As Insider’s travel reporter in Singapore, I’ve visited every country in Southeast Asia except for Myanmar. Most of the time, I travel solo.
I’ve spent the last two years traveling across Southeast Asia for work and leisure. There are certain safety precautions I take when traveling alone. Some cities have definitely felt safer than others along the way.
Chiang Mai is the safest city in Southeast Asia, according to online database Numbeo’s Safety Index. I’ve traveled there — the largest city in northern Thailand — several times, and despite its safety index of 75.5 out of 100, it’s where I felt the least safe. The index is based on survey responses and is evaluated on five points — general perception of crime levels, perceived safety, concerns about specific crimes, property crimes, and violent crimes.
After traveling the city and greater region extensively, Chiang Mai has remained the only place where I’ve experienced harassment. Despite these experiences — mostly from male tourists — I wouldn’t claim that it’s unsafe for women to travel there alone. Rather, my tip would be to avoid areas where tourists are partying.
Jakarta is often at the bottom of the safety index.
The capital of Indonesia ranks as one of the least safe cities in Southeast Asia, and the 169th safest city in the world, per Numbeo. It has a safety index of 47.3 out of 100. Manila, Philippines, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia both ranked lower than Jakarta.
Surprisingly, I felt the safest in Jakarta during my travels — even more than when I visited the popular island of Bali and felt I was always on the verge of a motorbike crash.
Jakarta isn’t as popular with tourists as the other major cities in the region. Last year, 5.5 million tourists visited the city, which is only half the number of people who visited Bangkok.
A megacity, Jarkarta is the most populated city in Southeast Asia, with over 35 million people living there, per Statista. Despite this, I didn’t experience much traffic in East and North Jakarta, where I spent the most time.
I expected the roads to be more chaotic like in Ho Chi Minh City, but it felt calmer and safer. Despite many locals not wearing helmets while riding their motorcycles — which is illegal in Indonesia but common across the region — most rode at slower speeds in the city.
Jakarta felt much more tolerant than I expected despite having a reputation for being more conservative.
Indonesia has the world’s biggest Muslim population, with over 241 million Muslims, per Statista.
During my time in the city, I wore sleeveless tops and skirts, similar to what I would typically wear in Singapore — a city with similar weather. I found that despite locals being more covered up, nobody made me uncomfortable or unwelcome.
And even when it was clear that I was a tourist who didn’t share many of the same beliefs, locals were still incredibly friendly — all that mattered to them was that I was a foreigner who was making the effort to have a conversation in Bahasa Indonesia, despite my awkward phrasing and accent.
I attended a rock concert in Jakarta alone, and it was the safest I’ve ever felt at a public event.
Most concerts I’ve been to serve alcohol, but the rock concert I attended in Jakarta was dry. Instead, concert-goers were downing coffees from Starbucks and cans of Coke. Due to boozy crowds at the concerts I’d gone to in the past, I’ve often woken up with bruises from being shoved by other fans.
I was initially anxious about traveling to another country to attend a concert alone as a woman, but my concerns were quickly alleviated in Jakarta. I’m a big fan of the Japanese band One Ok Rock, who are known for their powerful rock songs like “We Are” and “The Beginning.”
I had initially tried to get tickets in Singapore and Malaysia, but they were quickly sold out. I wasn’t about to miss my favorite band’s first concert since the pandemic, so I decided to fly to Jakarta — where I managed to snag a Category 1 ticket — to see them. My partner and family were unable to take time off from work to come with me, so I had to go alone.
People there were extremely orderly, with no sloppy drunk behavior — which, from my experience, is the main reason people behave badly at public events.
Most concertgoers were male, but they gave me at least half a foot of space in the standing pit. There were thousands of concertgoers that night, and the heat in the mosh made me feel queasy at one point. But one fan even handed me a cup of water when he saw that I wasn’t doing too well, which left me assured that I could let my guard down and enjoy the music.
Overall, Jakarta has become one of my favorite cities in the region and one that I would recommend to solo female travelers. Just make sure to learn some Bahasa Indonesia — it really goes a long way with locals.
Source: Insider News