[ngneer]

I have a feeling that male and female travel experiences may differ in this regard. "To stay safe, smile." seems pretty naive to me. Clearly, the author is male. I would proffer "always have an exit", "do not walk into something you cannot walk out of" and "do not stray too far from the crowd".

[notahacker]

Even for white males, whilst it might help convince people you're one of the nice backpackers and not the rude backpackers or defuse situations caused by your faux pas, being trusting absolutely doesn't get you any sympathy from who make a living out of scamming or robbing tourists. Sure, escalating probably isn't the best way out either and the minor annoyances that cost you a dollar might be best overlooked, but switching your guard off is a terrible idea in a lot of parts of the world

[cldellow]

Yeah, the author seems to be writing for a white male audience in some regards.

My wife and I host bicycle tourers when they pass through our town. One was Thomas Meixner, an East German who started travelling the world on bike when the wall fell. He's visited something like 120 countries and biked 250,000 km.

My wife asked him if he thought a solo woman could do what he did in the places he did it. He tactfully changed the subject.