Staying safe on a solo adventure

Practical advice on staying safe and feeling more confident while out on solo hikes, trail runs, etc.

This is the second part of my solo adventures series. You can read the first instalment here, where I talk about why I love going outside by myself.

This time we’re talking about safety. Perhaps not the most exciting subject but, if the responses I had when I asked for questions for this series are anything to go by, it seems to be the main thing that makes people wary to go on a solo adventure. And that makes perfect sense - the outdoors can be a dangerous place. To quote my dad pretty much anytime I say I’m leaving the house, “let safety be your watchword”. (I’m afraid I have no idea if he’s plagiarised that from somebody else or not…) In this post, I’m hoping to provide some practical advice to help you feel more confident going on an adventure by yourself.

It seems to me that we can split the whole topic of safety (and the fears that go hand in hand with it) into two fairly distinct categories:

1. Staying safe from the environment

2. Staying safe from other people

I’m going to talk about staying safe from the environment first because, to be honest, it feels like the easier of the two to tackle. By ‘the environment’ I basically just mean all the hazards out there which don’t involve other people - weather, terrain, navigation and your ability to move through these conditions. It might sound strange but I feel like I have more control over these things. I’m not saying I can do a dance and ward off the rain (if only) but I can check the forecast and change my plans depending on the conditions. I can improve my overall outdoor skills, map-reading, etc. I can learn which precautions to take to give myself the best chance of staying safe in unpredictable places. I sadly don’t feel able to control the actions of other humans in the same way!

Top tips for staying safe on a solo adventure

Before I launch into my tips for staying safe on a solo adventure, I need to caveat that I’m just a person who likes going outside. I’m not a qualified Mountain Leader. These tips are very much common sense and the things I do personally. It’s the advice I’d give a friend if they asked. Please do seek out professional guidance if you think you need it (e.g. there are some suggestions on courses you can do further on in this post).

A huge part of being safe in the outdoors is having good judgement. In some ways, I think this is actually easier when you’re on your own - you can be honest with yourself about your own abilities, with less chance of going along with a group and ending up in a situation you’re not comfortable with. That being said, there are some extra precautions you might want to take when embarking on a solo adventure…

Tell somebody where you’re going

The number one rule! I always send my dad the route I’m planning to do and tell him the time I hope to be finished, plus a ‘get worried’ time. The latter is normally fairly generous - I don’t want him to panic just because I’m being a bit slow or have taken a long lunch break. Then I make sure to let him know when I’m safely down and if he hasn’t heard from me by the ‘get worried’ time, he knows to send help. Luckily this has never happened, and touch wood it won’t!

Another option is to ask if you can leave details of your plan and ETA with your accommodation provider or on a trail register (although I think they’re more of a thing internationally as I haven’t really seen them in the UK - but please correct me if I’m wrong!). It can also be a good idea to leave your route and contact details on a piece of paper tucked inside your car, just in case of the worst case scenario and there’s a search of any kind.

Using a tracking device

For a less manual version of the above system, apps like Komoot offer a Live Tracking Service where you can share your live location, an up to date ETA and even how much phone battery you have left with friends or family. Make sure you still designate a ‘get worried’ contact though. It’s no use ten friends having your tracking link if none of them are responsible for taking action when you’re still out at midnight and you haven’t moved for two hours.

In some areas you may not have any phone/internet signal, which makes both of the above options kind of redundant. It’s worth consider using a GPS tracking device of some kind here. I have a Spot Tracker which you can use to send messages saying ‘I’m safe’ or ‘help’ to designated contacts or the emergency services via satellite, ideal for when you don’t have cell reception.

Stay within your skill set

You have to be self-reliant on a solo adventure - that’s part of both the joy of it, but also the responsibility. It’s fine to challenge yourself but be realistic about your own abilities, say with navigation or on technical terrain. For instance, I wouldn’t set off on an overnight mountain hike by myself right now because I’m not confident enough in my nighttime navigation yet. Don’t be put off though - there are some fantastic courses out there to help you develop these skills. Girls On Hills offer great women-only courses in everything from navigation to sky running. You can also check out the ones run by the British Mountaineering Council. There are tons of other providers depending on where you’re based too, just make sure you look into the qualifications of whoever is teaching the course.

Know your limits - and have an escape route

There’s no room for an ego in the outdoors. Knowing when to turn around is one of the most important skills. Sometimes you read about mountaineers calling it mere metres from the summit - but if you’re not certain you can get back safely, you shouldn’t continue.

If I’m doing something on the edge of my ability physically, I like to have an escape route. A few weeks ago I set out to have a go at the Mamores 10 which, as it says on the tin really, takes in all ten of the Munros in the Mamores range in one loop. It’s a big day out with 3500 metres of elevation gain and lots of technical terrain. As we head into autumn, daylight hours are restricted and I wasn’t certain I could get around before it got dark, but I felt okay having a go because I knew that there were several places I could bail early and shorten the route. And that’s exactly what I ended up doing. I thought I could probably get round in time but I wasn’t certain and ‘probably’ didn’t feel good enough.

I consider these escape points a bit of a Get Out Of Jail Free Card - it means you can attempt something difficult and challenge yourself without having to take too many risks if it turns out to be too ambitious, or things don’t go to plan. Other Get Out Of Jail Free Cards might be a public transport option you can pick up half-way or an alternative easier/low-level route back to your start point.

Be prepared for the weather (any weather)

You don’t need me to tell you that weather can be changeable, especially if you’re based in the UK like me and even more so if you’re going up a hill. It can be a lovely sunny day at the bottom of a mountain but a completely different story at the top. Check out the Mountain Weather Information Service in the UK for specific information about conditions, e.g. wind speeds, chance of cloud-free summits, etc.

And then pack accordingly! Or, even better, pack for conditions worse than the ones you’re expecting. You’ll find more advice on packing on the next post in this series (a full guide to planning your first solo adventure) but I basically always take with me more warm layers than I think I need, waterproofs, an emergency bivvy bag and plenty of extra snacks and water.

Pick an adventure that matches your ability

It’s not a cop-out to base your choice of adventure on what you feel you can safely complete. When I set off to run around the coast of Britain I had zero outdoor skills and was completely naive about the whole thing. I couldn’t read a map and attempted to navigate using Google Maps for the first few months. Now, I’m not saying that was a great idea but it was kind of fine. I didn’t really need expert navigation skills to run around the outskirts of London and then along the largely well-populated south coast of England. If I’d chosen an adventure that took me through a jungle or across mountainous areas or into whatever kind of extreme environment you want to imagine, then this naivety would have been extremely dangerous. That’s if I’d even made the start line, which I doubt I would have because I’d have found the whole thing too daunting. Start with something manageable and build up to more technical challenges as your skills progress.

Take a spare battery pack!!

A short and sweet one to end this section on. If you’re using your phone to navigate, take pictures and listen to podcasts all day, it’s going to drain the battery quickly (and you may find it dies even faster in cold weather). Make sure you’ve got a spare battery pack to stay charged up, especially if you’ve told someone you’ll call them when you’re down safe. If you’re using your phone/a GPS device to navigate, the general rule is that you should also have a paper map and compass as a backup just in case all your tech fails. However, these are clearly useless if you can’t use them properly, so see above re: navigation courses.

Staying safe from other people

I wish I didn’t have to write this section. Sure, there’s always the odd person who doesn’t return my ‘good morning’ out on the trails but I mostly I just meet really bloody nice people while running, hiking, wild swimming, etc. One of the best things about solo adventures is how much more open you are to all those chance encounters along the way. But the sad fact is that there are some horrible people out there. Not many, perhaps (I’m grateful not to have actually had a single scary encounter in nearly 10 years of solo adventures) but certainly enough to impact my decisions around what I will/won’t do alone. While I wouldn’t want to speak for anybody else, I suspect this is something I feel more acutely as a woman.

It obviously goes without saying that in an ideal world none of the below suggestions would be necessary and we could all go wherever we wanted, at any time of day or night, with zero risk from other humans. I *hate* that so often the onus is put on victims to avoid getting attacked, rather than perpetrators to stop attacking people. However, ultimately I just want to be able to do the things I love and there are certain precautions I take which make me feel safer while doing so.

Again, these tips are 100% based on my own experiences.

Be logical about the dangers

My feelings of fear around the outdoors have definitely evolved over the years. I used to be terrified of more remote areas and worried about how I’d fend for myself in those environments. Having only lived in large towns and cities I felt a kind of safety in numbers, comforted by being surrounded by other people. Now, my feelings are almost the exact opposite. The fewer people and more remote the better, really! In a lot of ways, I often feel safer on solo adventures than I do in normal day-to-day life.

Although being out by yourself in a remote area can feel eery, I find it helpful to be super logical about the actual dangers. If we look at the statistics, our personal safety is sadly much more at risk in more populated places (simply by virtue of the fact there are more people, I guess) and I now feel safer up a mountain or on a deserted stretch of coast path. I figure that if you only see two people all day, you’ve got to be pretty unlucky for one of them to want to cause you harm, and trying to remember that really helps me feel calmer.

Be careful with what you post online

Sadly, although I believe the the above to be true, attacks on solo hikers etc aren’t unheard of and of course the scary thing is that there may not be anybody around if the worst did happen. The main practical thing I do to stay safe is keep my whereabouts hidden until I’ve left a place. I say this specifically as someone who shares a lot of their adventures online but it’s something we should all be aware of. I think the chance of me randomly bumping into somebody who poses a danger on a trail is pretty low but the chance of them lurking on the internet is much higher. I mostly avoid sharing pictures or posting anything that identifies my location until after the adventure is over or I’ve moved location when I’m alone, and the same if I’m staying in my van (as tempting as it may be to share that perfectly Instagrammable breakfast spot in real time…). I also try not to advertise the fact I’m a solo female when staying in my van (e.g. I don’t have my social media handles printed on the side of it and I don’t leave my bright pink lobster swimming costume drying on the dashboard overnight).

Consider your route carefully

Personally, and especially at nighttime, I prefer to either be where all the people are (e.g. right in the middle of a city centre) or where hardly anybody is (e.g. on a super quiet trail in the middle of nowhere). Often it’s not even about which locations actually are safer but more just about where I feel safest. I want to have an enjoyable time outside and it’s not fun feeling afraid. Just as it’s fine to pick an adventure that matches your outdoor skills, it’s fine to pick a route that aligns with what you feel comfortable with in terms of personal safety. Listen to your gut!

Learn to defend yourself

I think that so much of feeling comfortable/less afraid in any environment is about feeling in control of a situation. Learning self-defence skills may give you back some control in the face of a dangerous situation. A quick Google for ‘self-defence classes’ will show up options wherever you’re based and is something practical you can do to keep yourself safe. You could also consider carrying a personal safety alarm or self-defence spray (although make sure you check the legality of the latter in your country before purchasing!). Again, sometimes I think it’s not even about needing to use these precautions (fingers crossed you won’t) but more about the extra confidence having them can give you.

Tell somebody where you’re going

Yep, this is a repeated point from the above section, but just as useful I think. This is where tools like Komoot Live Tracking are really handy to give you some peace of mind I think, as a friend or family member will be able to see your intended route and if you’ve gone off course or stopped for too long. Strava Beacon works similarly or I’ve sometimes just shared my location via Whatsapp or Find My Friends on iPhone in the past if somewhere felt a bit sketchy.

The real threat… cows

I wish I could say I was joking but genuinely, the thing I’m most scared of is cows and even more so when I’m by myself. I’m not sure exactly what I think anybody is going to do to protect me, maybe it’s just that the company of somebody who isn’t petrified is reassuring and calms me down a bit. But on my own, it’s hard to put into words the level of panic I feel when I enter a field of even the most docile looking cows. I hate to admit the amount of detours I’ve been on and trespassing I’ve done in the name of avoiding them (sorry farmers!).

Hopefully I’ve been able to offer some useful advice in this post, based on my own experiences, so if anybody would like to return the favour and give me a crash course in cow handling, then please do get in touch…

Thanks for reading! My next post will be a full guide on how to plan a solo adventure. Make sure you’re subscribed and I’ll see you then.