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Woman on the Move: Yours Truly in Portugal

© Colleen Kaleda

Riding the rails solo through more than a dozen countries teaches a young, single woman more than a university education or the "working world" ever can.

I am now a virtual encyclopedia of train tidbit information, able to inform others that the seats are tiny and uncomfortable on certain trains between Stockholm and Oslo and that the bathroom in a Greek train is nothing more than a hole drilled through the floor. Practical stuff. Also of note: European trains take on entirely different characteristics as they traverse the darkness. Especially for me, an American who had only set foot on a few Amtraks before using trains as her primary mode of travel on the Continent.

But I digress. Train factoids are not the point of my story. My point is that, with confidence, nearly any train can be conquered. And because I am a confident, strong young woman, solo train travel, especially at night, doesn't scare me in the least.

All right, maybe a little. However economical, a woman can't be guaranteed a comfortable, fun, or harassment-free trip on an overnight train. Actually sleeping on a sleeper train should be considered a gift given from Train Heaven.

I learned this fact for the first time just south of Irun, Spain, where a fight between an Arab passenger and the Spanish train conductor erupted in my packed six-berth sleeper compartment. Upon a ticket check, the conductor discovered that the man and his friend hadn't paid, and shortly after the yelling match, kicked them out of the sleeper car. It didn't, however, take care of the odor of their belongings, nor did it stop them and others from talking and smoking right outside our compartment door for the rest of the night. The door, of course, had a broken latch. Every time the train would shift (once every 15 seconds or so) the door would swing open, then boom, boom, SLAM! shut again. Six inches away from my head. A safe, albeit sleepless night.

Safety, however, couldn't be guaranteed on an overnight train ride between Lagos, in the extreme south of Portugal, to Lisbon. The ride taught me a valuable lesson: confidence should always lend itself to caution for a single woman in a foreign country. And fear, as long as it doesn't consume you, is a woman's most viable safety barometer.

Perhaps my willingness to take this known dangerous route overnight (other than lack of money) could be attributed to the heady feeling of already making it" through several countries as a solo traveler. My first 60 days on my European backpacking trip had run the gamut of experiences: I'd been robbed by a band of Gypsies, was grabbed and kissed by an aggressive Frenchman; I'd cycled through tiny Irish villages smothered in mud, and braved the rough, frothy seas between Ireland and France on the last commuter ferry of the season. In steamy Madrid, I'd sat amongst the grandmothers, belly-pierced teenagers and cigar-smoking men at a Spanish bullfight, and managed to revive enough French language skills to order meals in a small winemaking village tucked deep in the Loire valley. It was the longest, most independent overseas trip I'd ever taken, and this twentysomething was having the time of her life.

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