Is Paraguay Safe For A Black Solo Female Traveler?

I visited Paraguay out of necessity - a process of elimination. Prior to my trip, I booked all my flights in advance - as expected especially for someone traveling solo to South America for the first time. 🤷🏾‍♀️

My original plan was to start in Brazil, then go to Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and end my trip by visiting several cities in Colombia. To my surprise, border closings started happening and my flights were getting canceled one by one.

I spent my first week in Rio de Janeiro battling it out with Latam, a Latin American airline, to get refunds and flight exchanges. This tidbit is actually a foreshadowing of one of the scariest travel moments of my life, but let me not get ahead of myself. 🤭

Is Paraguay safe for a solo female traveler? In a word, yes. 😁 I’m not one for burying the lead.

As a Black female solo traveler in Paraguay, I only felt safe about 50% of the time, which is why I rarely left the hotel. 😅 I had to consult my travel journal for reference for this blog since this journey happened over two years ago and was amused by how each entry talked about how I promised myself to leave the hotel the next day. 🤦🏾‍♀️

Paraguay was drastically different from Brazil. While Brazil is culturally diverse and has an array of skin tones native to the country, Paraguay was not affected by the slave trade - like at all. There were only three people I saw who looked like me and they were there for work. Otherwise, everyone else looked exactly the same. I stood out like a sore thumb - which made me feel like an outlier.

The currency there is awful. Most merchants, especially in Old Town, don’t want to accept credit cards so you are forced to exchange your precious American dollars for the Paraguay guarani. To give perspective, it takes 7k guarani to equal just one American dollar. As I walked the streets, people would shout “cambia” which meant “exchange”.

During one of my treks to obtain local currency, one man took special interest in me. He knew I didn’t belong there and he needed to satisfy his curiosity.

• 🙎🏽‍♂️: Dominica?

• 🙎🏾‍♀️: No

• 🙎🏽‍♂️: Brasilia?

• 🤦🏾‍♀️: No

• 🙎🏽‍♂️: (in an exasperated tone) Cuba?!

• 🙎🏾‍♀️: No

• 🤷🏽‍♂️: (out of options) Cambia?

The only thing that made me feel safe was that there were military soldiers with huge machine guns policing the streets. I knew that if someone tried to attack me at least I could run toward a solider and maybe I’d have some protection.

I should have known that entering the country set the tone for what was to come. Overall, I just didn’t feel welcomed there. First of all, their airport was incredibly small. And passport security consisted of only two lines - one for Paraguay residents and the other for everyone else.

There was just one dining room sized table where two officers sat to check passports and visas. To enter the country, you have to pay $160 for a visa. To make entry even more difficult, you have to pay with American dollars! And not just any American dollars - they have to be new bills that are crisp and not wrinkled.

I was aware of the visa requirement, but I was shocked by how picky they were about the quality of the bills. I was getting the money from the ATM in their airport so my options were limited! As I tried the pay the visa fee, the officer kept throwing bills back at me - rejecting them because they were wrinkled or old looking. I explained to him in my best struggle Spanish that I had no other twenties because I took the money from their ATM. 😰 He finally allowed me to obtain a visa that still occupies an entire page on my passport to this day. 🙄

There was no Uber availability from the airport - so I had to get a cab which made me feel incredibly panicked the entire ride. When I arrived at my hotel, I didn’t leave for two days due to the extreme anxiety I experienced simply entering the country.

I know these details sound terrible and if you asked me if I would ever return to Paraguay, I would emphatically say “no”. However, it was a pivotal moment in my travel journey because that sequestered experience in that gorgeous hotel (pictures below) was where I decided to close my small tax and accounting business and shift my career into recruiting.

Have you ever visited a place you have mixed feelings about? Share below!

Spent a lot of time working and writing in this atrium. It was flooded with natural light during the day.

Spent lots of meals here although the food and service was quite poor. However, the poor quality forced me to finally get out of the hotel and explore the city. A win is a win!

Spent a lot of time in this room working on tax returns until the wee hours of the morning. Also, where I decided to shut down my business and completely change my career!

Each visit to this gym required me to ask front desk for the key. Had lot of great workouts!

Never dipped even a toe in this pool! The weather was so unpredictable. Super sunny one day and then cold the next.