Whilst I would never want to put anyone off solo travelling, or any kind of travelling, I always think that preparation is the best way to avoid possible uncomfortable situations in strange cities.

So I’ve listed my 5 must-pack essentials to keep you safe on the road.

Disclosure: If you think these products will come in as useful to you as they have been to me, and you fancy topping up a teeny tiny amount to my hangover paracetamol fund, feel free to purchase from any of the affiliate links in this article.

5 Must-Pack Essentials to Keep You Safe on the Road

1. Rubber doorstop

By far one of the most useful travel hacks for travellers that I have come across is to wedge a rubber doorstop under the inside bottom edge of a locked or closed door.

You can pick these up for as little as £1.25 on Amazon and they take up almost no room in your backpack or suitcase so they are definitely worth the tiny investment!

2. Personal safety alarm

I have owned many of these, and thankfully have never had to use one yet! Nevertheless it makes me feel a lot safer to have one on me at all times, as the alarm is so loud that anyone attacking is more than likely to run off to avoid attention.

You can pick these up almost anywhere, but my personal favourite is the Minder PAL003 140 db Key Ring Personal Attack Alarm with Torch as the pull-cord (used to activate the alarm) is separate from the key-cord which makes it less likely to go off in public.

The easiest way to keep it with you at all times is to attach the keyring to the straps of your day pack, so you just have to reach up and yank the cord if needed.

3. Backup phone charger

I seriously don’t know what I would do without my Anker Compact Portable Charger as backup! I own an iPhone 5 and the battery life is so shockingly poor that I need to be prepared at all times to charge it in case I get lost!

These days we use our phones as GPS maps, contact books with important addresses and phone numbers, and of course the rise of the mobile phone means we always have use of an emergency line when needed! However, if your phone battery is dead then you can really feel stuck, especially in a strange country.

I own the Anker Astro E1 5200mAh Ultra Compact Portable Charger which doesn’t take up too much room in my luggage and is amazing at keeping my battery life going for at least two days. Considering I have to keep my phone plugged in almost constantly, that’s really good(!), but I am looking to upgrade soon to a larger model, the Anker Astro E7 Ultra-High Capacity 25600mAh.

4. A notebook

I can hear you thinking, what on earth does your personal safety have to do with a notebook? Well, it links back to that point about your phone dying.

If you’re battery has died, and therefore you have no access to phone numbers or the internet, and your lost – what do you do? Of course, my first call would be to ask for directions, but what if they don’t know the name of your hostel and you don’t have the address?

Buy a notebook and write down everything. Your hostel address, their phone number and email, direction from your accommodation to the bus stop. And of course make sure there is a section in there fore phone numbers to friends and family back home!

As I travel alot, I absolutely swear by the 2015 Moleskine “Colour a Month” Volant Daily Diary Set as instead of carrying around one heavy notebook I just swap over for a new lighter one each month. What’s even better is that at the end of the year I have a whole record of where I have been!

5. Personal safety awareness course (+ bonus from me!)

Over the August period I have been busy putting together an online personal safety awareness course with my dad, Mark Dawes, one of the leading UK experts in the use of force and personal safety.

As Director and National Coach Tutor of NFPS Ltd. (the National Federation for Personal Safety), Mark has worked as a hostage negotiator and is a competent physical skills instructor with over twenty-five years of experience to fall back on.

So you can see why we decided to put our heads together and create a product that could help a community I am most passionate about: the travelling community!

In addition to my dad’s expertise, I have also created a bonus presentation to talk you through my top ten tips for keeping safe as a solo traveller!

The total cost of putting this project together was high. But as I am quite good at twisting my dad’s arm, he has agreed to part with it for only £47.

Thankfully, I haven’t yet been in any serious trouble on the road! However, these are all things I carry with me to keep me safe, so I hope they can help you too!

Lots of love,