and said goodbye to each other one night in San Jose. I was officially alone, and a whole new chapter of my trip was about to begin.

And I was in the right place! Costa Rica is actually the safest country in the whole of Latin America, and thanks to a recent boom in tourism it’s easy and relatively safe to get around. There are even some areas where they say you can walk alone at night and not run into trouble (although I’m not sure I would want to risk it myself).

A local had proudly told me that cat-calling is now illegal in Costa Rica, and I would never get cat-called whilst I was there. Well, I can officially report that I was cat-called three times in the week and a half that I was there, which is much less than everywhere else in Central America.

I noticed that a lot of the people I met travelling alone in Costa Rica were on the more cautious side. They had come to Costa Rica specifically because it was known to be safe for solo travellers. I had one delightful friend from Belgium who thought I was absolutely crackers for planning to go to Colombia and Peru by myself. I wasn’t sure if I was brave or just naive, but either way, nothing was going to stop me.

In Costa Rica’s capital of San Jose I had to make an unexpected trip to the hospital. Granted I did go to a private hospital but it was clean, easy to access, and just like going to the hospital here in Europe. I took the public bus around the city and gained confidence in being alone again. I made new friends and travelled on to the Caribbean coast with them, and honestly felt safer than ever. We took the public bus all the way from San Jose to Cahuita on the Caribbean Coast, and met more fellow travellers than people to worry about.

Travelling Alone in Panama

I crossed the border from Costa Rica to Panama with the two friends I’d made in San Jose. And, this is the one thing I always tell to people who have questions about solo travel: you are very rarely actually travelling alone. You get all the benefits of being alone without actually being alone, because everywhere you go you will meet people just like you. Yes, you can map your own route and do your own thing, and if the friends you made three days ago are driving you crazy you can ditch them and go somewhere else, but you will almost never find yourself feeling lonely.

I travelled with these friends for almost two weeks until they had to turn back to Costa Rica and I carried on my way through Panama.

Panama did not feel as dangerous as the more northern countries of Central America, but we were definitely back to the chaos and be-careful-who-you-trust feeling. I had booked a long bus ride to take me from Bocas del Toro to Panama City, but it was cancelled at the very last minute. I was left with a sour taste in my mouth, nowhere to stay that night in Bocas Town, and time ticking down until I had to be in Panama City.

The owner of my hostel grabbed me one of the last spots on the night bus that night, but even getting to the bus station on the mainland was unorganised chaos and I almost got stranded at the dock.

Luckily I bumped into three other women I’d met in Bocas Town (see, I told you you’ll make friends everywhere you go!) and we banded together until we were safely on the bus to Panama City. Which then broke down a couple of hours later, literally in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night.

We all watched, eagle-eyed, from the bus to see what was going on, and after an hour or so we were back on our way again.

I arrived in Panama City and jumped into a yellow taxi in favour of hunting down an Uber. Although I would always recommend using Uber as the safest option, Costa Rica and Panama have registered taxi systems which are a whole lot safer than the chaos that goes on elsewhere. If you ever need a taxi in other countries in Central America, you should definitely get your accommodation to call one for you. 

There were a lot of areas in Panama City that I didn’t feel comfortable walking through alone. Cat-calling was back in full swing and I was getting shouted at every time I turned a corner, although I was lucky that nobody tried to pick-pocket me or worse.

So, is it Safe to Travel Alone in Central America?

That, my friend, is very much up to you.

Everyone has their own limit of what they’re comfortable with, from my friends in Costa Rica who liked to stay in their comfort zone to the wild tales I heard of sailing down the Amazon on a hammock.

But, as a fairly cautious person, I wouldn’t say that travelling in Central America is too dangerous; you just need to keep your wits about you, and make sure to do your research before you go.