Solo female traveling to Pakistan

I have had some very bad experiences with my contacts from couchsurfing in Indian and Pakistan.
The security situation in Pakistan is again melting up so I wouldn't suggest a solo female to go with a contact from couchsurfing on a photography trip in Pakistan, most of them come out as spammers, so please keep an eye on such people.

Obviously she won't rely only on couchsurfers if she is travelling solo to Pakistan for an extended time and then there is a thing called References on CS profiles.

Hi folks. Just following this discussion. I am a solo female (British) and intending to be traveling in Pakistan for 17 days in March. I have plenty of salwar kameez from four trips to Bangladesh plus I have spent 1.5 years in India as a backpacker. I have red hair and agree there is absolutely nothing you can do to disguise yourself - you are very obviously a foreigner. Dress-wise is there anything else I need to know for Pakistan? Not all of my salwar kameez have completely long arms, some have short arms. They are also all very colourful..

Hey Nat, that's great you have saved your expense of buying shalwar kameez haha. I am in Couchsurfing so I have hosted and met many European travellers and some of them were solo female travellers as well. Some of them even cover their head but there are some who didn't even buy any shalwar kameez, wearing jackets and jeans during their entire trip and none of them faced any problem. Most of the European travellers enter Pakistan from Iran so they pass through Balochistan as well which is not considered as safe as Lahore, Islamabad and northern areas and believe me many of them are hitch-hikers. My point is don't worry too much. Obviously, Pakistan is not as safe as western countries but its not as dangerous as the media portrays either. A recent Latvian girl said that she found Pakistan safer than Europe because she did not see any drunk man making fuss on the streets.

You already have shalwar kameez so its better that you wear them and wear a dupatta as well, then its fine even if does not have full length sleeves but its better if they cover at least half of your arms. Every woman wears colourful clothes here so don't worry about that, that's what South Asian dresses are famous for

The local dress code would help you to earn respect from locals as well as make the traveling easier , however, Pakistan is a safe destination so far my experience of traveling in this marvelous country.

I am a Polish national and I have been trekking/climbing in Pakistan since 2005 but I totally avoided the troubled parts of Quetta to Taftan and the areas in Peshawar and I always rushed to my favorite region like Shimshal and Skardu in Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral in NWFP.

We could make our traveling safer while doing our homework before tailoring the plan and the local opinion matters too.

Good luck,

@talhassifdar is couchsurfing really safe for single women in Pak?

I would say its safer than western countries because almost all the CS hosts are living with their families here. Most of the CSers are well educated and some of them are well traveled as well so you don't have to worry about their behavior, everyone will give you respect. Even single guys live with their parents, so your host can't make advances on you even if he wants haha.

Though, references are the key. It's advised to stay with someone who has references on his profile.There are CSers who have hosted dozens of guests, with some of them being solo female travelers. There is so much written on the profiles but you can read the references left by ones hosts and guests to know what their actual experience was. Even I don't host or surf someone's couch if the person does not have any references.

CSers here are so hospitable and nice that they send LOI for free to random CSers contacting them on their profiles haha. So. don't worry and use CS with confidence in Pakistan.

Couchsuring is not advisable for solo foreign female in a male dominated society like Pakistan specially in the big cities.I come a cross a couple of foreign solo tourist girls who had extremely bad experience with their male hosts while couch surfing in Lahore as well as in Peshawar.

Haha guys you know some travelers got killed and kidnapped in Pakistan in recent years, even there are bomb blasts almost every week in which dozens of people get killed. In that case, no traveler should come to Pakistan let alone a female solo traveler.

Not netclare .

talhaasifdar, do you have any list or number of foreign travelers visiting Pakistan in the recent days to adore your statement ?