The Truth About Traveling Solo

I want everyone to know that my travels were incredible, but they were not all rainbows and butterflies. Traveling is mostly beautiful and freeing, but it can also be difficult, frustrating, lonely, and exhausting. My goal with sharing the positive parts of travel is to inspire you to take a leap of faith and go outside your comfort zone. Buy that plane ticket you’ve been eyeing. Visit that country you’ve been dreaming about since you were a child. No one to go with? I challenge you to do it by yourself. If you’re open to it, you’ll meet people along the way. Life’s too short to hide behind fear.

However, in honor of transparency, I would like to share the not-so-glamorous parts of travel that you don’t often see on social media:

• The feeling of carrying 50+ pounds of luggage around a city and standing on rush hour trains packed like sardines
• The hours of public transportation to get somewhere that is only an hour drive away
• Those minutes of panic when you lose your friend in the train station, despite exiting the same train
• The afternoons when you have no energy and can’t bear to socialize, so you just lie in bed and watch YouTube
• The moment you miss your train and have to figure out a plan B
• The horror of suffering from food poisoning in a hostel with only one bathroom for eight people
• The re-wearing of clothes that most definitely need to be washed
• The frustration of falling into a tourist trap and being surrounded by a sea of tourists
• The sadness that comes with saying goodbye every few days to new friends and having to make new ones 
• The times of pure exhaustion, loneliness, frustration, explainable sadness, or being overwhelmed

But that’s life — the good, the bad, and the ugly. Travel is what you make out of it. If you have a positive attitude, these moments aren’t worth sharing. They’re merely just a product of life. On the contrary, here are the parts of traveling that you also don’t see on social media, but are simply beautiful:

• The feeling of being truly free and in-the-moment
• The uncontrollable laughter you experience with new friends
• The pure bliss of being in the exact place you want to be at that moment
• The feeling of being completely overwhelmed by the beauty of a landscape
• The joy of experiencing something new
• The excitement and exhilaration of conquering a fear
• The real and meaningful conversations you have with people from completely different cultures than yours
• The beautiful heartbreak you experience when leaving a place and the people that you fell in love with, that fills your heart to the brim and almost brings you to tears as you leave

Before my trip, my friend shared with me a quote from the late Anthony Bourdain that resonates with me more now than ever. I will leave you with his beautiful words:​

"Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind." -- Anthony Bourdain