The pros and cons of travelling solo
Travelling solo is one of the most freeing and rewarding experiences you can possible imagine and there are so many reasons to do it. You’ll gain confidence, you’ll develop as a person, and you’ll almost certainly not regret it! But it’s not all fun and games, there are some cons that are worth considering as well. Believe me, I’m not trying to talk you out of it, I just want you to be fully prepared before you do embark on a solo journey.
Pros
No more procrastinating
When you decide you’re ready to get out there and travel solo, you actually do things! You’re no longer waiting on that friend to agree to come on a trip with you, putting it off month after month. Once you commit to travelling by yourself, you just book the trip and get on with it. Ideas of adventures no longer need to fester in your mind for years on end waiting for someone else to help bring them into fruition, within a couple of hours you could have your flights booked and be well on your way to an incredible adventure! You eradicate that “I can’t take that trip, I’ve got nobody to go away with” mentality and all of a sudden you open up doors to so many new possibilities.
2. Everything is on your schedule
You want to know arguably the best thing about travelling solo? You’re able to do exactly what you want to do, exactly when you want to do it. Want to get up at 6am and go for a run along the beach? You can. Want to spend an afternoon sat in a café catching up on some work? You can. When you travel by yourself there’s nobody else you need to please, your schedule is determined by you and you only. Experiencing this for the first time is liberating! Your travel begins to work for you and you’re able to get everything that you want out of a trip without feeling like you’re negatively impacting your travel partner’s experience.
3. Gets you out of you comfort zone
Travelling by yourself is an exhilarating experience but it can also be a daunting one. But that is a good thing! Doing things that scare us slightly is exactly how we grow and if you’re visiting this website hopefully that’s something you want to do too. When you’re by yourself, if something goes wrong nobody is going to get you out of that situation but you. When I was pushing my bike with a punctured tyre up the top of a bear infested forest in the Shenandoah’s, nobody was gonna get me to the bottom except me. Getting through experiences like this show you exactly what you’re capable of, and it’s a damn sight more than you could ever expect! The thought of doing things like this as a shy 16 year old straight out of school would have absolutely terrified me, but when you realise you have no choice but to do things yourself, you realise that you’re capable of so much more than you thought and you’re able to reflect on these moments down the line as incredible learning experiences and stories! Had I gone on this trip with other people 2 things would probably have happened: 1, I wouldn’t have ended up on that mountain in the first place because someone would have talked me out of it. But 2, without that I would have never pushed myself to this extent and wouldn’t have this learning experience and personal growth that it gave me now.
The forest in the Shenandoah’s I was forced to push my broken bike through for 4+ hours
Cons
Cost
There’s no beating around the bush with this one, travelling by yourself costs more. You don’t have someone to split the bill with and you’re always getting stung with that single occupant surcharge. Personally, I’ve never been one for a hostel, I like to have a hotel room where I’ve got my own space to relax and unwind after a busy day exploring. Unfortunately when you’re by yourself, where you’d normally share the cost of your hotel room with your partner or friend, you’re left to front this bill all by yourself. It’s not a deal breaker, but its something worth considering when planning financially for a solo trip.
2. Motivation
When you travel solo, you need to motivate yourself. Whilst on some occasions it’s amazing not needing your schedule to accommodate other people, other times it’s nice to have that gentle nudge from your travel partner to get yourself into gear and get you out of that hotel room. If you’ve woken up feeling a bit ‘meh’ one morning, being on your own it’s easy to feel a bit sorry for yourself and mope around your hotel room. Before you know it, it’s 4pm and you’ve not done anything with your day! Sometimes it’s hard to motivate yourself 24/7 but to get the most out of your trip, you need to be your own motivator so that you don’t look back on your trip with any regrets.
3. There’s nobody to share those memories with
Sometimes the best moments are those evenings spent reminiscing with your friends about something that happened on your trip together years ago. Having these memories that you shared with each other are a joyous thing and ultimately can be the best things to come out of a trip. Travelling solo means you don’t have this. Everything you do on a solo trip is extremely personal (something I actually love about solo travel) but it does mean that when you look to reminisce years down the line, the memories you have are only relevant to you which can be a bit of a shame.
I’ve barely scratched the surface on the pros and cons of solo travel but I like to keep these blog posts quite brief and easy to read! Hopefully this can somewhat prepare you as you potentially venture into the world of solo travel; something that in my opinion everybody should do at least once in their lifetime! It’s genuinely the most rewarding experience of my life and the thing I attribute most for my personal growth over the past few years. Solo travel allows you to see who you really are and I’m so sure that you’ll surprise yourself over the things you’re able to do and the person it helps you become. So get out there and book that solo trip!