I started traveling solo out of sheer necessity when I was 25. I never intended to – it sounded lonely and I figured it would be boring without anybody to share the experience with. But eventually, I had to take the plunge. And I discovered that traveling solo is just as amazing as traveling with someone, if not more-so. It is exhilarating, challenging and sometimes, very weird. It’s so worth it. I might not have sold it yet, so let me explain a bit more about why solo travel is worth taking a leap of faith.

The backstory:

After having the incredibly good fortune of studying abroad in university, all my friends and I did was talk about how much we wanted to travel again. But our talk went nowhere. We went nowhere because something always popped up and trip after trip fell through. Those reasons included:

• Someone didn’t get the time off from work approved
• I had an internship where there was no such thing as time off
• I didn’t have money (see above re: internship)
• They didn’t have money
• Literally nobody had money
• Mercury was in retrograde

While planetary alignments didn’t really keep us from going abroad, there really was always something that put the brakes on these travel attempts. And so I was always waiting for everything to work out.

One year passed. And then another. College, jobs, apartments all came and went. And then five years had passed from the time that I studied abroad, and I still had not boarded an international flight.

I was talking about my disappointment with friends, when the rudest thing I’ve ever heard was said to me. “Why don’t you stop talking about it? Why don’t you just do it already?”

Now, that’s not just rude – it’s presumptuous. I didn’t have the money. I was in New York, sharing a studio apartment. Go where? With what?

But that same day, both offended and inspired, I decided that if I didn’t have the money to travel abroad, I’d make money abroad. I enrolled in a course to teach English as a second language (ESL). I studied, passed and worked with a recruiter to find a job. A couple months later, I was moving to southern China. I “did it already.” (Still rude.)

I will be the first to tell you that while I went to China by myself, I had a job, and an apartment waiting for me. And it took just a few weeks to make the most extraordinary group of friends I could ask for. I moved to China alone, but I wasn’t alone for long. This was my gateway to solo travel.

Nearly a year later, thrilled that I knew enough Mandarin to order lunch, I decided it was time to backpack around China…solo. And it was amazing. The freedom, the mishaps that somehow worked out, the strangers that became family- I was in love with solo travel. It was all over from there.

In the years since, I’ve traveled solo to Japan, Malaysia, Portugal and more. And each trip has been good and weird and sometimes bad, but always worth it.

Solo travel is a choice, I’ll give you that. It’s intimidating and makes the unknown of a destination seem that much more overwhelming. But if you’re considering solo travel, here’s the honest good, bad and unexpected.

The Good:

• You always get to pick the destination: there is no compromising here. Choose from your own bucket list!
• You don’t have to go to anything you don’t want to: be as touristy or adventurous as your heart desires. No need to see shows, or museums or parks or anything else that doesn’t strike your fancy.
• You sightsee on your own terms: I was once at the British Museum in London and I had to leave after just one hour because my travel companion couldn’t stand museums. Do you know how much I wish I could have just been as nerdy as my heart desired?
• You have to rely on yourself: this one is important. I made amazing friends in China who helped me SO much when I moved there. But I was borderline dependent on their knowledge of the country and its language. Pushing myself to stand on my own two feet helped me discover China in a way I wouldn’t have otherwise.

The Bad:

• Yes, there is a greater risk traveling solo: this one is obvious, but you can work around it. I choose cities based in part on where I will likely be safer and I stay aware of my surroundings. #streetsmarts
• Homesickness can hit harder: you won’t be around anyone or anything familiar unless you meet someone from your hometown. Kinda unlikely.
• Some places you just want to share with others: This doesn’t fit the tough, independent woman vibe you probably thought I was leading with. But honestly, I went to Lisbon, Portugal solo and something about the place just felt like a city I should share with someone.
• You are completely dependent on others to take pictures of you: some people really care and spend a lot of time getting the “right” angle for you. But often, when you ask a stranger to take a photo of you, the pictures are far from great, because they don’t care. This is not the end of the world, but I just wish I had a couple good pictures of me from my solo trips that aren’t selfies.

The Unexpected

• You’re rarely alone: this surprised me, but I’ve actually had to seek out time for myself when traveling alone. I found a family of other travelers in Beijing and we quickly banded together over the unsettling experience of eating bugs in one of Beijing’s night markets. We went everywhere together and it was amazing, but it was also a little exhausting. Solo does not equal lonely.
• Solo travel can be expensive: you’re not splitting the bill with anyone, so you have to be pretty mindful of how much you’re spending and where. It’s half of why I mostly stay in hostels when I’m solo (the other half is that I always meet awesome people.)
• People help you all the time: people are SO. KIND. They see that you’re by yourself and generally are more patient as you try to understand the directions they are giving you.

TL:DR/Cliffs Notes Version

Whether you want to travel solo because you’re craving the chance to strike out on your own, or because you, like me, aren’t about to wait for the perfect opportunity, I can’t recommend it enough. 

Solo travel isn’t lonely, or an inferior way to see the world. It’s an extraordinary opportunity to truly soak a place in. It’s just you and Brussels, or Bogota, or Osaka. You make amazing connections because you’re more open, and you have exceptional freedom because you’re totally in charge. This is a choose-your-own-adventure situation and you get to see the world on your own terms.

If you have any questions about how I made the leap into solo travel, and what I recommend, leave a comment! And if you enjoyed this post and haven’t already, I hope you subscribe below!