Three Lessons I learned from Traveling solo

I enjoy traveling with friends and family, having someone by my side to talk to, laugh with, and share memories with. However, sometimes I travel alone, and there are benefits to that as well as lessons to be learned. I’m not just talking about practical skills like how to navigate public transportation or where to get a foreign SIM card. People say that traveling alone helps you grow as an individual, and while it may sound cliche, I totally agree. There are so many life lessons I’ve learned from the times I’ve traveled alone. Let me share three of them today.

1. Traveling alone allows you to be selfish, and that’s okay.

When you travel alone, you can travel at your own pace, seek out the opportunities you want to experience, and basically “treat yourself.”

When you travel with someone else or with a group, sometimes you can be almost too considerate of the other people just because you want to make sure everyone is happy. You over-analyze every activity, attraction, and restaurant on the itinerary, and everyone becomes indecisive. Someone always has to compromise. What happens if your partner want to bike around the city, but you want to take the bus? What if you couldn’t care less about getting up at 7am to go to the fish market or whatever, but your friend really wants to? One of you is going to get what you want, and the other isn’t, or, in some cases compromise leads to nobody getting to do the stuff they truly want to do at all.

However, when you travel solo, you don’t need to worry about that. All you need to think and care about is yourself: “This is what I want to do, so this is what I’m going to do. Decision made.” You’re allowed to be selfish because you don’t have anyone else’s feelings to consider. It sounds selfish, but since you’re by yourSELF, it’s okay. A few years ago, I was in Vancouver for 2 days traveling solo. I may have missed a few hot tourist spots, but I was too tired and didn’t feel like going. No problem. Instead, I wanted to spend a whole day sitting by the beach and observe people. So guess what? That’s exactly what I did, and I don’t really care that I didn’t get to take a selfie on the Capilano Suspension Bridge, the number one tourist attraction according to tourismvancouver.com, by the way. There was no weird feeling of obligation to do anything else because there was nobody else to make me feel that way. There’s nothing wrong with being a bit selfish when you’re alone on a trip. Do what you want to do and don’t feel guilty about it.

2. Traveling alone gives you a unique opportunity to meet new people.

When you travel with a person or people you know, you probably tend to talk with and spend most of your time with them. However, when you are traveling alone, you might actually find that you are less shy about talking to strangers, sometimes out of necessity and sometimes out of curiosity. Yes, I still have to be alert and aware when traveling alone, but I’ve found that strangers are much more likely to be helpful than threatening.

When I was in Hamburg Germany, I met up with a couple of locals that I chatted with online while I was planning my trip. At first I was of course nervous to meet them, and figured I just ask them a few things about the city. However, after meeting it turned out that both of them were super nice. One was even a professional tour guide before she went back to college. We ended up spending a lot of time together. They showed me around the city and we went to places I never would have found on my own or with a friend that I was traveling with. I basically got a free private guided tour because I reached out and made friends with them.

You might think that traveling alone means that you’ll be lonely. I think that traveling alone creates a unique opportunity to make new friends when you are on the road. You just have to step out of your comfort zone and be willing to reach out.

3. You are stronger and more capable than you think.

When you are traveling solo, you have no one to lean on. It’s up to you to plan, pack, and do everything else. You learn to take responsibility because when things go wrong, there’s no one else to blame.

Solo travel makes you a more confident and independent person. When I was in Japan for the first time, I made the same mistakes that many other travelers do. For example, I packed too many clothes, and I bought too many gifts and souvenirs. I ended up with way too much in my luggage at the end of the trip. My last day there, I got to the subway station, but I couldn’t find the entrance with an elevator. It was impossible to carry my heavy luggage deep down the stairs by myself. If I didn’t find a way to get to the train quickly, I was going to miss my flight. I had to figure something out on my own, so I stopped a couple of people on the street to ask them for directions, but no one spoke English or Chinese. Somehow, through a combination of body language, hand drawings, and a few Japanese words that picked up during my trip, I was able to finally find the entrance with the elevator and made the train just in time.

After that, and many other unpredictable crazy situations I’ve overcome on the road, I have this feeling that I can handle just about anything that gets thrown at me.

Conclusion:

Solo travel provides a learning experience like no other. It has taught me so much about both myself and the world. I learned that sometimes being selfish is okay, that reaching out to strangers isn’t as scary as I once thought, and that I am a strong and capable person when in a tough situation. In addition to learning those things about myself, solo travel has provided me with amazing memories, and I am always looking forward to making more when I travel in the future.