My flight from Toronto to Bogota the other morning was super weird. I woke up in my plane seat to the seemingly nice (Canadian) man behind me reaching through the crack between the seats to stroke my back. I turned around, thinking it was a mistake and asked if he needed something to which he responded that he didn’t. So I rested back, happy to write it off to some strange half-asleep misunderstanding on my part, until once again his fingers slithered through the crack… M*F-ing snakes on a plane! I bolted my seat upright and barricaded myself in using airplane pillows and blankets to block any points of entry.

People always ask me how it is to travel alone as a woman. Traveling isn’t hard. Being a woman, though… it’s like a huge cosmic joke where we all have to work to be seen and heard, and yet at the same time can never quite blend into the wallpaper when it would be nice to do so.