> In all the years of doing this, I've had an official try to shake me down maybe 5 times.

Corruption in most of these countries is a negotiation game that is conducted implicitly. That's why playing dumb is so effective--if you don't know the rules of the game, you can't play, especially if you don't share a language. So, for every time where someone has forcefully pressed the point and made it clear to you that a bribe was expected, there have likely been a hundred times where a native in your place would have been expected to pay a small bribe of some sort.

> That's why playing dumb is so effective--if you don't know the rules of the game, you can't play

And that really is the best defence.

For tourists, yes, it usually works. For locals, people who suffer most from the system, it does not.

I've never bribed anyone but have lived and travelled extensively in Latin America and the Caribbean. I've never paid a bribe, but have been close to it on a couple of occasions. I have generally avoided it by playing a dumb tourist or talking Danish to them. (I'm fluent in Spanish) but from Denmark.

It depends really much on how you travel. I don't know anything about you, but from the sound of it my guess is you backpack. If you're a backpacker, you probably don't have a problem as cops rightly don't see you as a good source of income. If you look really touristy you're probably fine as well most places.

If you're a resident expat, traveling in your own or a rented car you're right smack in their target market. And yes anyone can tell the difference between backpackers, tourists and expats. If you hang around in any expat watering hole you will hear all the worst stories (likely somewhat exaggerated by Rum).

Yeah, playing dumb has always worked for me when I was on my own, even when I was at fault. With my wife in the car, we've paid heavily discounted "spot fines" a few times when caught speeding, fitting the pattern of small-scale corruption he describes here. I'm sure there are cases where the cops will think nothing of making up infractions whole cloth to shake you down, but I haven't run into that personally.

I can tell you now there are countries where it isn't optional. It probably depends on when you're there and where in the country you are, as well as what you look like. I was driving through Russia in a right-hand-drive vehicle which has roughly the same effect as writing CHUMP in foot-high letters on the side of your vehicle. We got pulled over 12 times in one day by policemen looking for bribes, when we had done nothing wrong (if you do actually commit a minor traffic offense and get pulled over, they're even more aggressive about getting money out of you).

It is perfectly possible to get through without bribing them in cash, and we did - we only ever gave out cigarettes. At one point though they did take one person from our group away from us, to a windowless cell with a chair in the middle, and interrogated him for a while. They were just trying to scare him into giving them money though, we managed to get out of that through a combination of persistence (both in not relenting, and pretending we didn't understand their broken English), name dropping ("I want to speak to the British embassy") and one of our group bursting into tears (no one likes dealing with someone crying, including Russian policemen).

I haven't been to Ukraine, but people I spoke to who took that route found it to be even worse than what we experienced in Russia.

Oh, and fun fact: The Western-most country where a policeman wanted a bribe was the Czech Republic. I was surprised!

I've only been to 30 countries. And I've had to bribe a police officer at a traffic stop for not wearing a seat belt. Was about $5 which I think is extremely cheap to bribe a cop for. In Toronto it would be wayyyy more.

I've also been told by a local to stick a $20 bill in my passport to avoid problems going through customs because we had expensive computer equipment on us and were in a rush for our next flight. I refused that advice. But I've seen boxes that have been opened and things missing as well so I was taking a chance by not doing it.

I've seen a lot of corruption, and had a chance to participate in it. Seems McAfee's advice is based on experience. I wouldn't discount it so easily.

> In Toronto it would be wayyyy more.

Have you actually bribed a Canadian police officer?

I think he meant the fine for not wearing a seat-belt would have been higher (and he would pay it instead of bribing the officer, which is probably a good idea in relatively non-corrupt wealthy first world countries).

If you are a law abiding citizen, it is way off.. if you are into "pushing the limits into criminal activity" it is quite accurate.

Didn't happen to me either until I went to venezuela this year. I got shaken down at the border and the policeman stole 200 bucks while he was strip searching me.

I figured out after that the whole time I was being detained he was asking for a bribe (in a roundabout way, such that I didn't really understand with my poor sppanish skills).

Wow, how old are you? How long did the 93 country journey take? Average time of stay per country? That's amazing, really.

You should an reddit AMA.

I think you a word. Since stevoski has not answered: from his SO profile he is 40.

I started travelling a lot 5 or 6 years ago and have been to ~21 countries so far, and I don't travel every year. You could do 90 countries in say, six backpacking trips, each one to three months long. Doable in 3 years if you can keep it up. (that's barely getting to know each country, but still)

It is a small world: http://matadornetwork.com/bnt/seriously-slow-6-travelers-who...

Were you travelling by car? I've found the difference between being in a car vs backpacking that the chances of a shakedown attempt are much higher when travelling by car.

Have you been to DRC ? What he says applies to borders at such countries. Having been in similar situations (minus the drug dealing), I think His advice is spot on

It depends on your activities in those countries. If you ran a business in the most corrupt countries you most likely have to bribe.

I don't understand your comment. Obviosly from what you say you were not involved in any ilegal activity, so how does your experience compared to the one from the guy from this blog??