"I was given quite a few..." Africa Warnings Or Dangers Tip by tampa_shawn

I was given quite a few warnings about walking through the cities by myself…but spent several weeks walking along the streets by myself, camera in hand and only ran into a few problems. It was a very enlightening experience and one of the real highlights of the trip.

The warnings about going out at night seemed especially urgent so I followed that advise for the most part.

Keep alert and rely on your instincts. I felt safer here than in a long list of other countries. Be careful do not carry lots of money, wear name branded clothing, and no jewelry. Keep on the main drag you should be safe.

My two “incidents” were:

(1) In Nariobi my watch either “fell off my wrist” or got stolen, not a big deal since it was not an expensive watch.

(2) In Stone Town a group of teenagers stop me on a deserted street in Zanzibar. They surrounded me and told me to give them my money. I had always planned just to give away my money if this happened to me …but in the heat of the moment I stomped my foot look the leader directly in the eye and said “ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!”. They looked shocked, then chagrined and said OK and slicked away…. I wouldn’t recommend doing that though. It just happened to work for me.