I have been able to meet with several different people from this site for TUG time (and several from other sites), sometimes for an afternoon and other times for up to a week. I'd like to say they have all been wonderful but they haven't been. There's been times I've been close to being hurt or close to hurting others and times that I felt weird and left or they felt weird and left before any TUGs.
You certainly have the right idea about needing to trust the person for it to happen. Meeting a stranger ... in private ... for bondage is an extremely dangerous thing. This isn't meant to scare you into never doing it; afterall, it can be an amazing experience ... with the right person. Finding the right person is difficult though. Distance is usually the first obstacle that people encounter as mentioned already. One of the most important bits though is finding someone that you can trust. As Fesselfan has already said, when you do meet someone for TUGs, don't hop right into them. Instead, go out somewhere public to meet them, hang out for a while, have some coffee or a burger, just relax. After a while of hanging out with friends, see if you still feel comfortable with playing with them and always trust what your gut is telling you. If something irks you, back out.
I've said more on the matter in another thread on this site that is linked below but you will certainly want to spend a lot of time talking to someone and seeing how they are before you ever consider meeting them in person. And even when you do meet them, meet without TUGs and see how it goes, if it leads to ropes coming out, hopefully it's fun; if not, there's plenty more opportunities with others.
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