camino portuges-safe for female travellers?

[deeshine]

Hi everyone,
I am 28,female from Ireland, I have travelled alot and would like to do the camino route starting in porto in June 2012, from looking at some websites it seems solo female travellers may not be safe travelling this route alone-i would really appreciate people's views on this-also how long does it take to do this route (2 weeks?)thank you all and happy travels

 

[Portia1]

I did not feel in any jeopardy on this Camino. There are some places where there are not many people and you might want to walk with another pilgrim for some stretches for safety's sake (more from a fall or other accident than from menacing people). We walked it in 10 days and had a wonderful journey. It only rained in Porto and Santiago! Buen Camino.

 

[Deleted member 3000]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Portugal

 

[peregrina2000]

I think there were a few incidents last year that created a fair amount of concern among female solo peregrinas. Falcon's link to the statistics reinforces the bottom line that Portugal is much much safer than the US (don't know about other places), especially when it comes to violent crimes.

I have walked thousands of kilometers alone over the past 11 years, and have been on some pretty remote Caminos, and I have never felt physically threatened. I have seen "flashers" about 4 or 5 times over all those caminos, usually when I was in the company of another woman, never when I was with a man, and occasionally when I was alone. I'll admit it freaked me out a bit, but I kept telling myself that people wiser than I always say that exhibitionists are not likely to be involved in a physical sexual assault. There is petty theft, of course, mostly in the big capital cities.

I think the bottom line is that you should of course be careful and alert, but for the most part you shouldn't worry about your physical safety even while walking alone. As Portia points out, it may not be a bad idea to have a buddy in case you are injured, but it's probably not necessary for crime prevention reasons.

Buen camino, Laurie