The Truth About Solo Travel: The 5 Pros and Cons
Damn, if I knew the truth about solo travel years ago.
I can’t tell you how many times something happened that made me wanna say, fuck it I’m just gonna go alone!
But there was this one time, in particular…
I was planning a random weekend road trip to the Appalachian mountains with two of my boys, Justin and Milk. We (by we, I mean EYE) started planning 3 weeks before the actual trip date.
I already took the time to book a little rustic cabin and planned out our hikes for the weekend.
The table was set and it was bout time to grub!
We’re one week out from the trip and I ask Milk if he’s as hype as I am for the adventures.
Milk said, “Ohhhh shit, I completely forgot about that. Damn I’m sorry man I planned something with my parents that I can’t get out of.”
I’ll admit I was a little butt-hurt. I said whatever dude, at least I can count on my BEST friend, Justin. He would never let me down like that.
I told Justin about the news that Milk couldn’t make it to the trip, and asked him if he’s bout ready to hit the dusty trail.
This guy says, “Ah man, is the airbnb refundable? If it’s just me and you, maybe we can postpone until someone else joins, and the weather might not be great, and blah blah blah…..”
Alright, now I’m extra butt-hurt. Like, post-100 mile bike ride butt-hurt.
I sulked in disappointment for a few minutes then thought about what I should do next. In my mind it seemed like a pretty good idea to just say fuck ‘em and go myself.
It’s only a 3 hour drive away and I already booked the pad. But I’d never travelled alone for a vacation and I definitely never even dreamt of hiking alone (might’ve had a nightmare though).
Who knows though? It could be a great experience.
After contemplating a bit longer, you know what I did?
I canceled my airbnb and got a refund. Tragic.
How many times has a friend or multiple friends been super non-committal to a vacation trip that you suggested?
They say, “That sounds cool”, or “I’d be down, let me make sure I can do it”. But they don’t confirm until the week of the trip that they can’t go.
BUKU times? Yep, I feel you, fam.
And how many of those times do you wish you just went ahead and booked your ticket long ago, so you have no choice but to go; but you didn’t?
I still feel you, fam!
Just the very thought of solo travel can be overwhelming, and in no way am I saying that solo travel is for everybody.
Shit, I know a lot of people that can’t go to lunch by themselves.
I am saying that everyone should give it a try once.
Try it the next time you’re planning to travel with a friend/friends and they all bail out a week before, say eff it and go anyway.
Better yet, plan a solo trip from the jump!
I’ve solo traveled to over 10 countries in the past few months and that number is going to dramatically increase in this coming year.
Solo travel has its ups and downs that can definitely blindside you if you ain’t ready. Don’t even trip though, I got you!
I peeped all the ups & downs of solo travel for you so you can have the balance. With that being said, let’s talk the truth about solo travel.
Schedule Flexibility
Solo travel opens up your schedule immensely, allowing you to freely do anything you want without the pressures of anyone else’s desires.
Might sound selfish, but it’s a game changer.
I wake up mad early on vacation but I know a lot of my peeps like to hibernate during travel, not leaving the house till noon.
That pisses me off because no matter when I sleep, I’ll wake up hype as fuck at 8am.
I’ll see half a small town and have a couple croissants with extra butter by the time my peeps wake up
But when you travel with the squad, you don’t want to see all those cool landmarks without them.
That means you’re stuck in the house till noon, fiddling your shit, waiting on them to wake up.
Solo travel opens up your eating schedule too. I gotta lotta foody friends so they wanna eat at every block when they’re traveling.
No mi amigo! I eat when my tank’s on E. I’m the only dude that loses weight on vacation.
The truth about solo travel is that it gives you a full range of the types of things you actually want to see and the pace at which you see them.
There’s no way I woulda been able to convince my friends to run off Mount Gaisberg to paraglide in Austria.
I definitely wouldn’t have convinced them to rappel down the side of a tower in Rotterdam.
People are Flaky (You know who you are)
How many times have you planned a trip, and when it’s time to start booking shit, somebody who was slated to go cancels?
That person cancelling ends up cancelling the trip for everyone else and to that, I say NO MORE!
You can have an amazing time despite that person not being there. Actually, you can have major fun in spite of them not being there.
You ever have revenge fun?
That’s when you turn all the way the fuck up just to be like “Ayy, you shouldn’t have cancelled This coulda been you!”
Meeting New People
One of the best things about solo traveling is how many people I’ve met along the way.
When you hit new places with your peeps, you end up sticking to your squad, and any conversations with other parties are mostly limited to whatever you need out of them.
Then you just want them to leave so ya’ll can talk about how they were weird as shit, which I admit is fun.
But there’s something about being alone that makes you more approachable and much more willing to have an extended conversation.
It makes sense when you think about it.
If you’ve been talking to yourself for the last 3 hours, it’s nice to share your thoughts with another human life form.
My favorite spots to meet peeps are hostels and jazz clubs.
Hostels are pretty much low-cost dorms that travelers from all over the world stop in for a couple nights before hitting the road to their next destination.
The best part about staying in a hostel is that you’ll likely be around a lot of other solo travelers from different parts of the world who are also looking to meet a strange traveler like yourself.
I’ve made a few friends this way whom I feel very comfortable in saying that I can go to their home country and have a place to stay with a local showing me around. The feeling is mutual. Waddup Kyle!
In my life I’ve traveled with people way more than I’ve traveled alone and I’ve never made good new friends when I travel with my squad because we’re busy enjoying each other’s company.
The truth about solo travel is that fleeting and long-term friends and memories are made when exploring by yourself and it’s truly a beautiful thing
Self-Reflection
I’ve learned a lot about myself since I started solo traveling.
In most of our lives, we’ve always belonged to something/somebody at any given time. You might be somebody’s student, their partner, their child, their employee, etc.
Most of us will never know what it’s like to not belong to something because we’re raised to think that’s the way a proper life should go.
You’re someone’s student for 12 plus years, someone’s employee for 40 years, and eventually someone’s spouse for the rest of your life.
And that’s the so-called American Dream.
But I’ve never felt more apart from that dream then when I solo travel.
Mind you, I do still belong to several of those things but when I solo travel I feel a freedom that I haven’t felt before, even if it’s just for a little while.
It gives me time to reflect on life, the world, and the things that I value in it.
Knowing the truth about solo travel can unlock the innate wanderer inside of you.
Self-Growth
So when traveling alone you’ll make a lot of silly mistakes that you’ll be happy no one but you saw.
You’ll poorly plan out a day and find yourself in a stressful predicament that you have to figure out.
What does that lead to?
Problem-solving, critical thinking, clutch performances in last second situations.
I can’t tell you how many times this has happened to me where I had to run to catch the last train home.
How many times I didn’t have cash when I needed it and had to talk my way out of something.
You’ll find yourself in stressful situations but you’ll always figure your way through it and you’ll come out the other end stronger and all the wiser.
Traveling is a skill and, like any other skill, the more you do it the more you know what to look out for.
You’ll figure out how to avoid getting into bad situations in the future, and how to optimize future travel to be as dope as possible.
After coming back home from travel I notice subtle differences in the way I handle everyday situations.
I approach situations much more confidently and calmly knowing that we’re going to figure it out, because I’ve figured out way tougher things by myself.
This is the truth about solo travel that I’ve appreciate the most because it’s a gift that keep on giving.
Stressful Predicaments
In order to have that personal growth that I mentioned before, you have to figure out stressful predicaments alone.
When traveling with your peeps to a new country, this still happens.
Shit goes wrong with your transportation and you miss a reservation. Or you might just be lost with no signal and can’t find your way around.
Now when that happens with your peeps, it’s stressful but it’s more frustrating than anything because at least you’re sharing that stress load with multiple people.
That stress is only amplified when you’re traveling solo.
So picture this.
I landed in Paris and their subway system is confusing as fuck. I had to get to the Airbnb which is 45 minutes away in a perfect world.
I had a concert to get to in 2 hours but the concert venue was 45 minutes away from the Airbnb in a perfect world.
I get completely lost on their confusing ass subway system. Red line, blue line, one line, two line.
I said fuck it, I’ll call an Airbnb. I walked outta the station and I ended up in a square and I can’t even find my way to the damn street to get to the street.
All of a sudden, freezing rain starts pouring from the sky. At this point, I’m a sad, wet, and cold puppy trapped in a square with my luggage.
Dark times, indeed.
It’s Lonely When You Alone
Just as many times as you have those amazing moments of freedom and self reflection, you also get moments where you realize you’re alone as hell.
It hits me when I’m sitting on a mountaintop or somewhere with a gorgeous view, and I’m like damn I wish I could share this moment with Reginald.
Or damn I’m sure Bernadette would love this view.
Other times it can put a damper on the mood. Sadness is looked at as a negative emotion.
Coming from somebody who hardly ever gets sad, sadness is a natural emotion that everyone should experience and embrace from time to time.
Use that emotion to encourage you to lead a life where, in the future, you can freely take Reginald and Bernadette to dope places without a second thought.
The truth about solo travel is that there are ups and downs and that’s the same truth about life. What we control is how we react to the roller coaster.
Nightlife
If you need to have a party vacation where you’re out all night getting white boy wasted, solo travel usually isn’t the way to go. But there are ways around the issues.
The issue is if you’re going to turn up in a foreign land, you wanna have somebody you know and trust with you before getting outside of your right mind.
I’ve tried going to clubs alone and it’s just weird unless it’s a live music venue where I can be preoccupied by watching something dope.
Fortunately, when I’m traveling solo I compensate for the lack of nightlife by waking up early in the AM, exploring the city, and exhausting myself.
By nightfall, I’m too tired to get lit. If I do still wanna go out, I’ll hit a jazz club and get serenaded by some live saxophonists.
Either way, I’m fulfilled by the time 11pm comes along.
If you meet most-dope people at a hostel, more times than not, they’ll want to go out. You can join them which can be super fun
You can find all the best hostels at hostelworld.com.
that's the Truth About Solo Travel.
What Now?
If any of these cons discourage you from making that solo trip happen, watch the Pros to Solo Travel video where I go in even more depth on why you should get it crackin’.
Even if solo travel ain’t for you, you deserve to know for yourself instead of guessing.
Plus now that you know the truth about solo travel, the next time Milk and Justin cancel on a trip you can stunt on them by going anyway! I bet they never cancel again.
You said you’re feeling hype for some solo travel now?
Oh Word! What now?
I got you fam! Check out my in-depth article on Solo Travel Preparation. Don’t even trip, we gon get you right.
I’ll catch you on the next one!
Ya boi,
Zekarias
