She is 19 years old and has been traveling alone around the world for years, including Europe, armed with an inextinguishable desire to see and experience. She has seen wonderful places, she has fallen in love with the people, the warmth on her skin, the sounds and noises. But it hasn’t all been rosy, and Eve Kovac admits that in some cases she was afraid, that she felt like “prey”. The girl, who shares photos and videos of the places she visits on social media, made a list of the countries she visited and gave a rating from 1 to 10 to each one based on how safe she felt, as a woman, traveling alone. The good news is that Italy passed the test… and won a prize.
INSIGHTS
The Least Safe Country for Women According to Eve
“Those men!” Eve Kovac tells the DailyMail. “I felt like prey.
Even husbands with wives beside them would break their necks to turn around and look at me as I walked down the street.” An experience she lived in Albania. The young woman left the United States at 18 and began traveling, backpacking, around the world: “I felt this thrill, as if there was something out there for me. I wanted to prove that the world is not only huge, but also kind.”
And now she can confirm it: “I was right.” But in Albania this thought, from time to time, began to waver. “Someone touched my hair while I was in the aisles of the supermarket, and others took pictures of me,” Eve says. “Maybe because I’m blonde, short and with blue eyes I’m a target.” The country where she felt safest, however, was Norway, so much so that on the second day she took the padlocks off her backpack.
Then there was Italy: “Nowhere else have I felt so welcome,” and she liked it so much that she chose it as her favorite destination in Europe, especially the Amalfi Coast. Other problems arose in Greece: “The hostel was infested with bedbugs. A nightmare. I slept in my hammock and left the next day.”
Eve’s travels continue unabated, always mindful of her own safety. “I work for a few months and save money. I live in my van, rent-free, and that helps. I still have expenses of various kinds, but I’m good at managing money and I manage to spend a few months abroad. Plus my trips are cheap, I cook a lot, I buy on sale, no clothes or make-up. It’s all about priorities and mine is travel.”