Every life-affirming trip starts with a leap of faith and every life changing experience ends with a great story. So our advice to anyone male or female, but particularly female, is to stop worrying and start planning for your next trip. There’s a joy to traveling solo.
Many women fear traveling without a partner because of the potential dangers they might expose themselves to. Although there is a bit of truth in this, solo traveling is usually pretty safe if you don’t do foolish things.
The best part of traveling by yourself is that you are the only decision maker. You can visit whatever you want, you can stop if you get tired, you can eat when you want to or you can skip meals for a whole day if so you wish. When traveling with a partner, both of you need to compromise a little, in order to make the most out of your trip.
Another advantage is that you meet more people when you travel by yourself. This is normal, if you think about it for a moment. If you don’t have a partner to talk to, you’ll feel more inclined to start conversations with local people or with other travelers. Being by yourself, it would be more cost effective to book a bed in a hostel room, rather than pay the price of a hotel room for just one person. Sleeping in hostels facilitates meeting new people and perhaps making new friends.
We’ve seen the bright side, but what about the dark side of solo traveling? How dangerous it really is? We are talking about girls traveling alone, because they are most exposed than boys for reasons easy to understand.
Even if she travels alone, a girl still needs food and some entertainment. Going out for dinner and maybe to a club afterwards exposes her to men who might want to flirt with her. While this can be fun as long as it stays innocent, things can easily get serious and the girl might find herself in trouble. This is why you should be very careful who you talk to and most important what you say. Dress yourself in a more conservative fashion and never agree to go with anybody in private places. Always stay in public and you’ll be safe. Some ladies wear a wedding ring even if they are single, in order to create the illusion that they might be on vacation with their husband who happens to be elsewhere that moment.
When traveling solo, one may feel a bit lonely at times, because there isn’t anybody else to share impressions with. This is our human nature: we like to share good and bad things; we like to enjoy life together, tell jokes and have fun. If you’re the lonely type of person, you might find it hard to make friends on the road, so you might get homesick after a while.
Accommodation is an issue for solo travelers. The price difference between a single and a double room is very small, therefore it is more cost effective when two people share one room. However, if you either don’t mind paying the price or you don’t mind staying at hostels, you’ll be fine.
If you feel lonely on the road, start a travel blog and share your photos and stories with the world. It is a great motivation factor and it may lead to new adventures and to meeting cool people who can become your friends. After all one of the main reasons we travel is to trust fate when we leave that we will return home with great stories. What will your next great story be?
