Women/Men looking for travel partners

Please do an old lady a favour, all you young women (& not so young too!) and go to the TRAVEL PARTNERS Forum, click on ANNOUNCEMENTS (written up by IndiaMike) and DIGEST ENTIRELY! There are SO many of you placing ad type threads right now and it's frightening. There may be people joining this website specifically to "find" young, western, Lone women travellers in India - PLEASE go to read this announcement before placing any kid of request such as this on the site. Thank you for making an old lady happy.

QUOTE from IndiaMike - The Big Paneer


Use Common Sense
We want you to be safe when you travel and we encourage you to exercise caution when creating a thread searching for a travel partner, after all this is the internet and everyone is honest and trustworthy, not.

Some tips-

Be honest and straightforward about yourself but use common sense.

If you listed something like "Hi my name is Mindy and I am blonde from LA. People thought I was ditsy in high school when I was cheerleader, but I don't think I am, and I am heading to Goa in December. Does anyone want to meet up? Here is my email address".

You may get many responses from total strangers and find a bunch of men waiting for you at the airport.

1. Use the private messaging system. Look for odd behavior or inconsistencies. The person at the other end may not be who or what he or she says. Trust your instincts.

2. Keep your personal information safe. Revealing your home phone number, or address, or any other identifying information is a recipe for disaster.

A really bad example-

Caller-"Hi is this Mrs. Smith?"
Mrs. Smith-"Yes"
Caller-"I met up with your son in Goa and he got arrested and needs bail money, can you wire transfer me some funds to get him out".
Mrs Smith (now panicking)-"Oh my goodness, I will wire you the funds immediately"

Think this doesn't happen in real life, think again!

3. Request a photo or multiple photos of the person. It's a good idea to see who you are going to meet up with.

4. Meet in a public spot. If the person doesn't appear how they made themselves out to be just walk away.

Please remember this is not a dating site and we want you to be safe out there and we encourage you to use common sense and caution about searching for a travel partner.

Good thread idea Shanthi.

No sooner have we (moderators) given ourselves a bit of breathing space by getting rid of the travel agents forum (and not allow any to join), we now seem to have an increasing number of lonely men joining the forum.

They will be any female's travel partner to any part of India at any time.

I am now deleting (without warning or explanation) any nonsense replies to old threads, e.g. "I'm living in Delhi, here is my number" as a reply to a 15 month old question about Delhi.

I know some of you ladies will be missing the 'opportunity of a lifetime', but we don't want indiamike.com turning into a dating agency. (Unless we get all the fees)

That's great news steven_ber, thank God for that! I thought I might be begining to be called an old fuddy duddy, but some of the posts were just a little too oportunuistic for my liking, and I was very worried about the girl's welfare and that's the truth - I hope to bumnp this up once a week or so, so that ladies (& some young guys too maybe) will read and digest. I;m just a worrier

Hi Shanti, thanks for being a worrier and pointing us in the right direction, appreciate it.

If you have to surf the web. at least wear a condom!
Most people (male) Just want to get laid.
Or they would not speak to you.
And that is about it.
The rest is jibberish and such.

And I just thought they were just after money! Guess that betrays my age. Timely warning Shanti.

Shanty thank you for your sincere efforts, it was a very useful advice,

And Congrats forum leaders for their efforts for cleaning up

I logged in this morning and one man had replied to 3 women offering to meet them, one going to South India, another going to Rajasthan and the 3rd going to North East India.

All the posts deleted and member banned.

Looks like I got out of the wrong side of the couch this morning.

I saw the guy who'd posted those too............very strange indeed....very worrying. Thanks steven_ber - thank God there's people who care enough to do what you did. I sincerely hope that the girls do read this thread and also IndiaMikes good advice too (a copy of which is copied and pasted below)


Have a nice Sunday steven_ber

Made this thread a sticky, so that it does not escape the attention of those using the "Travel Partners" forum.

great thing shanthi
sometime back registration of new members was banned right? there should be a strict procedure for being an IM members. this way only those who are serious about visiting india or helping others out will join in.

Are women so naive? I really don't think so. But these on-line mosquitoes do rather lower the tone with their posts, and I hate to think about the PMs that the rest of us never see --- so it's great that the mods exercise pest control.

Glad there's a few of you who also want to keep people safe and weed out the smarmy little bl**ders who trawl sites like this. This advice is NOT just for young (er) women travelling - it's for men too. Women aren't the only ones who can get taken for a ride and taken in - no! Think you're too butch to fall for some trick ? - think again! We have some extremley sensitive and sweet men on this site and you know in your heart that they could well get as caught as any female could. It's both warning and advice for EVERYONE who travels - even the hardened traveller (or the one who THINKS he/she is so). I've been travelling to India for 7 years and try never to completley let my guard down! No one should become too blase and retain a "I've been there, seen it, done that, felt it, smelt it" attitude - always keep your wits about you and don't invite trouble. You can have such a wonderful experience travelling around/living in India - she's there to beckon and welcome you and you'll never be the same once she has crept into your heart. Just be aware and be safe, before, as well as during your trip. ALWAYS report someone you believe to be a lurker, an opportunist, or whatever to a moderator - don't even dignify their posts with a reply. This is a great site, and we want to keep it friendly, real and informative..........and SOoooooooo much better than LP Oh yeah!

On beharf of the "extremley sensitive and sweet men on this site", I'm touched

Thank you.