Traveling Solo in What's Happening

The better I get at traveling - the more traveling by myself has seemed to change from a ‘last resort’ to my preference.

I remember my Dad was in between jobs once and he spent almost all of his time depressed and drinking in front of the TV. I said: “Why don’t you travel somewhere cool?” He replied: “I’m not like you, I can’t just go places by myself. I need someone with me.”

I guess he was right in a way. Without even noticing I may have conditioned myself into being the type of person who could book a spontaneous flight to another country and leave by myself. I wasn’t always this way though. I remember a time when I wouldn’t even dine-in at a chain restaurant by myself.

You don’t need to be a special person to enjoy traveling by yourself, but you do need to learn how to enjoy yourself and your own company. Getting to this point could take some work. You need be willing to leave your comfort zone. I think if you’re someone who feels frightened or intimidated by the thought of planning a trip on your own then you will probably benefit the most from the experience.

The past two months I’ve been laid off from work and I’ve managed to visit 5 different countries, a handful of states and in total, about 15 different cities. A lot of this traveling was done solo. Some of the traveling where I was with a partner I realized that I would rather be on my own.

I would say my overall opinion about traveling solo is not that it is better than traveling with a group or a partner, but that it can be. A lot of it depends on you.

I’d love to write more about what I’ve learned from this in the future.