I travel alone most of the time. And every single scam I have fallen for happened when I was travelling with somebody else.
That is not a coincidence, and it took me years to understand why. When I travel alone, all of my attention is pointed outward. I am reading the street, watching who is watching me, noticing when something in the rhythm of a place changes. When I am with a partner or a friend, half of that attention goes into the conversation. We are laughing about something, deciding where to eat, looking at each other rather than at the man who has just decided to walk beside us.
Scammers are extraordinarily good at spotting that gap. It is, in fact, the thing they are looking for.
So here is the first and least intuitive piece of advice in this guide: travelling alone probably makes you safer from scams, not less safe. Everything else follows from protecting that attention.
The three times it worked on me
These are worth telling properly, because once you see the shape they share, you will recognise it everywhere.
Bangkok, at the corner of the Grand Palace. A friendly, well-dressed man told us the palace was closed that day because of a strike, and that it was a great shame, but happily, there was somewhere else nearby worth seeing, and he knew exactly how to get us there. The palace was open. It is always open. The alternative destination was a gem shop.
The medina in Marrakech. In a narrow alley, a man stopped us urgently: a fight was breaking out just ahead, and it was not safe; we should wait a moment. In the spice shop right there, conveniently. It would then be extremely difficult to get out of without buying something.
Downtown Battambang, in Cambodia. Two men in something approximating a uniform explained that I had crossed a street that Westerners were not permitted to cross, and that the fine was payable immediately, in cash, to them.
The pattern behind almost every scam
Look at those three again. They are the same trick wearing different clothes.
Each one begins with a stranger who inserts himself into your plan. Each one provides a reason to change that plan urgently, whether it’s closure, danger, or a fine. And each one ends with you being moved somewhere the stranger has chosen, physically or financially.
That is the shape. Learn the shape, and you do not need to memorise a hundred individual scams, because you will feel the third one coming before you can name it.
This gives you one rule that covers most situations: when a stranger tells you your plan must change, your plan does not change. Go to the palace and see for yourself that it is open. Walk out of the alley the way you came. Decline to pay anyone anything on a street corner. You may occasionally be wrong and inconvenience yourself by ten minutes. You will almost never be robbed.
Before you go
Read about the local scams specifically, not just about safety in general. Ten minutes of searching “common scams in” plus your destination will show you the two or three that dominate in that particular place, and knowing the local speciality is worth more than all the generic advice in the world.
Split your money and your cards before you land. Not all in one wallet, not all in one bag. Some in the accommodation safe, some on you, one card kept entirely separate from the others. Almost everything that makes a theft catastrophic rather than annoying comes down to having kept everything in one place.
Photograph your documents and keep copies somewhere you can reach without your phone, which is to say in cloud storage you can log into from a borrowed computer. Passport, visa, insurance, and the emergency numbers for your bank and your embassy.
Get insurance that actually covers theft, and read what it requires of you, because most policies will not pay out without a police report filed within a set number of hours.
On the street
Carry your bag in front of you in crowds, on public transport and at markets. A backpack on your back in a packed metro is an unattended bag.
Assume distraction is deliberate. The spilled drink, the dropped map, the sudden helpful stranger, the child pushing a piece of cardboard towards you, the bird mess that has appeared on your shoulder and the person immediately offering to help clean it. In every case the correct response is the same: hold your bag, say no, and keep walking. Get clear of the spot before you deal with anything.
Do not stop to sign a petition, accept a “free” bracelet or sprig of rosemary, or let anyone put anything in your hand. These are all opening moves.
Be sceptical of anyone who approaches you first. Genuinely kind people exist everywhere and I have relied on them constantly, but they generally respond to you rather than initiating.
Wear less. Not for modesty but for arithmetic. An obvious watch, obvious jewellery and an obvious camera add up to a calculation someone else is making about you.
And dress like you belong, roughly. This is less about fooling anyone than about not announcing that you arrived yesterday and know nothing. Walking as though you know where you are going is genuinely protective, and if you do not know where you are going, step into a café to check the map rather than standing on a corner turning your phone around.
The scams worth knowing by name
Fake police. They will ask to inspect your passport, wallet, or “counterfeit money”. Real officers rarely do this in the street. Ask for identification, keep hold of your own documents rather than handing them over, decline to open your wallet, and offer to walk to the nearest police station. That offer alone ends it almost every time. Never get into an unofficial vehicle.
Taxi and transport scams. The meter that is broken, the route that is scenic, the note you handed over that has apparently become a smaller note. Agree the fare in advance or use a metered or app-based ride, and pay with small notes.
The card machine that fails. In a taxi or a small shop, the terminal does not work, and you are asked to try again or to pay cash at an inflated rate. Watch for a second charge appearing later.
Dynamic currency conversion. This one is legal, ubiquitous and quietly expensive. When a card machine or an ATM offers to charge you in your home currency rather than the local one, it is offering you a terrible exchange rate. Always choose the local currency. This single habit will save you more money over a lifetime of travel than all the anti-theft equipment ever manufactured.
Rigged ATMs. Use machines inside banks where you can, cover the keypad, and check the card slot for anything that looks like it was added on.
Fake QR codes. Increasingly common, stuck over the real ones on parking meters, restaurant tables and bike hire points, sending you to a convincing payment page that is not the real one. If a QR sticker looks applied rather than printed, do not use it.
The one I can tell you about from the other side
I run a hotel, and this is the scam I now warn my own guests about, because it is aimed directly at them.
Criminals target hotels rather than travellers. They send convincing phishing emails to a property’s reservations inbox, steal the login to its booking platform account, and, from inside that legitimate account, message the hotel’s real guests. The message arrives through the official channel or by WhatsApp, it quotes your actual booking reference, your dates and the property name, and it asks you to confirm your card details or re-pay to secure the reservation.
It is extremely convincing, because everything in it is true except the last part.
This is not hypothetical or rare. The UK’s Action Fraud logged 532 reports and around £370,000 in losses in little over a year, and in April 2026, Booking.com notified customers that reservation data had been accessed through compromised hotel-partner accounts, meaning names, contact details, booking references and guest-to-hotel messages.
So the rule is simple, and it holds even when the message looks perfect: no legitimate hotel will ever ask you to send card details by message or to pay again through a link. If you get one, do not click. Phone the hotel directly using the number on its website, rather than the one in the message. We would far rather take that call than deal with what happens otherwise.
Online, while you are away
Use a VPN on public Wi-Fi, especially for banking, and avoid any financial activity on an airport or café network without one.
Turn off automatic wifi connection, so your phone does not silently join a network called something plausible in an airport lounge.
Be suspicious of urgency in any message about your trip. Every version of travel fraud runs on a deadline: confirm within two hours, or your booking is cancelled. Real businesses rarely work like that, and no genuine one will mind you phoning to check.
If it happens anyway
This is the part most articles leave out, and it is the part you will actually need.
Report it to the police immediately, and get the report in writing. In Italy, this is a denuncia, and there is an equivalent everywhere. Your insurer will almost certainly refuse the claim without it, and many policies impose a 24-hour deadline. Do this before you do anything else that is not urgent.
Freeze your cards from the app, which takes seconds, rather than trying to phone an international number from a stolen phone.
For a stolen passport, contact your embassy or consulate. They can issue an emergency travel document, usually within a day or two, and they will want the police report. This is why the photographs of your documents matter.
Tell your accommodation. We know the local procedures, we know which police station handles it and which one speaks English, and we will usually make the calls for you. Ask. It is not an imposition.
And be kind to yourself about it. Being scammed is not a failure of intelligence. These are people who do this professionally, all day, to hundreds of travellers, and they are extremely good at it. I have been caught three times, and I write about tourism for a living.
The thing to hold on to
None of this should make you fearful, and I would hate for it to. In more than a decade of travelling alone across four continents, the overwhelming majority of strangers who have approached me have been kind, curious and generous, and several of them changed my trip for the better.
The point is not to distrust people. It is to keep enough attention free to tell the difference, which, as I said at the beginning, is precisely the thing that travelling alone gives you.
Safe travels.
Further reading
- Best countries for solo travel, with honest safety notes for each
- Hotel bookings: what I know from both sides of the desk
- Sleeping in hostels, including keeping your things safe in a shared room
FAQ
What is the most common travel scam? Most scams share one structure rather than being genuinely different: a stranger approaches you, gives an urgent reason why your plan must change, such as an attraction being closed, a danger ahead or a fine to pay, and then moves you somewhere of their choosing. Recognising that shape is more useful than memorising individual scams. The simplest defence is that when a stranger tells you your plan must change, it does not change.
Is it more dangerous to travel alone? Not necessarily, and for scams specifically it may be safer. Travelling with company splits your attention, and scammers are skilled at identifying exactly that distraction. A solo traveller is watching the street rather than the conversation, which is why many experienced solo travellers report being targeted less when alone than when in company.
What should you do if you are robbed abroad? Report it to the police immediately and get a written report, because most travel insurers refuse claims without one filed within a set deadline, often twenty-four hours. Freeze your cards through your banking app, contact your embassy if your passport is gone, since they can issue an emergency travel document, and tell your accommodation, who will usually know the local procedure and help you with it.
What is the Booking.com scam? Criminals phish hotel staff to steal a property’s booking-platform login, then message that hotel’s real guests from inside the legitimate account. The message quotes genuine booking references and dates and asks the guest to confirm card details or pay again through a link. No legitimate hotel asks for card details by message. If you receive one, phone the property directly using the number from its own website.
Should you choose your home currency when paying abroad? No. When a card machine or cash machine offers to charge you in your home currency rather than the local one, that is dynamic currency conversion, and the exchange rate applied is consistently poor. Always choose to be charged in the local currency and let your own bank do the conversion.
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