Week 3- Adjusting to a new place and how it doesn’t always go smoothly!

The biggest challenge I have faced so far is not allowing people to take advantage of me because I am a female traveling alone and I don’t speak one of the official languages of the country. I live in Tel Aviv, which is a very populous and active city where a lot of young people live, so I haven’t run into the issue much of people trying to scam me for money when they figure out I am a visitor and not Israeli. I visited Jerusalem twice, and the second time I was approached by a man at a historical site I was visiting who started speaking to me but I couldn’t understand him because I was speaking in Hebrew. I thought he was asking for directions, so I told him I only spoke English. This gave away to him that I was not Israeli, and also I was not with a tour group so he tried to scam me into taking a “tour” of the site he was offering. I politely declined even though he persisted multiple times. Being singled out because you are a tourist/travelling alone can happen in any country, so it was an important reminder to me trust my instincts and never give into something I have not thoroughly researched beforehand.

Leave a Reply