Solo Female Travel: Deconstructing Fear, Trusting Your Body, Practical Tips, My Next Adventures — EP109

Candice Wu 0:00

In this episode, I share about how I have approached my travels and living abroad and the next travel that’s coming up, that includes a surrender into sensuality and flow, as well as some solo traveling tips, and how to connect with your body to develop and cultivate instincts and intuition for your own safety. Lastly, the idea that you can change your life at any time.

Candice Wu 0:30

Hello and welcome. You’re listening to the Embody Podcast, a show about remembering and embodying your true nature, inner wisdom, Embodied Healing and self-love. My name is Candice Wu and I’m a holistic healing facilitator, intuitive coach, and artist sharing my personal journey of vulnerability, offering meditations and guided healing support and having co-creative conversations with healers and wellness practitioners from all over the world.

Candice Wu 1:06

So here’s a little note from my friend Doreen, and she is the creator of Verdant Faerie, these yummy botanical scents and oils. She says, “I highly recommend Candice’s healing work. I love her podcasts and the Ally with Death experience was pretty powerful. I loved the music and of course her voice. My heart slipped out of its crusty burnt casing (like a burnt marshmallow) to reveal a vibrant pink thing. I wondered why I let a single person or event ever take my joie de vivre and vowed to dance and shimmer among the stars. Here’s to new beginnings!”

Candice Wu 1:50

I hope I pronounced that French correctly. I probably didn’t. French wasn’t my class in high school. But, thank you so much, Doreen, I loved hearing about how your heart slipped out of the crusty burnt casing like a marshmallow. Doreen is talking about the Ally with Death experiential audio. And it is this beautiful audio experiential, that supports you in facing your own death, and looking at what would really be important in those last final hours of your death, looking at what beliefs and things have been holding you back in your life? What would really make life meaningful? Who would you spend your time with at the end? How would you spend your time?

Candice Wu 2:39

And getting that push from death really forces us to look at what is important. I actually did this just a few hours ago for myself and just bald, and some really important things came through, things that I didn’t know, that I wanted, things that I didn’t know were that important to me in this exact moment, came through and I thought, oh, maybe I’ll do that coming up. So I don’t know if I would have revealed that or got the courage to look at those things in this way, had I not been going through this myself.

Candice Wu 3:22

It’s a great way to cleanse or to start a new cycle, start this new year, it’s not too late. You can find that experiential at CandiceWu.com/death.

Candice Wu 3:33

When I started doing some major travels in 2017, my first travel started in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and that’s actually where I began the Embody Podcast in February 2018. In that time, that I set out to Chiang Mai, Thailand, I actually wasn’t really going for travel, I was going to create a life there and see how it would be to live for a long chunk of time.

Candice Wu 4:02

So being in Chiang Mai brought me a sense of feeling pleasure, simplicity, slowing down like downshifting majorly and I also met someone that I had dated for then several years thereafter, and then we traveled together, Chris, who’s the editor of the podcast still, these travels led me and Chris to many different countries together and then some places where I went alone. And that included Bali, Indonesia, different areas of Thailand, Perth, Australia, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, Marbella and Malaga, Spain, Hoff, Nuremberg in Germany, and then I took my own travel to Hong Kong or my family lives, and Ireland, Donegal area. That’s when I was with the horses and cut my trip short, came home in February of the last year — 2019.

Candice Wu 5:07

And in this whole last year, I’ve been exhausted by the movement. So, rounding myself in Michigan and just staying in the Midwest of the United States was just the right thing for me and it happens to be a beautiful time for me and my family. After doing so much healing work in my lifetime, for the last solid, you know, 10, 11 years, and all that my mom has done for herself, gave us the best experiences this year, we’ve had so much fun and I feel like all those years of healing work really paid off.

Candice Wu 5:50

So starting, well, coming into January 2020, a friend asked me, so where are you traveling next? And I said, No, I don’t want to travel. I have no plans to travel. I don’t want to leave, I’m happy and I’m still a little bit tired from last year and the years, the two years I had moved around in different places in the world. And then January 8, specifically, January 8, two days before the lunar eclipse, January 10, I felt a strong impulse and desire to travel again. And I felt like I wanted to be in another world. I felt like the world that I wanted to be in was one of sensuality, sexuality, pleasure, surrendering to my soul and what calls me and following the flow of what my heart craves, and what my body is saying yes to and moving towards. So, I am going to Mexico.

Candice Wu 7:04

I wasn’t so scared until someone close to me said that they were deeply scared for me and wanted someone to go with me and I just freaked out. And then I went into all sorts of research to figure out how I’m going to travel.

Candice Wu 7:22

What’s been really important for me is to discern what is the media’s inflation of fear-based on projection, based on the fact that we have our own shadow parts, the country of the United States has their own shadow that they don’t want to look at, and we can distract from what’s not going well here, what’s unsafe here in our own land, by looking at what’s going on in other countries. Of course, there are dangerous things happening all over the world. I’m really encouraged by several women that have traveled the world and women that travel to many places that speak to safety and speak to different themes around the world that unite us.

Candice Wu 8:09

The first black woman to travel the world is Jessica Nabongo. She’s actually from Detroit, and was on a TED talk in Detroit. And she traveled 195 countries, 89 of those which she’s traveled alone. She speaks to how we assume people are bad people because we don’t know them and we’re encouraged to keep people at an arm’s length. And it makes people feel justified to keep guns and to treat people as something to be feared. And we mostly distrust people based on appearance, race, nationality, and religion. And what she has found is that the world is our neighborhood, and the home is in the people.

Candice Wu 8:52

So she speaks of the world being our neighborhood, in terms of online and offline, the online neighborhood that we create in Social media and also the neighborhood of our earth. And the first woman to travel all countries, so all 196 countries, and she was the fastest person and the fastest female to travel all those countries, and that’s Cassie De Pecol. She did it in 2015 and it took her 18 months and 10 days, and she now talks about peace and how to create more peace and sustainable travel. And she noticed a common thread too, that most people have the same needs. We’re all the same people, she said, and we all want a loving family and that brought her to start to respect other people more.

Candice Wu 9:48

And who inspired me even more powerfully was the youngest person to travel the world by 21 years old, that’s Lexie Alford, and after about 100 countries, the places became so obscure that people stopped wanting to go with her. And in her TED Talk, she spoke about our comfort zones, and getting out of our comfort zone and how much that has lost its meaning, what does it really mean? And that we may be having the wrong conversation about getting out of our comfort zone.

Candice Wu 10:22

Her idea was that we’re sugarcoating fear and how fear, if we defined it or break it down in between our physical, emotional, and spiritual selves, then we can really look at what it is that we’re fearing, and where it comes from and feel the correlation between our comfort zone and body, mind, and soul.

Candice Wu 10:46

She speaks to how fear has played a major role in the defining moments that she’s experienced. And those include: getting malaria in Africa, West Africa, having public anxiety attacks and other experiences that are less than desirable.

Candice Wu 11:02

And as she shared this, I just began to cry. I didn’t know exactly why, but it really touched something in me. And as I sat with it longer, what I felt was this restoration of trust and my own willingness to be in discomfort, to follow myself and to follow what I need to do in this life.

Candice Wu 11:26

She spoke to one of my fears, which is physical danger, either being robbed, or raped or attacked in some way and maybe killed. And she said that in all of her travels, she was only in physical danger at one time and it was in Yemen.

Candice Wu 11:43

One night she heard gunshots and it lasted for some amount of time. She worried that she potentially be kidnapped. At some point, it all stopped and she cried herself to sleep and the next day, she spoke with her one contact in that country, and that person said, Oh, that? That was just a wedding party, because they shoot guns to celebrate. And so for her, it was only scary because she didn’t fully understand the culture.

Candice Wu 12:14

I love her final question in her TED Talk. How uncomfortable are you willing to become to reach your fullest potential? And that really nailed it for me. It brought it home as to why I was crying. It was a release of past fears and sadness. It was bringing me back and restoring me into a deeper knowing and trust that does live inside, underneath the fear. The trust in myself that this is what I meant to do and the right timing and right place will be everything. If I can tune in, and to a great deal, allow pleasure as my compass, allow my body to be the narrator of what I need to do and what I need to walk towards, and walk away from.

Candice Wu 13:09

In all of the countries that I visited, which are far less than 195 or 96, I would say, maybe 20, I’ve only felt physical danger, could have been imminent one time, but it was a kind of light fare. That was when I landed in Sri Lanka and I made a few mistakes. I was kind of naive and didn’t even think twice about my own safety.

Candice Wu 13:38

I was about 27 years old, and I had enrolled in this homestay program where I would teach Buddhist monks English. It was a two-week program, and I would stay with this host family. I landed in Colombo, the capital and it was 11:30 pm, dark. So while I’m on the plane, I’m suddenly struck by the fact that I’ve not even thought about that I’m entering the country in the dark and my host family said that a man would be picking me up and bringing me to a nearby hotel. And then the next morning, we would take the three-hour drive to Gal, which is on the coast. This is the coast where the tsunami hit in 2004.

Candice Wu 14:29

So I just trusted that and so here I am in the plane and suddenly fearing this because I don’t speak Sinhala or Tamil, the main languages in Sri Lanka. Luckily, I had been conversing with this man sitting next to me on this trip from Hong Kong to Colombo, and he was Sri Lankan and he spoke Sinhala and I just begged him and said: “Please. Can you help me? I just realized that I’m nervous about who’s picking me up. Can you just talk to this man and make sure that I’m not going to be in danger and that I’m going to get safely to my hotel room.” And he did so, and I just trusted that he did that, because it was all in another language.

Candice Wu 15:22

And I took the ride alone to this hotel, and I checked in, it was completely quiet. Nobody was sitting at the reception desk, we had to call somebody to arrive to check me in and the driver left. And so I’m getting checked into my room by this young man who seems to be a teenager, and I locked the door behind me, so I’m still doing fine. But then I just thought, who has the key because it’s this outdoor door entrance and could someone just come in during my sleep.

Candice Wu 15:59

I get up a phone call about an hour later and it surprised me because it had already been about midnight and why was I getting a phone call at 1 AM? The boy that had checked me in said, “Miss, do you want some water?” And I said, “No thank you. I’m fine.”

Candice Wu 16:16

Somehow I managed a few hours of sleep probably in the earlier mornings of the night, with the lights on, my luggage sitting on top of a chair pushed up against the door. And when I got into the van that was meant to take me to this host family, there were some Canadians sitting in the car. And for me, that was a relief at that moment just because I had scared myself so much and this was so unknown to me in the dark.

Candice Wu 16:45

I got to the host family and there were several, different young people from different countries visiting and staying with them and also volunteering.

Candice Wu 16:56

One woman that I became friends with for many years after and still now, she had told me a little story that at the hotel, she had someone come to the door, knock on the door while she was there and bring water to her and asked her if she wanted it. And she said, “Sure.” And he said, “Where should I put it?” And she said, “On the table’s fine.” So he comes in, puts the water down, and he closes the door, and she says, “What are you doing?” And he said, “You invited me in. So can we get in your bed or, should we get in your bed?” And she was like, “No!” And she asked him to leave and he ended up leaving. And I come to find out later through her that if you’re inviting a man into your room, that is sometimes considered an invitation for sex.

Candice Wu 17:53

So, I am glad that I did not accept the water and I’m glad that I survived that night and I did learn some things about how to prepare a little bit better and when is a safer time for me in my ability to sense my surroundings? Yeah, daytime, Candice. And I probably would have asked more questions to my host family about who would be picking me up and how things would go so that I just felt more prepared and could feel settled and then use my instincts and be aware in other ways that I couldn’t be because I was so scared.

Candice Wu 18:33

Other than that, I’ve only had one other time in Vietnam that I was scared. I was with my boyfriend at the time and we were catching a bus from a more rural area back to Hanoi. And the hotel said just stand across the street and wait for the bus, you’ll see it and there’s no bus stop or anything. We’re just standing on the street. So we get on the first bus that stops for us. Several had passed by and said no or not, you know, no. And it appeared that they were not going to Hanoi. And so this bus picks us up and it’s like a party bus. It’s the most unique bus I’d seen anywhere in the world. It’s like flatbeds. So you can lie down, and they’re layered and stacked on top of each other. And you have to take your shoes off because they want to keep it clean. And there are these, like, glow lights on the inside that are flashing.

Candice Wu 19:29

And so we get on this party bus, take off our shoes, we climb into the back, and we’re playing chess on my iPad, suddenly, and I had been tracking with my google maps that I had downloaded. Suddenly, I have a man almost in my face pointing at me saying, “You! Hanoi!”, and gesturing to get off the bus. And I think that they had been yelling Hanoi and sending people off. But I insisted on staying on as I was checking my google maps and noticing that we were not in Hanoi, we were only halfway there. I’m not getting off the bus and my boyfriend’s off the bus. So they’re telling me to get off and he’s off.

Candice Wu 20:13

So I felt like I had to get off. And I grabbed my stuff fumbling to get my shoes on, while I’m walking over to this smaller bus that they’re directing us to. I’m the last one on and I’m shoved in and the door closes on my butt. And I look around me, people are filled up in the seats, sitting all over the ground, on the steps. And there’s one man who has a bloody face, like he had been struck in several places. So that freaked me out.

Candice Wu 20:48

And I’m trying to talk to the men that ushered us onto this bus and they don’t speak English, and I don’t speak Vietnamese, so I’m using Google Translate. I asked why did we get on this bus? And he said, something wrong with the other bus, is what I got and gathered. And for me, that felt like a lie. And someone else on the bus said, sometimes they do this. And so, I just began to gather that it was more of a money-making scheme than anything and that bus that was a more expensive bus, the party bus, and the one we were on was really small and obviously they were cramming people in.

Candice Wu 21:33

So I didn’t stop being scared until we got closer to Hanoi, because I thought, where are they taking us? So I’m tracking it this whole time, ready to just like push my way off the bus into who knows where that would be scary too. We ended up being fine, aside from people trying to pull us off the bus so they could give us a taxi ride which I just walk straight through and try to gather myself away from the crowd of those people.

Candice Wu 22:08

Other than that I’ve never felt physically unsafe but I haven’t necessarily traveled to countries that people tend to warn others about.

Candice Wu 22:19

I stumbled upon this article in my research by Kristin Addis. She’s a woman who speaks about solo female travel. This particular article is called, We need to stop telling women they will get assaulted if they travel solo.

Candice Wu 22:34

She speaks to the fact that people of all genders can be told that you’ll be an easy victim, you’ll get robbed or killed in different countries that are more unknown, but women, more often than men are told that they will get raped. She did not speak to non-binary. She did not speak to trans and she mentioned that she would like to speak to non-binary folks In terms of travel tips, but she didn’t have the experience and spoke only to our competency.

Candice Wu 23:07

She wanted to look further into this and her research in pulling travel-focused Facebook groups, she had 1000 responses, 69% reported that they would be told that they would be raped, That’s women versus men. Again, she doesn’t seem to have any trans or non-binary or other gender identities in her experience. She mentions about how reporting data might be skewed because sometimes men don’t report.

Candice Wu 23:36

In one World Health Organization, global and regional estimate report, the number one crime was stolen passports, and that the perpetrator, being someone that the person did not know was very low. And so her conclusion was that it’s very rare to actually get raped. And while the world is not safe for women in general by traveling, this suggests that a woman’s potentially putting herself in less danger than she is when she’s at home. Because typically, rapes happen by acquaintances.

Candice Wu 24:10

She raised a bunch of really good questions, including, is it simply too threatening, whether consciously or more likely unconsciously, to see a woman going against the typical status quo and having more self-agency? Is it abnormal to see that she does not need a partner or a friend or chaperone to journey to another country with, her challenges that when a woman goes against the status quo, it triggers people’s fear of change, and that their discomfort over a life not fully lived, gets poked? And this may explain why women caution other women about the dangers of solo traveler, and that isn’t always from firsthand experience, that they bring that caution.

Candice Wu 24:53

She states that we need to ask why female autonomy is such a scary concept in modern society, and why are we continuing to undermine women. Her words are: “we are killing a budding sense of self-undermining trust, and could we support them in flourishing and trusting themselves to believe in herself and her abilities instead?”

Candice Wu 25:16

So for me, this article helped me discern that difference between what was just fear living there that is unwarranted, and what is the reality based on what some facts are, as well as the reality that I do have instincts and that I can do things to keep myself safer, and that I can sense good connections most of the time and nourish those connections.

Candice Wu 25:49

And a friend of mine who’s from Mexico said that people are very loving and community-oriented. They’ll look out for you if you nourish those relationships and speaking a little bit of Spanish goes a long way.

Candice Wu 26:06

Another friend of mine that lives there who’s from the States, as a woman of color, also just feels like she focuses on nourishing connection. And of course, she does things to make sure she’s not putting herself in danger. But she doesn’t really think about it. And she’s in San Miguel de Allende.

Candice Wu 26:27

As people, we have basic, instinctual, and intuitive, and energetic abilities. We have those gifts that help us, the body wisdom and intelligence that says, “Oh, this doesn’t feel right. Oh, I feel pressured in a way that doesn’t feel good. Yes, this feels great. Yes, my body says yes.” And that can be clouded by our trauma and wounds that are unintegrated, and it can be clouded by the fact that because of travel, we are more likely to override our experience. And that in our collective society, we are conditioned to override.

Candice Wu 27:14

One of the ways that I learned to not override my body’s messages is through Somatic Experiencing where when you’re working with a client, and when I’m the client, the experience that we get to decide, the client gets to decide where and how and how far and in what direction we’re sitting. And the funny thing about a therapy office, or a space, is that we often go into that space and just say, “Oh, yeah, we’re fine. And we just take what we get.” We sit where the chair is, or some people sit on the floor or lie down. I’m a floor sitter often. And even that seems to break some of the norms or what can feel socially appropriate at times. And how about asking the question: Where do you want the chairs to be? Or where do you want to be sitting? And do you want me to turn towards you or to the side or completely away?

Candice Wu 28:14

And having that preference is often a thing that some of my clients even have thought, Oh, this is weird, or no, everything’s fine. And there’s a little bit of discomfort sometimes, or, I’ve never been asked that question, and we haven’t. It’s uncommon. But if we really get to listen to our body, then we can feel, Oh, this is too close. And there’s a breath of relief when I sit at this distance and at this angle. That just helps me feel good and safe right now, and it can change. It can vary. It can be something that you work with, because you may want a different kind of contact with someone. It may be helpful to work with being in a different comfort zone so to say. And yet, it’s extremely helpful to notice what your body says right now and to not override that need, or that preference.

Candice Wu 29:16

And I transferred that to all different areas of my life, where I prefer to place my things in my room, in my space, letting the timing of my body happen more organically rather than pressuring and pushing and glossing over the message of my body that says, wait just a little longer. Or, now, let’s go now.

Candice Wu 29:43

And a lot of times when we are having some parts of our nervous system in a frozen state where something happened in our lives that was overwhelming or traumatic, there wasn’t enough resource to deal with including time, loving, compassionate support, or it was a dangerous situation, our body can go into an overwhelmed state that paralyzes us and shuts us down like playing dead. If you want to learn more about that, there’s an episode at CandiceWu.com/overwhelm, that speaks specifically to tonic immobility and what happens in that state, as well some experientials to support you in coming out of it.

Candice Wu 30:28

If there are parts of us that are in a frozen state, then we may not act when we need to, we may not run away or walk in the other direction when we do sense danger, we may not even sense the danger, because some of our faculties are turned off in order to protect based on the past experience, based on the fact our body already doesn’t feel completely safe.

Candice Wu 30:55

So for me, as I prepare one of the biggest things I’m going to do and I’m doing right now is cultivating where in my body do I sense when something is feeling good? What are the cues? Is it my breath? Is it a release in my muscles? Sometimes my genitals will speak. It’s like there’s an opening and a yes or a closing up and constriction, no. And for me it is a yes or no, the maybe typically means no.

Candice Wu 31:31

Someone once told me if it’s not an obvious guess, it’s a no. And that’s really helped me a long way. When my body says yes, I feel uplifted and excited. And once in a while, I’ve felt too excited, like over the moon. Oh my goodness. Yes, this is everything and sort of this idealized excitement and connection. And that’s one of my warning signs because in some of my early attachment relationships, specifically with my father, I experienced some more narcissistic empath dynamics and experience where my father would give me this loving attention at some points, and then it was painful and destructive at other points, and emotionally violent.

Candice Wu 32:28

So there’s a part of me that can get attracted by that sparkly energy, that charming energy that usually also asks more of me, and I’m willing to give and there’s something that bites me. So if I get too excited, too happy, like over the moon, then I know that I need to slow down and just feel into the deeper energy and which part of me, is it my younger self that’s craving this loving attention, that gives me some sense of worthiness, and I’ve long worked on that part of me and yet it can still show up here and there, in little pockets, debris.

Candice Wu 33:14

A friend of mine mentioned that when she senses that someone is reaching out to her in scarcity, from a place of scarcity, needing something from her, wanting her energy, wanting any material from her, perhaps also, that she feels like she wants to put something in front of her body, and she’ll instinctively put her hands there, put a bag or something that she has with her, right in front of herself, and that’s one of her cues to know that this may not be an interaction she wants to continue with.

Candice Wu 33:48

So this last chunk of the episode is going to be on some of the more practical tips and tools that I’m going to use on my travel and I didn’t use all these in Thailand and when I went to other countries, a few of them, but this time around, I did a more comprehensive look at what other people are doing to support themselves, besides using your instincts, trusting your senses, but what other mechanisms, so let’s jump into that.

Candice Wu 34:25

Alright, so we are now a couple of days later from when I first began recording this podcast episode. It’s interesting because typically I go all the way through the episode whenever I do an episode, and this one I just had to take a little break and a lot has happened between the first chunk and this chunk. I feel like a whole other person in some ways. And some of that feeling in me has also affected how I’m seeing my trip and I’m building a lot more confidence and just feeling more comfortable. Ready to go. Excited.

Candice Wu 35:01

My trip is coming up in about a week and a half, two weeks now. And at this point, I do have my tickets, my flight tickets into Mexico City. And I’m going to spend about a week there. And then I plan to meet a friend in Oaxaca. We may go together from Mexico City to Oaxaca, so I’m really excited about that. This is a dear friend of mine and I’m super thrilled about two apps that I use that a friend told me about, one’s called Hopper. And it’s this app that tells you when is a good time to buy your flights. I use that a little less frequently now because that one doesn’t quite give me the best flight rates. But it does sometimes give me a sense of when to buy and when not to buy, when to wait a little bit. It creates predictions about when the best time to buy your flight tickets would be.

Candice Wu 35:59

The other app that I love is called Skiplagged. And that shows just the best flights it can find in general, but also shows you where you can take a flight and get off at the connecting flight stop instead of the landing destination and that’s often cheaper. So for example, say you want to fly from Detroit to LA, if you buy that ticket, then you can just get off at LA, as long as you only take a carry on bag with you and make sure that pack fits on the flight. And then you just leave the other leg of the flight, and you’re where you want to be, and it’s usually a lot cheaper.

Candice Wu 36:41

Of course, airlines don’t like that, but I have found that if I look at Skiplagged and then go on to the site itself, I can find that flight or I can book right through Skiplagged if I want to do that in an easier way. I don’t always find the app that easy though. Sometimes it creates an error message. So none of these websites that I’m listing, I have any affiliation with, it’s just me sharing some resources that I use personally. So I get no money from them or anything. It’s just something I recommend to all my friends and family.

Candice Wu 37:16

So now when I share with you all the things on my list that I’m doing, and also remember to bring with me on my trip, I don’t always use everything on this list. But I thought that in case any of you are out there and are going to be traveling solo or even with a group, if you want to make sure that you’re doing everything you can to support your own safety and play it smart, as well as giving yourself the best chance you can to have a great experience of connection with the people, with the culture and place.

Candice Wu 37:51

So some of these travel tips include bringing a doorstop alarm, and I just learned about this. I never used this before and at some point, I may not use it but I’m going to bring it just to feel a little safer. I think it would have helped me feel comfortable while I was in Sri Lanka, where I stacked my luggage on chairs against the door. So it’s an alarm that rings at 120 decibels and it hurts your ears if it gets tripped. And so you put it behind the door and if the door opens, when you don’t want it to or when that doorstop alarm is on, then, of course, it will ring, also have a little handheld personal alarm in case you want to use that while I’m out or walking or in a situation that I might want to have just something extra. And that’s also an alarm that rings at 120 decibels. I’ve tried it and with earplugs on, I can hear a loud noise and without your plugs in it hurts my ears and it’s dangerous for your eardrums. So that’s interesting. I

Candice Wu 39:04

It’s a good idea to take up some personal self-defense classes and to just brush up whenever you feel like your body might need to build that body memory again. And I’ve recently taken a couple of private lessons. One was just unarmed self-defense. To me, I would describe it as offensive defense. It is teaching my body how to not defend but to attack if I feel like I’m in danger, that kind of danger. The second lesson I took was on sharp weapons and I basically learned the same movement for use with several different small sharp weapons. But, I am primarily most comfortable with a pen. And there’s this particular pen that my teacher told me about that I did order and it’s a very sharp pen. It’s not one of those clickable ones. It’s one that is with a cap, but you just leave the cap off, you empty the ink out if you’re going to be pinning it to your body or something or putting it in your purse, or some bag you have. And you can even walk around with it and most people don’t even think about a pen being dangerous or that you might defend yourself with a pen. If it’s a clickable pen, then that pen can retract and break. They’re pretty weak. And this one is super sharp and very strong. Hopefully, I never have to use that but it does give me even more confidence if I do have to be in a situation or end up in a situation that’s dangerous or where I feel unsafe. I will link some of these products in my show notes, the ones that I’ve gotten so that you can see if these are right for you. And I definitely recommend taking self-defense classes.

Candice Wu 41:01

I like to bring an extra lock in case I need to lock my things in a locker or in some sort of space.

Candice Wu 41:08

On my first international trip ever, my father who is a pretty savvy traveler and is very focused on safety, told me to put my money in my socks. And that has served me at times just to spread my money out so that in case I get robbed or something falls out that I have a safe place and if you’re wearing pants, you can tuck your money in your socks and then put your pant leg over that of course, and don’t bring out that money in a public place where everyone’s watching you, of course.

Candice Wu 41:44

Some people recommend bringing a decoy wallet, especially to places that muggings happened more often, where you can just hand someone credit cards and a little bit of cash or even the whole wallet and they may be satisfied with that and leave you alone.

Candice Wu 42:02

One website that I was looking at suggested using a plastic tampon applicator to store your money in. And I don’t think that would work for men or people who don’t look like they’re female who knows maybe. But for women and non-binary folks out there that look appearance-wise, like they might be using tampons, that might work and most people won’t bother looking at your tampon or wanting to grab it.

Candice Wu 42:36

I always take copies of all my important documents, my passport, as well as take pictures of my electronics and important items and either email that to myself or store that somewhere that I can access even if something is stolen, especially the serial numbers. You want to make sure that you have a copy of those somewhere in case you need to make a report.

Candice Wu 43:00

I always like to get a local SIM card, especially because I spent a lot of time in the country, usually when I’m somewhere, and I use a lot of data when connecting with my clients. But most phone companies in the US offer something that can be International. If you’re a TMobile user like me, then it offers a small amount of data almost everywhere, at least everywhere I’ve gone. But it hasn’t been enough to sustain a long period of time. So getting a local SIM and researching how you can get one, researching where you can get one and what the plans are, can be really helpful so that you’re not doing that research when you get there. And of course, buying the SIM card at the airport is always more expensive.

Candice Wu 43:52

I like to download maps from Google Maps. If you download it in advance, you don’t have to use data and you can still use Google search. And using that Google Maps is super helpful when you’re transiting somewhere and you’re taking an Uber or you’re taking a taxi or some other way of transportation, you can see if your drivers going in the right direction.

Candice Wu 44:21

When I was in Vietnam, I noticed the driver was taking a whole loop in a roundabout way to get us to the destination. And I kept telling him, I tried to translate it on Google Translate, which is the next tip I have, download a translation tool and Google Translate is super easy.

Candice Wu 44:42

So I was using Google translate to tell him you’re taking us too far, and you’re taking us the wrong way. And he kept insisting that the roads were closed the other way. I wasn’t convinced because there were several other roads that it seemed we could take on the map, and he still took this really long route. So, by the time that I had told him and insisted that he listened to me a couple of times, I noticed that he turned towards the direction we were supposed to go. And so it is really helpful to pay attention to where you’re getting driven and to use the maps that you downloaded.

Candice Wu 45:22

So I already mentioned a translation tool like Google Translate. Speaking the language goes a long way if you can just speak a little bit. It’s a respectful thing to do and people tend to be a lot warmer to you and want to help you if you are trying to speak the language and respecting it, doing it in a way that is earnest and kind.

Candice Wu 45:48

Some other random tips are to check the windows and all the doors when you arrive at a location like an Airbnb or a hostel, or some sort of stay. Sometimes windows have been left unlocked, and people have their things stolen.

Candice Wu 46:07

The editor of this podcast, Chris Spiegl mentioned that there are some people that even go as far as using this sort of metal netting around their belongings and locking it. And I have read that it’s important to lock things in your safe, or in some way, even when you’re there if you’re in locations that people tend to steal things. Don’t say that you’re alone if you are alone when you’re in transit, or when you’re just talking to random people, unless you truly trust that person, and you have your instincts on board. You might say that you have a partner at the hotel or someone is meeting you. A friend is taking a nap and you’re going to head back to see them. Anything that says that you’re not really alone.

Candice Wu 47:03

If you take a taxi, you can take a picture of the license plate, you can also take a picture of their ID. Usually, that should be posted somewhere inside of the taxicab or behind the seat. I recommend taking Ubers if you can because there’s tracking on Uber and there is a company behind that. So there’s just a little extra measure of safety there.

Candice Wu 47:28

If you take a picture of the taxi license or the person’s ID, you can send it to a friend and let them know that you’re in a cab and that you’re on your way somewhere and then text them as you arrive. Know where your embassy is. Look it up before you arrive and put that somewhere that you can access it even just to know the basics of where it is, like, which city it’s in can really help you feel more confident and get you that information more quickly if you do need it.

Candice Wu 48:05

Find the emergency numbers of the area, there is a link on my show notes to an international list of emergency numbers.

Candice Wu 48:14

Know the scams and the typical crimes of the area and that can support you and just keeping your eyes open all the way around you 360 so that you’re aware and that can really protect you.

Candice Wu 48:30

I like to plan the first couple of nights at least, and at the very least the first night and I don’t like to arrive in the dark, as you can hear in my original story about Sri Lanka I did that naively and didn’t even think about it and learn the hard way. So arriving with plenty of daylight can just feel a lot easier to navigate everything, especially if you’re going to an Airbnb or a hotel and you’ve never been there. It could be in an obscure location and you just don’t know or could be in a place and who knows what is in that area.

Candice Wu 49:10

Reach out to friends in the area. If you have friends of friends that might be someone you meet with depending on how long you’re staying in that location, and nurse any support that you get and receive if you are staying for a short period of time, and there are local people that you see at a restaurant or along the way continually, it’s great to try to use their language and talk to them, say hello, do anything that you can do to cultivate those relationships because people tend to want to look out for others. Of course, that depends on the location, and if you look into the cultural expectations, cultural etiquette of the location, that’s really important too.

Candice Wu 50:00

I think it’s in Thailand, that there are these beautiful gates and doorways. And if you step on the beam, the wooden beam that’s about a couple of inches above the ground, when you go through the doorway, it’s really disrespectful. So just knowing things like that in advance, can support you in building the connections that will keep you safe and support you along the way. Who knows what kind of support you’ll need?

Candice Wu 50:36

Know that you can say no, for your safety, no matter what. You don’t have to listen to someone telling you about a deal about a travel trip. You don’t have to indulge someone in their conversation with you. These are all just really basic tools and tips of safety and you can apply that as you travel and just remember that because sometimes when we land in a place, we can feel a little disoriented.

Candice Wu 51:05

A few more tips, it’s always helpful to get travel insurance and you can get that yearly. It’s a lot cheaper than just doing it per trip. But if you only travel once a year, you might try per trip. And with travel insurance, that usually also covers medical evacuation. And for me, I like it too, just in case I need to get home because of some medical issues.

Candice Wu 51:30

I also like to go to my bank and get some local currency, the place that I’m arriving into, and it’s not always the best rate, it probably is like getting money at the airport, but it feels better to me to have a little bit in my pocket so that I can just get out into where I need to go and have a bite to eat and all that.

Candice Wu 51:52

Let your bank know that you’ll be traveling so that your credit cards and your debit cards work. At Chase Bank, they even have a travel notification place that you can enter where you’re traveling just on the app so it’s super easy.

Candice Wu 52:09

Also, there’s a registry with the United States government that you can let them know where you’re going abroad and for how long so that in case something happens to you abroad, that they can alert your family. I’m not sure totally about how good it is to be on a list like that in terms of the benefits and the disadvantages and what those lists are used for, but of course, the United States does have a record of where you’re going anyway because you’re using your passport to leave. So I figure that it’s just one other measure, in case anything happens.

Candice Wu 52:51

And of course, as I spoke about several times in this podcast, develop your instincts, people say all the time, trust your instincts. Pay attention. But how do you do that? And how do you do that effectively?

Candice Wu 53:05

So work with your own body, in sensing how you know that you feel safe. When you feel safe if you even imagine it or think about your own safety right now a tiny felt safe, what happens in your body? What do you experience? When you’ve noticed feeling in danger, whether that’s a bit of emotional danger or physical danger? What happens in your body to tell you to give you that cue that something’s not right, that you need to run? That you need to say no or that you need to yell? How does your body tell you? And if you’re building that relationship with your body regularly than when you’re on travel, or you’re in a location by yourself that you’re not quite sure about, you can rely on yourself, you can go deeply within your body and check-in.

Candice Wu 54:02

When we have had previous trauma, we don’t always have our instincts online, we’re not always able to use our awareness in a way that reflects the present moment. Sometimes we can have a big startle response when one isn’t needed. Or, we may stand there in a frozen paralyzed state, when we actually need to run or yell or hit or move. And what I found in taking those self-defense private lessons is that a lot of frozen energy, a lot of energy of being paralyzed and overwhelmed, playing dead, moved out of my body.

Candice Wu 54:42

Using Somatic Experiencing and other types of trauma healing, have helped me incredibly in restoring all of the responses of my body and a present and alert awareness that is calm when it’s safe, as well as an alert when I’m not quite sure. Or, when I hear things, see things, feel things, that may tell me that I’m in danger or something’s not right.

Candice Wu 55:15

Another thing to take note of is that if you have a big jetlag, that when you arrive, you might be more disoriented, your body might feel ungrounded, you might be tired, that can really affect your body in terms of staying alert. So really plan for that first day upon arrival and you can also practice this meditation that I have in Episode 28. It is called Calibrating Earth and Sky within Prana and Apana Tantric meditation. That’s on the episode with nature. Nature as support and medicine.

Candice Wu 55:59

And in that meditation, we are connecting with the earth wherever you are as well as the sky. So wherever you land, if you do this meditation when you land, at some point when you get to safety, a safe place, and groundedness, then doing this meditation can support you in routing into the energy of the place that can help your body feel more grounded and centered. It can help you adjust to the temperature, the culture, the whole sense of the area, and can help with jetlag.

Candice Wu 56:38

I’ve also found that doing some Yoga, when I arrived is really helpful as well as on the plane and putting your legs up the wall. A Yoga pose that you can lie down on the floor, put your legs straight up the wall, that helps to ground the body as well and to help with jet lag so that you’re more in line with the time zone. There are a small handful of other things I do for jet lag and I won’t talk about them here. But if you do need tips for that, feel free to reach out to me anytime. You can find me on my website Candicewu.com.

Candice Wu 57:18

So all these tips, I hope that some of these support you if you’re traveling, and maybe if you live in a city and you haven’t felt safe, maybe those things can help you too. I think it’s really important to look at the places where we’re fearful and to sense into what exactly is the core of that fear. And that can be a piece of trauma healing work. That can be some belief sets that come up, can be projections. It can be ideas and perceptions about others and our self that are not true and are ready for reexamination and healing. So traveling gives these really wonderful opportunities to do that and I recommend doing that.

Candice Wu 58:06

Coming back full circle for me from this place where I freaked out about my safety and was really scared to looking at what beliefs are there, looking at where does this come from and why am I this scared. And coming back to this place where I feel more connected to my body, to my instincts, my intuition, to trusting myself, it’s so restoring, and I’m really excited about this trip.

Candice Wu 58:34

And by the time this podcast is out and you’re listening to it right now, I will likely be getting ready to go. So I’ll give you some updates along the way. So pay attention in the next couple of weeks because I will be sharing how my experiences, feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions and thank you so much for listening in today.

Candice Wu 58:59

I encourage you to pass this along to anyone that you know that might be supported by this episode, especially if they’re traveling or living abroad solo and need some support for that first time or are going to some new place that’s giving them a different internal experience.

Candice Wu 59:21

Thanks so much for joining me today and if you want to stay connected with episodes, with experientials and meditations that come out, as well as self-love notes and events, sign up for my newsletter that comes out once or twice a month at CandiceWu.com/embody. Be sure to check out that Death experiential. If you want to cleanse something out or if you’re feeling heavy and stuck inside depressed or anxious, or just want to get some sense of your next steps in life. That’s at CandiceWu.com/death. Wishing you all the self-love and worthiness as well as an intuitive connection with your body. Take care and see you next time on the Embody Podcast.