Probably because he's English I think of his missions like Bilbo marching off to the Lonely Mountain. No idea what's he's in for, but he'll make it fun in the telling of it.
Perhaps not in 18th century Asia, but this was a very commonly noted feature of the Pax Mongolica in 13th- and 14th-century Asia. People remarked at the time that even women traveling alone would remain unmolested.
The legal situation varied, but regardless of the legalities there was no structure in place to enforce this.
> England overcame this with the demise of feudal systems.
Note that at around this time, England started passing laws that prohibited serfs from leaving their ancestral lands, and the reason the laws were suddenly passed is that the serfs had suddenly begun to leave. The laws had no effect on whether the serfs could leave, though; feudalism fell apart because the general population structure stopped supporting it.
I don't understand this reference; wandering samurai ("ronin") are bandits, the problem to be suppressed.
Writers such as Iain Sinclair and similar who do performative walks actually build the detours round obstacles into the report of the walk as a kind of comment on land use. Entertaining and prudent.
As others have said, medical bills not an issue for UK people. Civil cases of the kind mentioned in this sub-thread don't seem to occur.
If some number of kids watch his videos and get hurt mimicking them, he'll accrue a bunch of lawsuits to cover their medical bills.
Putting the disclaimer implies nothing but a well-founded fear of frivolous lawsuits.
Now he did put a disclaimer on one of his videos. But in many other videos he’s been talking about this kind of mission as if it might be something that the viewer might wanna do herself. “If you’re planning a straight-line mission…” Stuff like that. So he might not have been encouraging it, but he has been talking as if his videos might inspire the viewer to do them themselves.