Who we are

Travelscams.org is the largest community built database of tourist scams and key travel safety issues globally, with 1681 travel scams and 1326 user stories shared on 87 countries.

This site has been created simply because we want to travel anywhere we want in the world safely and confidently.

Ever wondered how it feels like to glide along the Ganges in India’s holiest City, to trek along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu or to witness the wildebeest migration in Maasai Mara?

Just go, as we have you covered on all potential pitfalls you may face.

Our story

This project was first inspired when David fell for a cyclo scam in Ho Chi Minh City in 2010, causing him to lose 30% of his budget on the 1st day of his trip.

The scam was actually documented online but he was just ignorant. However, what struck him was that this scam has been around for years, even decades! In fact, it is still around today in 2019, and it is the same for so many other scams and crime no matter where you are in Asia, Europe, Africa or the Americas.

We have since concluded that this was down to three reasons:

1. In many places, local police would not or cannot help due to limited resources or lack of evidence.
2. Most victims do not have the time to stay in a country to seek recourse or to influence authorities to get rid of such practices.
3.  Guidebooks and influencers generally focus on the “what to do” and “what to see”, and not on the “what not to do” and “what to avoid”.

And that, inspired the creation of this site – a project to crowdsource all tourist targeted scams, crime and key travel safety issues to watch out for as only travellers can look out for one another.

How the site works

Instead of having to trawl through long, very general posts scattered all over the web, you can filter scams by cities and these are shown in bullet points for a fast, easy read (Google actually ranks longer articles higher, but we think brevity is better).

User stories are also collected for extra colour and votes are cast to surface only the most relevant and common pitfalls one may face.

In short, this site aims to educate and to prevent, not to scare or to sensationalize for page views. In fact, the vast majority of trips are trouble-free, as most people you meet are good or at the very least normal with the “bad” being just a minority. 

That said, you do need to be ready whenever you are targeted by professionals who have been doing this day in and day out for years. Better to be safe than sorry, and all it requires, is simple awareness.

It is our dream one day that all of us can travel anywhere we want in the world safely and confidently, as true freedom, lies in being bold 🙂