Solo Travel
It’s all over your TikTok fyp. It’s on your Instagram homepage and your high school friend’s Facebook. Traveling these days is more accessible than ever, particularly with the rise of things like remote and hybrid jobs. It seems like everyone is packing up a suitcase and their laptop working at jobs you’ve never heard of, scoring 5 figure months. People I haven’t spoken to in years will message me asking the question I’ve heard since I booked my first solo trip to Hawaii at age 19: “How on Earth do you do it?”
And, of course, I give the answer no one wants to hear: “I just do.” This answer is entirely useless and doesn’t answer any of the specifics. How do I afford it? How do I know where to go? What to do? The truth is, traveling is entirely possible for almost anyone if they just start. I speak to people all the time who wish they could live like I do, but that truth is you can. My life is exciting because I’m constantly in new places, but there’s drawbacks to any lifestyle. Currently, I’m sharing a room with 5 strangers from all over the world. I have to wash my hair with bottled water because the shower water was making my hair fall out. I have to go out after this to buy a new pair of shorts because I left my laundry into a laundromat 4 days ago and it’s still not ready. I’m forced to eat out for every meal because I have no kitchen. I don’t even have so much as a shelf to put my things in. My most used apps are google translate and currency converter. I have no routine, I’m always jetlagged, always tired. I can’t hold down a real job because the time difference is too much. I have to pay for things like traveler’s insurance and buy plane tickets for trips I’ll never go on, just to score a visa. I never have privacy and have missed more birthdays, holidays, and family events than I even care to count.
See, unless you’re super duper rich, traveling isn’t always a luxury. It’s just how I live. I don’t really consider myself a traveler, just a nomad. There’s only a slight difference between the two. In my mind, a traveler is someone who will go on trips for a few months at a time, but has a homebase. A nomad is someone who does the same thing, just without a homebase. In fact, I started traveling because it’s more than 50% cheaper to go on a 4 month trip to Southeast Asia than it would’ve been to continue paying rent in Los Angeles. Believe it or not, I travel to save money. I technically could go live with my mom is sh*t really hit the fan abroad, but in a few months my childhood home will probably be sold anyway so it’s not really a rock solid option. Paying rent & utilities in LA cost me about $1,400 per month. A flight to Bali cost me $550, and to live here in a hostel, eat out 2-3 times a day, taxis, clothes, all the other things… only about $500 per month. It costs SO much less to live here (including the flight) than it does just to pay for rent in California. I remember living in LA working 6 days a week at a restaurant, only have $12 left over after paying rent. I knew something had to change so I moved back to New York to work for the summer months to save up for travel. Traveling on savings is difficult, as you can sometimes have unexpected costs. Without income to make it up again, your losses are just that: losses. I didn’t know I needed certain vaccines for Asia and ended up dropping over $900 on said vaccines. Craziness, but that’s the USA for you!
Financials aside, when you’re traveling alone there’s an increased risk and responsibility. You alone are responsible for your well being. You have to constantly figure out what your next move is without anyone else’s opinion. You really, really get to know yourself. There’s no one telling you what to do, you can run around all day on the back of a scooter with a guy you just met. On the flip side, there’s no one telling you what to do, you can lie in bed on your phone all day. There’s no constant motivation or anyone to keep you in check and make sure you’re taking care of yourself. I know I completely stopped taking care of myself on one of my trips, it was a hard hill to climb back up. I basically stopped eating and didn’t even realize it, until I was a mess of tears one night- I hadn’t eaten any solid food in 40+ hours. You have to have a heightened sense of responsibility or you won’t make it. I literally set alarms to remind myself to eat because that is one things that I constantly find slipping through the cracks.
Solo travel means you have to figure it all out on your own. Yes you can call your mom to help sometimes (Lord knows I do), but she isn’t there. When my car broke down on the side of the road, I called my mom. She told me to call AAA, there was nothing she could do. It was 9pm for her, she was 5,000 miles away. You have to take ownership for yourself and when things go wrong, you have to fight as flight and freeze no longer become viable options. Solo traveling taught me to completely let all of my anxieties go. There is nothing to be scared of, the human race is generally pretty nice and helpful. If I’m standing on the side of the road trying to figure out where to go, oftentimes people will come up and try to help. I’ve learned to trust myself again. If I’m in a situation and something feels off, or I get a strong sense of anxiety, I know that something is probably really wrong and I should get out of there asap. It’s true, what you read about in the books. When something feels off and you’re on your own, your hair will literally stand up on the back of your neck and on your arms. My hands will become ice cold even in 90 degree weather. Trust me and trust your body, it has an amazing way of telling you to run.
People often ask me if I ever get lonely and it was be untrue if I said I didn’t. Of course I do. But here’s the thing: everyone does. Every person I know feels lonely here and there weather they are abroad or at home. Life is a roller coaster, sometimes you’ll get lucky and meet people at your hostel within 5 minutes of your arrival. Other times, you won’t meet anyone at a hostel and you’ll spend the week entirely by yourself. You absolutely have to get used to this feeling if you’re going it alone. I was alone for 6 weeks in Hawaii, I met no one. So, I went to the beach everyday, read some books, walked around the length of Waikiki and back. I went to Target a lot and did all the things that brought me peace. It’s okay to do things by yourself. If you’re nervous for a solo trip, I recommend doing things at home to prepare yourself. Something people tend to find the most nerve wracking is walking into a restaurant and saying “Table for one, please.” Let me tell you it is the easiest thing to do after a few times. I do it about once or twice a day. No one is judging you. Especially in places like Bali or Thailand where there’s an abundance of solo travelers and digital nomads. If you told an 18 year old me that I had to go into a restaurant by myself, I would tell you that I’d sooner starve to death. I almost can’t believe how different I am today versus back then. Almost all of my anxiety is completely gone.
Being a solo traveler is so freeing. Living the nomadic lifestyle is difficult, but I always tell people what I tell myself: you can always book a ticket back home. There’s no shame in things not working out. You can always go home and regroup. Some people like myself don’t really have much of a home to go to, and that’s okay. It’s okay to ditch plans and find new ones. It’s okay to go back to your comfort zone to lick the wounds that full-time traveling often inflicts. My advice is to stay focused on yourself and your goals while traveling. I know that I want to write as much as I can, as often as I can. I have 3 projects that I would like to finish before I return to the United States. It’s so important to have something to keep your mind stimulated and sharp. It can be easy to fall into what I call the hostel hunger games. Most nights in many hostels, there’ll be a bar and a room packed with travelers in their 20s all trying to out drink each other. Everyone trying to ‘out travel’ the other. Every night, answering the same questions: “What’s your name? Where are you from? Where did you travel here from? Where are you going?”
To which I respond:
“My name is Deirdre, I am from New York, I traveled here from Dublin and will be staying here in Bali for another 2 weeks. I am headed to Thailand next.”
Hostel bars can be fun and a great way to meet people, but if you’re spending every single day with new people on new adventures you may find yourself burning out pretty quickly. Know when enough is enough and don’t be scared to carve time out for yourself. It can be difficult in places like hostels where any form of privacy is difficult to come by. Being a nomad just means you have to trust yourself and listen to yourself. You know what’s best for you. Whatever is meant to be will be, and you know, just about every other cliche saying you can think of, most of them are true.
There’s a lot of luck that goes into traveling. A lot. But solo travel just means you’re going alone, not that you’ll be alone. Join every facebook group, hostelworld groupchat, and whatsapp groups you can. You’ll see in real time just how many people live like this. It’s totally normal to have no one to go with, you just can’t be scared to put yourself out there.
The only way to start is to go. So, book the ticket, save your money, apply for that remote job, & go.
