Why travel alone? What do you get out of it? How do you have the guts to do it? How do you make friends? How do you plan a trip? How do you keep the costs down? How do I get started? General tips for traveling alone?
Traveling alone, especially the first few times, can be scary. You push yourself outside the comfort zone, and some dark thoughts may float by. It’s outside your comfort zone that growth happens. You will meet people and create friendships that you probably wouldn’t have if you travelled with a friend. You can travel WHERE you want, WHEN you want and do WHAT you want - and you have nobody to discuss with other than yourself! You can plan according to your personal economy and needs, and you don’t have to wait weeks or even months for someone to take time off work to come with you. Not to mention the self growth that happens when you travel alone. You will get more confident in yourself, and grow your management/planning skills. You will learn what you like to do and what you don’t, and how to communicate with strangers. Your personal growth will increase enormously and you will learn so much! The freedom of picking what, where and when is what pushed me out of my comfort zone to do it the first time.
I often get asked how I have the guts to do it alone. I think I waited and asked so many to come with me but realized that nobody had the time or money, so I just decided YOU KNOW WHAT - I’m gonna do it myself. My first solo trip was really just a 3 h bus ride to a nearby city. I found a good hostel on “Hostelworld” and had the time of my life, and made friends from all over the world! I already had the travel bug - but now I combined it with the “Solo-travelbug”.
Solo travelling doesn’t mean you spend your entire holiday alone - actually quite the opposite. You usually have some nervous breakdowns on your flights on the way there - maybe even the first day when you’re just laying alone at the beach. But it rarely goes longer than this before the people in the hostel already have invited you out with their friends - and from there on you just make new friends and plans every day. “But you’re so outgoing and make friends so easy, I’m not like that”... Well let me tell you girl I DIDN’T USE TO BE THIS WAY EITHER. When you travel alone; you are pushed to make friends - cuz or else you’re just gonna be all alone? Trust me, traveling alone changes you as a person. It has improved my social skills x 1000.
Make sure you go to a hostel or other accommodation where you’ll meet new people. Hostels are usually cheap and have loads of solo travelers, just like you! Look out for the RATINGS on the HostelWorld app. You want to pick the one with a good atmosphere, the rest doesn’t really matter (as long as there are no bedbugs eww). I never book the hostel in advance since I like to go over there and see what it looks like before I check in for several days. From there on it’s really just to go with the flow! Maybe you meet some nice people who're going south in a couple of days and you decide to join? That’s the beauty of solo travel - improvising and being impulsive! I usually book my flight home closer to the end of my trip and find a city that has cheap flight tickets home and that’s where my last stop is.
Tips on how to keeping the costs down I have posted about on my first blog post and under this picture on my instagram feed:
Other tips? Make sure you have your papers in check (passport etc). You can always find places to sleep for free like on couchsurfing or maybe you find friends through facebook groups like “The Solo female travel group” or “TravelFree group - cheap flights and more”. Do your first trip to a safe place and not too far from home. Dip your toes and find out that you’ll love it just as much as I do! <3
