Are The Bahamas Safe to Visit？ What Tourists Should Know.

Hey fellow travelers, Mark here with Baldur's Room. Today we're in Nassau, Bahamas. Today we're gonna talk about is safety advice when you come here to the Bahamas. And I wanna start with this. If you're coming to the Bahamas, in general, the Bahamas is a pretty safe place to visit. It's one of the safest places you can visit in the Caribbean and Atlantic kind of island scheme of things, so you're gonna have a great time and you're gonna have a safe time when you're here. However, there are some safety issues I really want you to talk about. And one thing you really need to be safe about is the sun when you're here, because the UV here can be extremely strong. So you wanna make sure you're putting on that SPF, you're putting on that sunblock multiple times a day. When you're going out on the excursion, you wanna go swim with the piggies and all kinds of stuff. You wanna make sure you're lathering up that sunscreen multiple times. Wear those, you know, the rash guards kind of stuff to swim. The swimming shirts, it makes a big difference. Having hat protection. If you're going to be doing the hikes and stuff around the island, you want to make sure you're protected from the sun because that's one of the biggest things that are out there. Not just from the exposure of the sun, but also the dehydration side of it. Because believe me, you want to stay hydrated when you are here for that, okay? Biggest thing is the sun kind of stuff you want to look out for. And probably where you're going to be going to the sun the most is actually on the beach. So I want to give you some, a few beach and kind of water safety things when you're here. One thing you need to know, don't touch the coral. If you're going snorkeling, if you're going on a, you know, excursion that goes diving or go snorkeling, you're going to go see turtles, you're going to see, do not touch the coral because one, it's protected, but also there's fire coral there. And if you touch that, believe me, you will have, it will look like you have these big, huge red welts on you. Where it touched you, and it is not a fun experience. It won't kill you, unless you're extremely allergic, but it will not be a fun experience. So be careful with that. Another thing, when you're going to the beach, you have to realize, not all the beaches have lifeguards, okay? So you want to make sure, if there's lifeguard on duty, when are they on duty? If not, you need to be aware of that. But also, look at the flags. Is it safe to swim at that beach versus other beaches? Because I'll let you know. There'll be a flag up saying, hey, yo, not time to swim. You'll have those. So be careful there. Also, if you're going to be doing some of those excursions, maybe you're going to go on those jet skis, make sure you're using official, like, licensed people to do those jet ski tours. So they're giving you the safety gear that goes with it because sometimes some people are more just having fun riding out those jet skis and other ones, you know, you want to be a little more careful with. So make sure you're always using the protection when you're here just to be safe. Also, do be aware of the currents when you are here and you are going to the beaches because there are rip tides that you got to be careful with. All right, so just know that in some places you go, you're not gonna have to worry at all because the water is so calm and so shallow, you're just floating and snorkeling around. But other times you do need to be careful, okay? Because weather is another safety thing I think is very important. Now, high season here in the Bahamas December through April, usually great weather, you're gonna be fine, like occasional storms will pop up. But you want to make sure you're always checking your forecast and the warnings But hurricane season is July through November. So if you're gonna come at those times, the hurricanes do come through here sometimes. They can be a very, very horrible experience for the locals and for everybody. So I do recommend if you're gonna be coming that July through November period, get the travel insurance that will give you your money back if there is a massive storm or there's a hurricane coming through. And so you can get your money back and you can come back another time to enjoy the Bahamas. Now, in terms of like tourist safety kind of things, one thing I will tell you, like here in Nassau, it's a big, huge cruise port. Anytime you have lots of tourists, there might be some nefarious people there. A few pickpockets, things like that, when you got 20, you know, 10,000 cruise ships, passengers coming off in a day. Yes, there might be some nefarious folks that are there. In general, you don't have to worry too much about that, but it's important to keep your stuff, you know. Protected, you know, maybe leave your stuff on the cruise ship if you don't need it or leave your stuff in your hotel or your resorts, you know, lockbox kind of stuff so you don't have to worry about those things, right? So don't overdo it. Also, you know the usual travel things like don't, you know, wear your bling, don't be flashing money, those kind of things you do anywhere in the world, you'll do that here as well, okay? Now when you're going around the islands, one thing I will say is, for the most part, where you're gonna be as a tourist are gonna be safe. You're gonna go, you know, swim with the pigs. Yes, there might be a little danger they run over you, so do stand- to their side. But in general, you're gonna be fine. You're gonna be safe. But there are parts of the island you don't go to. Like a lot of our taxi drivers are like, yeah, you know, we're not gonna take you through the ghetto part of town here. Like I live in a ghetto and you'd be fine in that ghetto. But if you go to another ghetto, it might not be okay. Look, don't do those kind of ghetto tourism kind of things. It's not cool. They're real people here, but it is a safety issue. But honestly, as a tourist, you're not gonna go anywhere by there. Your taxi's not gonna take you anywhere by there. Have a heads up for that. Also, you know what some keep saying, taxi, taxi, taxi. A safety thing I think you need to know is like some people think, oh, if I get in trouble, I can just Uber out. I can just get a Lyft out. I get a rideshare out of there. Rideshares are not here in the Bahamas, so you have to arrange it with an official taxi. So your resort or your excursion, they can call for you to get a taxi for you. But I think it's really important. If you're going to go on an excursion, you get a taxi to take you to where your drop-off point is. Get the WhatsApp from them, okay? The phone number of the people, your taxi drivers, and schedule for them to come pick you up later on. Because you're on a five, five and a half hour tour, you might come back and there's no taxis there. And what are you gonna do? You have no way to get a hold of them. Have one of those things kind of set up, because you might get stuck at a beach, have a long walk to get someplace. Because in general, I mean, there are public buses that go around, but they don't always go to the place that tourists wanna go, so it's not super helpful. So just be aware of that for your own safety. Also, walking around. Traffic here, I think one of the biggest safety concerns I forgot to mention is the fact that this is a former British colony, right? And so they drive on the left. You know, in the US we drive on the right. No, they drive on the left here. And so sometimes tourists walk right into traffic and bam. You wanna make sure you're looking both ways, okay? Cause they're coming from the, you know, they drive on the left. So they're coming from the other direction. Make sure you're looking. And if you're gonna be renting a car, another safety thing is they don't always have the wheel on the right side because they drive on the left. You might have like a US car. But then you've got to drive it like you're in the UK and when you come out of the airport, it can be a little bit confusing, okay? So be careful there. So just have a heads up. But traffic, you don't really ever get that fast when you're here because it's island time, island slowness, but you do want to be safe. Yeah, the whole driving thing gets a bit confusing because a lot of the cars you have here are actually with the driver's wheel on the US side. But remember, this is a former British colony, so they actually drive on the other side of the road. So it can get a little bit... Complicated so make sure just look both ways when you cross the street just keep yourself safe. Another safety thing I really think is important to mention if you're going to be doing any like the you know four-wheeler ride and stuff like that make sure that you are using your safety equipment you wear your helmet stuff like that because I've been talking to a lot of the locals and they're like that's where a lot of the tourists actually get hurt and sometimes killed is the four-wheeler accidents because they get a little too crazy with it they're not wearing their safety Safety gear, so make sure you do do that because Just had a bunch of really bad stories told me about stuff. You can have fun on them, but be safe. Now, if you're coming on a cruise, you're coming into Nassau, you'll probably go to the straw market, you'll walk around the shops. This isn't really a safety thing. It's more of sometimes tours get a little annoyed by this. I do know that there will be a lot of touts trying to bring you into restaurants, bring you into bars, bring you into the stores. And after, you know, one or two, it's OK. But when it's like the 15th one, sometimes you get a little bit burned out. Remember, they're just doing the drive, trying to make money. Just be, hey, be respectful. Hey, we've already eaten. Thanks. I appreciate it. Oh, we just had some guava duck. We're good to go. Those kinds of things like respect. You do that. You'll be okay. But I know that's one thing that really kind of gets to us sometimes. Also, when you go in the straw market, you might feel the prices are even higher. They should be in the straw market. It's okay to negotiate a little bit on some of the things. So they'll be willing to come down a bit. So have a heads up for that. Now, what about money scams or money issues you might have when you're here? So if you don't know. In Bahamas, they have the Bahamian dollar, which is pegged one to one of the U.S. dollars. So you go to ATMs, a lot of them will actually ask, do you want Bahamian dollars or do you want U.S. dollars? You know, especially from the resorts. So you can pay either way. I will say have smaller bills for tips and stuff in case you need to do that. But in general. It's a good idea to have that because credit cards are not accepted everywhere. Yes, if you're in a resort or a touristy kind of restaurant, they'll take credit cards. But if you're going to those fish fries to eat there, they might not take credit cards. So you have cash or the other credit card sign, but oh, I'm sorry, the credit card machine doesn't work. And then you got to shell out 200 bucks for food because look, you'll think that you're getting ripped off. They're charging you too much. No, it really is that expensive when you come here. Probably the most dangerous thing for you when you're here, your wallet, how expensive everything is when you're going on excursions, you're going out to eat, having those conch fritters you want to have a conch ceviche can add up very quickly. But if you're looking to get cash out, ATMs are going to be in banks or in the resorts, you can get that there. And I do recommend always having cash with you because those taxis don't always have credit card machines that work, right? So you want to make sure you have the cash so you can pay them. To get them to take you for that. And remember, you always negotiate the price of the taxi before you get in. So you know what you're going to pay. So you're not worried about that. And then I think we need to talk about accommodation. Now, if you're going to be here in Nassau, you're probably going to stay at one of the, you're going to stay at the Atlantis. You're going to stay at Margaritaville. You're going to stay at Sands. You're going to go to one of those resort kind of things. And there, your safety, you're going to be fine. Okay, you don't have to worry too much about that. But that's on the bigger islands. The bigger islands have the resource. Nassau has the big resorts. If you go on the Grand Bahama, they have bigger hotels. But the smaller places you go, the smaller the hotels. If you're going to be doing an apartment rental or a, you know, a vacation rental, make sure you check on their safety. Read the reviews about the safety things they have there just to make sure it's all in the up and up and you're gonna feel safe when you're here. But in general, you're not gonna have to really worry too much about your safety when you come here to the Bahamas. Yes, there's the traditional little scams and games and stuff you see all over the world. Well, there's nothing truly Bahamian scammy here. It's just the fact that it's an expensive place to be, and therefore you're gonna feel like you're spending a lot of money. But I will say, though the places we've stayed have been pricey, and the food's been pricey, and excursion's been pricey, I haven't felt ripped off by it, because I really felt like it was the value. I did enjoy swimming with the pigs, and I did enjoy going to the water park, and I did enjoy going to all the things here, but it is one of those things you gotta prepare your wallet for it, because they're probably gonna be the most scared of all. Anyway, what are some other safety issues you have about coming to the Bahamas or scams you've seen? Put it down in the comments below so we can help other travelers be prepared for this beautiful island. And honestly, we've got videos, the don'ts of coming here, the do's and don'ts, let's say. Also, what you should know before you come here. And of course, what you should eat when you come to the Bahamas on our website at waltersworld.com. And I want to say a special thank you to all our members on YouTube and our patrons on Patreon who help support us to make honest travel videos like this so we can help you enjoy better. Now say bye from here in the The beautiful Bahamas.