Many fellas wonder if the solo travel quest is genuinely worth it. Opinions vary around this topic, depending on whom you decide to lend an ear to. Do you trust the experienced adventurer, fervently defending it as a life-changer and the best decision ever? Or do you listen to the street rumours whining about it as overrated and a waste of time?
The world seems divided about it, and many disadvantages are publicly displayed when advantages try to take their dues back.
As a novice wanderer, navigating this battleground could leave you disoriented. Take the wrong turn, and you might find yourself in front of the existent dark solo travel drawbacks or take the right path and become aware of its advantages.
Fortunately, you can rely on your complete backpacker guide aka your bestie. Following your intuition, you turn right and stand at the view of what you just witnessed. Open Chapter 9, and let the bright travel light captivate you as you discover the solo travel benefits one after the other. Put on your sunglasses and sunscreen; you’ll need them to shield yourself from the brilliance of solo travelling. Ready? Go!
The hidden solo travel benefits
For some, solo travel is akin to discovering a treasure chest. Exploring these hidden gems makes people (like me) deeply addicted, and no sooner than you come back home, your only desire is to hit the road solo to travel again.
There is only one good reason and method explaining how to get people addicted. It has to be so delicious that you want to consume it again as soon as possible (I got this from an old friend selling products in the streets). Solo travel, much like a culinary meal, possesses that addictive tasty quality.
Yet, it’s essential to acknowledge that solo travel isn’t for everyone. Many have encountered the solo travel pitfalls and drawbacks, leading them to hate this kind of adventure. However, if the flame of curiosity still burns within you and you are more than triggered, let me unveil the pros of travelling alone for you.
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Freedom is the king of solo travel benefits
Undoubtedly, there is no bigger solo travel advantage than freedom. I will even dare to say that most people travel alone for this reason. Remember the addictive taste we talked about? Well, here is the centre stage of it, the heart of the cake. Freedom grants you a tapestry of possibilities which are hard to reach (or unreachable for the sceptics, shame on you) when travelling with friends. Take a magnifying glass nearby as we dissect what makes freedom so special when travelling solo.
Take the control
Time spent in each location
Do you like the place so much that you would like to extend your stay to know it deeper? Or enjoy this ice cream shop a bit more (the ice cream, not the seller, eh)! Are you not at ease in this town and dreaming about getting away to explore new horizons? These idealised options become a reality as you are the only master of your calendar. You can stay at the perfect time in each location based on your daily desires.
Destination choice
What about this country you had dreamed about or this town apparently full of local legends? Sounds good? Yet, your friends may have come up with a ton of excuses to dismiss the idea. From the typical “it might be too hot or unsafe” to the “rumours of ferocious insects kidnapping travellers to use us as a currency bargaining with mountain goat clans” (unlikely, but you never know). But when you embark on solo travel, there is no need to seek approval from anyone but yourself, it’s just you and your chosen destination, free from the constraints of others’ opinions.
Improvisation – Open the doors to drastic change
When wandering alone around the world, there is plenty of room for improvisation and drastic changes. No one’s happiness depends on your choices but your own body and soul. So, if you feel like turning right when you’ve planned for weeks to turn left, do it. The same applies to a determined itinerary, and when opportunities emerge on your way, it’s your duty to catch them in time.
Rest when you want
Some travellers are bursting with energy while others enjoy a little nap daily (guess which category am I?). Don’t deny the nap, a gift of god. The risk of following someone else’s pace is either exhausting yourself or feeling time slipping away unproductively. The common point? You will end up frustrated. During solo travel, you are the master of your time. So, if you feel like a day or two doing absolutely nothing, taking three naps a day, or being awake 18 hours a day, it’s up to you young fella!
No compromise
Everything you do is because you want to
I want you to carve this sentence in your brain, heart and wherever you want. The solo traveller’s mindset revolves around this principle as the key to fully enjoying your time away. While it can give others a rude impression, it becomes something valuable when correctly mastered.
Little to no drama – no shared responsibility
Have you ever made a decision that ended up wrong, a rental car you crashed or other silly things that could happen to you while travelling? There’s no one to point fingers since you are travelling…alone! Solo travel offers a great way to escape daily drama as you are solely accountable to yourself.
Your budget is yours
Have you ever needed to compromise about money? A really frustrating point. Whether you’re tightening your belt while your companion splurges his savings, or you’re keen to enjoy without constantly counting coins, different ways to save money or budget while backpacking can lead to conflicts. By having your budget affecting only one person, you spend as you please without negotiations or compromises.
Allow your curiosity to lead the way
Your curiosity becomes an invaluable companion when exploring. Trusting your instincts and following your gut can lead to formidable encounters and hidden treasures. Yet, not everyone shares the passion for uncertainty or the allure of the unknown (precisely where curiosity leads you). From experience, there’s nothing worse than when your curiosity is piqued, but circumstances deny you the chance to pursue it. Thus, when navigating solo travels, listen to this sixth sense, for the field is yours to explore.
Get kicked out of your comfort zone
You might be wondering, “Isn’t this article supposed to focus on the benefits of solo travel?” Absolutely! And fear not, this is still the main topic. While many view being kicked out of their comfort zone as a bloody drawback of solo exploration, I dare to say it’s a benediction. Our cosy nests can cuddle us into stagnation, but by not stepping beyond them, we are probably not learning as supported in this study.
Boom! Did a revelation detonate in your mind as you unconsciously grab this old backpack and your holey shoes? Keep calm and sit down as I give you other reasons to solo travel.
Face life’s challenges
Returning to our discussion, be prepared for challenges on your journey. Your adventure will surely make you face and crush into some walls. Remember, the old backpacker wisdom “Get up! You have many more to hit”. These hurdles might manifest as missed flights, unexpected weather, getting robbed or illness abroad, and the list extends. Life has countless obstacles for you to overcome, and when away from home, your vulnerability to these challenges amplifies. So enjoy your time, learn, bleed, and don’t forget to smile!
Take accountability for everything
By moving away from compromises, you take the reins of absolute responsibility. As a consequence, you cannot blame anyone, not even your carefully selected backpack. It’s a great way for personal growth, offering invaluable insights into the repercussions of every decision, be it on your finances, well-being, or those around you.
Life is the greatest teacher of all time to learn about accountability, so grab this pencil, write some lines, or share what you’ve learned about about these solo travel experiences, it might become a noteworthy memo for your future self.
Learn the language faster
Picture this: navigating a country where your mother tongue is a rarity, and the written script is an enigma. Even if your riddle talent is internationally recognised, you might need to learn the local language slightly faster. Amidst the unknown territory, every meeting transforms into a language lesson. As you learn to formulate simple sentences, conversations blossom organically, becoming your compass for navigation, ordering local meals, or just sharing a hearty laugh. By being surrounded by locals speaking a foreign language and not having a fellow wanderer from your own country aside, solo travel becomes the ultimate linguistic crash course.
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Get off the beaten path
Master the art of exploration
Uncover destinations in a way that resonates with you. Experiment with diverse approaches and strategies, discovering the one that suits you the most. Solo travel empowers individuals, you included, to follow their curiosity. There’s no single right path, just many you don’t know about.
Dive into authentic immersion
Travelling alone also means carrying fewer potential barriers limiting you from immersing into the local world and culture. These experiences introduce you to genuine encounters, where you unveil genuine conversations with locals and authentic adventures. Embracing the SlowSight Soul mindset pushes you to step beyond your comfort zone, unlocking doors accessible only when you embrace discomfort.
Change your world’s perspective
When you engage with locals and during solo journeys, not only do your personal barriers lower, but the stereotypes also collapse. Whether true or not, your preconceived ideas about certain corners of the globe drastically change after you have immersed yourself in the lives of local communities. These events challenged and reshaped beliefs that once thrived within your comfort zone.
Digital detox
Disconnecting from the digital realm is more vital than ever in our hyper-connected society. Constantly chasing likes, fame, and the perfect posts can lead us into a virtual trap, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy. Solo travel offers a chance to break free from this cycle, urging us to close our laptops and immerse ourselves in the tangible world. Beyond the obvious benefits, it’s a chance to realign our focus, rediscovering the beauty that surrounds us without the distortion of social media filters and expectations. So, close this wonderful blog, shut down the screens for a day and genuinely reconnect with reality (It’s not as bad as you think it is).
Meet people from all around the world
Encountering diverse individuals from every corner of the globe is an unmissable aspect of solo travel and part of the reality of your first solo travel. Some sceptics may see the connections you weave as pointless, asserting that you will never see them again. At the same time, a few opponents hold firm to the belief that among travel encounters, long-lasting bonds can blossom, transcending geographical boundaries. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? That’s the one million euro question. However, a thought remains certain as one of the solo travel pros is that you will…
Make tons of friend
Many travellers wander solo, yet humans are social animals, and we tend to quickly gather, sharing stories, beers, laughter and sunsets. There’s a mysterious force at play here, one that scientists should perhaps study: the magnetic backpacker field. You will rarely leave a place without having encountered many faces; spend just four days staying in a hostel following its sacred rules, and you’ll likely know every name in the crowd.
“One of the great things about travel is that you find out how many good, kind people there are.”
– Edith Wharton
The proximity with locals tends to be higher when travelling alone. Away from our daily lives, our social facades dissolve, revealing our authentic selves to the world. This vulnerability fosters bonds that are often deeper, quicker, and more profound. Whether it’s a day spent with fellow wanderers, an afternoon guided by a local through their hometown, or a shared fragment of our journey, these connections endure in our hearts and souls as they appear pure and genuine.
Increase your awareness to others
Solo travel fosters a unique aspect of human connections: awareness of others. Being in an ever-changing landscape, encounters with countless individuals become the norm. After traversing the globe for three months, one might have easily engaged with over a hundred souls, whether fellow adventurers or locals. Through these frequent interactions with strangers, we develop the skill of understanding and “reading” them quickly.
Stepping out of our comfort zones, our capacity to learn astonishingly increases. We develop a sharpened sensitivity to our surroundings, discerning the desires and intentions of those entering our personal bubble. It’s crazy how, after some time spent travelling alone, we can develop an ability to gauge compatibility with newfound persons. While not infallible, this intuition has rarely failed me, often proving trustworthy.
Growth
By facing ourselves, enjoying almost complete freedom, facing our decisions’ consequences, meeting many new people, learning about the world, and getting kicked out of our comfort zone, we inevitably foster personal growth.
As the GBOAT (Greatest Backpacker Of All Time) has once said, “A solo traveller returns changed forever”, and it cannot be more true. But why, you might wonder? The answer lies in the last but not least solo travel advantages.
Reconnect with yourself & others
Understand the self
Solo travel will grant you a LOT of time alone, maybe more than expected if you have followed the “by travelling alone, you are never truly alone” proverb. While this statement holds true, undisrupted time is precious. It’s a chance to delve into deeper self-reflection to understand what you genuinely like and dislike or a bunch of philosophical questions. Embracing this introspective journey unveils layers of self-awareness, paving the path towards genuine contentment.
However, if scary at first sight, wondering about your own life is the first step in understanding the self to reach happiness and genuine peace.
Grow your relationships
Better self-awareness facilitates meaningful connections. Armed with a clearer understanding of your own needs and boundaries, forging and sustaining healthy relationships becomes more genuine. By discerning what enriches and weakens, relationships evolve into mutual sources of fulfilment. Each connection is chosen, fostering a sense of reciprocity and uniqueness.
Find a purpose
As introspection deepens, the quest for purpose pops up. Whether you already possess a defined one or find yourself wondering, solo travel can help to find a purpose and serve as a catalyst for clarity. I was in this case a few years ago, and travelling alone helped me to understand what I wanted to achieve. So, if you ever feel lost in life, why not embark on a journey on your own?
Your personality might change
Developing Patience and Relativism
After enduring long waits for local buses, losing crucial gear, witnessing real poverty or wealth, and facing life-threatening scenarios, some daily life situations could have a lower impact on you than they had before. Whether it’s a malfunctioning coffee machine or a 15-minute train delay, these events hardly register as significant disruptions now. Your mind now distinguishes between what truly matters and what’s not worth getting upset about.
Sharpening communication and decision-making skills
Life on the road, shaped by your choices, and your ability to deal with language barriers, has increased your communication and decision-making skills. Whether to get out from challenging situations, forging connections, or assuming choices’ consequences, you’ve cultivated a resilience that turns shitty circumstances into opportunities for a positive outcome.
Gain confidence about what you are capable of
Please, do me a favour. When your journey is over, or even once a month if you are still travelling, stop for a moment and take a look back at what you have accomplished. Where are all your initial fears and doubts about your abilities? You probably dropped them somewhere along the road a long time ago. You have climbed mountains, explored new places, built long lasting bonds, lived your best life, adventure into the unknown, slept in hostels and more, all alone! So congrats, be proud of you as the best is yet to come!
Did you get convinced by this set of solo travel benefits?
As we conclude our expedition, we emerge through the solo travel benefits, from the perfume of freedom to deep personal growth. Are you now ready to start your own solo adventure? Close this Chapter of the holy backpacker guide and let your dreams open the doors.
Are you curious about the mysteries and treasures that await beyond the horizon? Will you take the crowded road or the off-beaten path? Anyway, regardless of the chosen path, if you ever dare to take the first step, your odyssey will be unique and transformative, creating unforgettable memories while fulfilling your body and soul.
Bon voyage!
Wander with Purpose – Connect with Heart.
