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Solo travelling may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but people who have done it will tell you how enriching and fulfilling it is. Safety is one of the biggest concerns during such trips, especially for women. A New Yorker who has explored India for over a year, moving between states, has ranked the Indian states based on ‘how safe she felt as a woman’. In a video that is going viral on Instagram, Kenna (@kenna.kala), a trans woman, shared her travel experience, including some disturbing incidents where a random man on the street showed her an explicit video.

A solo traveller’s experience
Kenna is not saying ‘don’t go to India’ or that the country is unsafe, but she is pointing out how safe she felt as she travelled across India. According to her, safety for solo women travellers depends entirely on where they are.

“A lot of tourists come to India and only visit one or two states and judge the entire country by it. I just want to highlight that there are incredible safe places as well as unsafe places, just like in any other country. I definitely feel safer in many parts of India than I do in my own country, but there are also places where I feel significantly less safe. This is my experience as a woman who spent around a year travelling alone,” she wrote.

The rankings state by state, as per Kenna

• Uttar Pradesh: At the bottom of her list is Uttar Pradesh, with a score of zero, where she felt the least safe. She also shared a disturbing incident that happened during her visit. She said she “was groped at a temple in Prayagraj.”
• New Delhi: Next is New Delhi. She ranked the national capital 1 out of 10 and rhetorically asked, “Do I have to explain?”, perhaps alluding to the city’s reputation for being difficult for solo travellers, especially women.
• Rajasthan: According to Kenna, Rajasthan is beautiful to explore; however, safety for women travellers is questionable. She ranked it 5 out of 10 and said, “It’s definitely NOT safe, but I love it here anyway.”
• West Bengal: The influencer ranked West Bengal 6 out of 10, but it came with a caution. “I wouldn’t go out alone at night here.”
• Goa: West Bengal and Goa are tied, according to Kenna, with a ranking of 6. “The police are the scary ones here,” she wrote.
• Tamil Nadu: She ranked Tamil Nadu 7 out of 10. She visited Pondicherry, a Union Territory in south-eastern India. Despite being a popular tourist destination, she had a disturbing experience. “A man walked up to me and showed me p**n on his phone in Pondicherry, but I still think it’s safe if you’re modest,” the tourist said.
• Karnataka: She ranked Karnataka 8 out of 10 and expressed that it is somewhere she truly loved being. “I love it here so much.”