Why You Should Travel Solo
Updated: Mar 10, 2022
Hello friends!
I've been inspired to write this post because one of my good friends, Julie, embarked on her own solo trip to Japan. When she told me about her trip, I was SUPER excited for her. I then started reminiscing about my own solo trip that I took to the Big Apple during the Spring Break of my fourth year in college (March/April of 2017).
For some backstory, I did not originally plan that trip to be a solo trip. I was going to go with my best friend, Patriz, since we're both city girls and we never went on a trip together. However 2 weeks before our trip, she had to cancel going on our trip for personal reasons. I was bummed that she couldn't make it so I then pandered on whether or not I should go on the trip on my own. I asked my friends around me, my family, and my uncle that I was going to stay with in NYC.
Mine and my family's first concern was safety: Should a small-ish Asian girl be travelling by herself in such a large city? I asked my uncle about it and he assured me that NYC was pretty safe since there's so many people walking about all the time and there's tons of fellow college students in the city just living their lives.
My next concern was: Will I even have fun being by myself? Will I be scared and lost the whole time? I also asked my uncle something along these lines and he responded with something like, it's all personal preference and you never know until you try it. So try it was what I was going to do! I'm pretty independent and introverted so I had confidence in myself to navigate through NYC by myself.
And boy I am SO happy that I ended up following through on this trip because I was actually pretty close to cancelling it. However I had a blast and below are the reasons why:
1. You do not have to compromise. On ANYTHING.
Honestly this is the biggest and most important reason.
Typically, I like to think I'm an agreeable and flexible person so if I'm traveling with someone, I'll be sure to be very considerate to their needs/wants. However, there is something beautiful and empowering about having total control over your trip. It's time to be selfish and do the things that you, and only you, wants to do. All guilt free too!
You get to see all of the attractions that you want to see, at the pace that you like to travel at, no need to argue about where to eat for your next meal or to worry about someone else's well being. You only have to worry about you, and you alone.
I am a planner so all of these points appealed to me very much. I planned each meal that I was going to eat without needing to consult anyone, I spent my time doing things that I purely enjoyed, I traveled to destination to destination quickly, and catered each activity to my interests. For example, if I went with my best friend, I probably wouldn't have seen a live taping for The Daily Show since I wouldn't want to make her wait for hours for a show that she didn't watch. Buuuuut because I was alone and I got to do whatever I want, I went to a Daily Show taping!
2. You have more opportunities to meet new people.
This trip was originally intended for best friend bonding so that would have meant that we would mainly be interacting with each other. Since it became a solo trip, I became more open to talking to people I ran into because I'm not a total introvert, I wanted some human interactions.
Story time:
On my second full day there, I scored a general audience ticket to The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. With the general audience ticket, it's not guaranteed admission into the show. It was pretty much a wait-list for people. I looked up how early I should line up if I had a general audience ticket and people where saying to show up a few hours before the call-time. The call-time was about 5pm so I decided to show up to the studio around 2pm. I found my way to the studio, was in awe when I saw the signs & advertisements for The Daily Show, and quickly found myself confused because there was no line and nobody around to tell me where to wait.
Not too long after me, a pair of buddies showed up and was just as confused as I was. I decided to ask them if they were here for The Daily Show and they said that they were. We waited around for some minutes and someone came out with a sign and started setting up the waiting area/line for the people with the general audience tickets. The two buddies introduced themselves to me, Hengameh and Jason, and we ended up chatting a bunch in line. They were quite impressed that I was traveling by myself on the other side of the country and I got to know their general backstories. After the show taping, we even got dinner together and continued our conversation. Before we separated ways, we exchanged our Facebook information and we're still friends to this day, lurking at each other's Facebook activities from afar.
I was really proud of myself since I'm naturally introverted and on the shy-er side, but I actually initiated this conversation and they were super cool people too so even better!
Another fun interaction that I had:
So it was my last full-day in NYC and I needed to check-off some destinations before I returned back home. I had lunch at Bao Haus by Eddie Huang in the East Village and I went to Milk, a soft serve shop, that was on the other side of the block the restaurant was in. The cashier girl at Milk was making small talk with me and asked what I was up to that day. I responded "Hmm after this I'm probably going to walk the Highline and I have reservations to go up The Rock later tonight." She then gave me a skeptical look and said "You're not from here, are you?" I replied back with "I'm not, I'm from California." Excitedly with a confident look on her face she said, "I knew it! If you were a New Yorker you wouldn't be looking at me and you would ignore my question." We had a good laugh, her and her coworker then gave me some suggestions on where to go on my last day, and off I went with soft serve in my hands, eating it in 60F weather.
And none of these fun conversations probably wouldn't have happened if I had someone else there and I didn't open myself up to talking to new people! It was a good feeling.
3. You challenge yourself.
Trying something new is scary. I definitely questioned myself a lot before the trip wondering if I could handle doing a solo trip since I had minimal experience with public transportation, rarely did not utilize the buddy system, and I imagined the worst case scenario of getting kidnapped and never seeing my loved ones ever again.
I would say that best case scenario happened. I learned how to use the subway system within my first day there (and with the help of Google Maps), discovered that eating alone was actually very peaceful, I shared my location with several people to have some peace of mind, met up with the few people that I knew that was in New York, and got to talk to some cool people. You definitely learn a lot about yourself and open yourself up to new experiences.
4. You get newfound self confidence after your trip is done.
It's true. After overcoming your initial fears, exploring a large new city all by yourself, mostly not getting too lost, meeting cool new people, and establishing that you can just depend on yourself to have fun, you really feel like you can conquer anything that comes your way. You are now certified independent af and earned your imaginary solo travel badge. Once you get home, you won't be able to stop talking about your solo trip. All of the people around you will start hating you because you will divert every conversation to be about your solo trip. Once you realize that everybody is avoiding you and you no longer have any friends, it is the perfect opportunity to plan your next solo adventure while eating alone for the 3rd week in a row.
So there we have it! Four amazing reasons why you should go on a solo trip! I understand that it is daunting at first, but it is something that I recommend that everybody do at least once in your life. Solo travel is so liberating, there is nothing like it. To conclude this post, here is the video that I made for my solo trip to NYC over 2 years ago :) Enjoy!
Until next time, my friend
Amanda ^_^
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