Travel Tuesday: Safety First

It's time to be a better blogger. I'll be linking up with Megan every Tuesday for a new story about traveling! This week's question: Where did you feel the most unsafe when traveling? What did you do about it?  

I was lucky enough to travel to France when I was 17 and had an absolutely amazing time. I went with a group of 14 girls from my high school, two faculty members (they're married and I love them) and their adult son who is a teacher. Our motto for the trip? Leave stupid at home. They warned us to keep our passports safe, don't go anywhere alone and don't talk to strangers. We filed onto the plane in alphabetical order. We did a lot as a group, but we usually got a few hours to ourselves to eat, spend way too much money on things we thought we needed because they were from France or anything else we wanted to squeeze in before we moved to the next city.

One night, we had some free time in Provence and a few of us decided to get crepes (we couldn't consider the day over until we had gelato or a crepe) at a restaurant in the town square. After enjoying our overpriced delicious crepes, we headed back to our hotel. As we were walking down the street, a few men starting yelling at us from across the street. We kept walking, we'd seen it before. They loved to talk to the Americans. We kept walking, but they kept yelling and crossed the street and walked behind us. We took off running and they lost interest, but we ran all the way back to our hotel.

Lovely ladies I stuck with most of the trip

We probably weren't in any real danger, but it was late and dark and we were in a strange city without cell phones. It was a really nice area with lots of shops, and in the daylight it wasn't scary at all, but we you can never be too careful, especially in an unfamiliar area. If you're traveling in a foreign country, make sure you're not alone late at night and always make sure you know your way home. Despite our little scare, we really enjoyed our trip and made sure to stay safe and kept stupid at home.