solo travel experience | benefits of traveling alone | solo travel personal growth
I remember the exact moment I decided.
Sunday evening. I'd just come back from Morocco, a week with four friends, beautiful trip, genuinely, and I was sitting on my bed scrolling through the photos. Good ones. The kind you post. And I kept waiting to feel something about them.
I just... didn't.
There was this weird flatness. Like I'd watched the whole thing happen to me rather than actually being there for it. Which sounds dramatic. It wasn't a bad holiday. Nobody fought. The riad was stunning. But every restaurant had been a group vote, every morning had started with twenty minutes of "so what does everyone want to do today," and there was this one afternoon, one specific afternoon, where all I wanted was to get lost in the old medina by myself. No agenda. Just wandering. And we had an itinerary, so I didn't. I smiled and went along and had the fine time and took the photos.
That night I booked a solo flight to Lisbon. One way, because I wanted to feel brave about something.
That was two years ago. I've traveled solo four times since, two short trips, two longer ones, and if you're wondering whether a solo travel experience is actually worth it, I want to give you the real answer. Not the highlight reel version. The actual one.
Is Solo Travel Worth It? Here's What Nobody Tells First-Timers
I landed, took the metro, found the hostel, dropped my bag. Walked out onto the street. And just stood there.
Cobblestones everywhere. Late afternoon light doing that thing it does in Lisbon where everything looks slightly golden and slightly melancholy at the same time. One of the most beautiful cities I'd ever seen. And I had absolutely no idea what to do with myself.
I think I stood there for about forty minutes. Not in a spiritual, "I'm finding myself" way, more in a mildly panicked, should-I-go-back-inside way. I'd been so caught up in the booking and the packing that I'd never actually thought about what I'd do once I was standing alone in a foreign city with no one waiting for me and nowhere I had to be.
Eventually I just started walking. Found a bakery. Pointed at something golden in the glass case because I didn't know what it was, pastel de nata, obviously, I know that now, sat outside, drank a very strong coffee, and watched the street move.
Nobody needed anything from me. Nobody was checking their phone asking if I was ready to go. I could've sat there until they closed and nobody on earth would have cared.
That's the feeling I've been chasing on every solo trip since. That's the real benefit of traveling alone that nobody actually puts in the blog posts, not freedom, not self-discovery. Just that. The weightlessness of being completely accountable to nobody.
Solo Travel Pros and Cons, The Loneliness Nobody Talks About
Here's the part most solo travel guides skip entirely: it does get lonely. And it tends to show up at the exact same moment every time.
Dinner. That's when it gets you.
There's something about sitting alone at a proper restaurant, not a café, a restaurant, with candles and a waiter who pulls out a chair, that makes the whole thing very loud. You order. You wait. You have nothing to look at except your phone, and looking at your phone feels like admitting defeat, so you don't, and then you're just sitting there. Aware of every couple and every family group within a ten metre radius, all of them sharing something you're not.
I've had three or four evenings like that. Each one was genuinely a bit grim. I'm not going to dress that up.
But here's the thing I've come to think about those evenings, and it took me a while to get here, the loneliness isn't permanent. It's like being cold when you first get in the sea. Miserable for a bit, then something adjusts, then you're fine, and then after a while you're actually glad you went in. The discomfort is part of it. You can't get to the comfortable side without passing through first.
Also, and this is honestly the part nobody warns you about, the loneliness pushed me toward things I'd never have done otherwise. Third night in Lisbon, I joined a food tour purely because I wanted to be around people. Not for the food. For the company. And I ended up in a three-hour conversation with a retired schoolteacher from New Zealand who'd done her first solo trip at sixty four, two years after her husband died. She talked about it like it had saved her. Like she'd found something she didn't know she'd lost.
I've thought about her more than I've thought about any single monument or viewpoint from that entire week.
You don't get that conversation when you're traveling with someone. You're just not open in the same way. That, in my opinion, is the most underrated benefit of solo travel, not sunsets, not freedom. The conversations you have because you're the only one who needs to have them.
What I Got Completely Wrong About Traveling Alone for the First Time
I thought solo travel meant being alone the whole time. It really, genuinely doesn't.
If anything, I've been more social on solo trips than on any group trip I've ever taken. When you're with friends, you exist in this little sealed unit, you already have people, so you don't really reach outward. Alone, something shifts. You make eye contact with strangers. You ask the person at the next table where they're from. You say yes to random things because there's nobody to check with, nobody whose energy you're reading, nobody to make you feel like you're being a bit much.
I also thought I'd feel unsafe. I'm a woman traveling alone, and the warnings had really stacked up before that first trip, from my mum, from the internet, from my own head, which is honestly the loudest one of the three. The wall of "are you sure this is a good idea" was quite high.
The reality: I was careful, and I was fine. I researched neighborhoods before booking. I trusted my gut when something felt off, twice I walked away from situations that felt slightly uncomfortable, and both times I was convinced I was overreacting, and both times I'm still glad I listened to myself anyway.
If you're getting ready for your first solo trip as a woman and want a practical breakdown of what actually helped me feel safe on the ground, this solo travel safety guide covers everything I wish I'd read before I left.
Solo travel safety is a real conversation that deserves real attention. But I'd let the fear take up more space than it actually deserved. The risk was manageable. The reward was enormous.
Solo Travel on a Budget, Is It Actually Cheaper Than Traveling with Friends
This one's genuinely complicated and I want to be straight about it.
Solo travel costs more in some ways. Single room supplements are annoying and very real. You can't split a taxi or a tour or a bottle of wine at dinner. That stuff adds up, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
But, and this actually surprised me, I spent less on my Lisbon trip, less per day and less total, than I have on any group holiday I've ever taken.
Here's why. On group trips there's this social gravity that pulls your spending upward. Everyone's getting another round, so you do too. Someone suggests the rooftop bar and it feels a bit awkward to opt out, so you go. The fancy last-night dinner becomes a group thing and suddenly you're spending eighty euros when you'd have happily spent fifteen at the place around the corner. You come home wondering where all your money went.
Alone, I ate at market stalls for lunch every day because I actually prefer that to sitting in a restaurant at noon. I walked everywhere because I wanted to see the streets. I spent whole afternoons in free things, viewpoints, squares, just wandering neighborhoods, because those turned out to be the things I liked most. Which I'd never actually known before, because I'd never been the one deciding.
Solo travel on a budget is absolutely doable. It just requires knowing what you actually want. Which, it turns out, is about half the lesson anyway.
Does Solo Travel Really Change You? My Honest Opinion
I was skeptical about this before I tried it. The whole "solo travel changed my life" thing sounds like it belongs on a motivational poster with a sunset behind it.
What I'd actually say, having done it four times now, it doesn't change you. It shows you what's already there. Which is both better and worse than changing you, depending on what you find underneath.
The good stuff I found: I'm more comfortable with uncertainty than I'd thought. I can navigate chaos without panicking. I can make real friends with strangers over one shared meal and genuinely mean it when I say I hope we stay in touch. I'm good at being lost, literally and figuratively, and I actually kind of enjoy it.
The less comfortable stuff: I found out that a lot of the busyness I fill my life with is noise. Noise I'm generating specifically to avoid sitting alone with my own thoughts. Being in a foreign city with no plans and nobody to call is a very efficient way of running out of distractions, and when they run out you're left with whatever's actually going on in there.
That part isn't fun. I'd still take it.
I think that's the most honest version of what solo travel personal growth actually means, not transformation, not becoming a new person. Just clarity. And sometimes clarity is the harder thing to sit with.
The Moment I Stopped Questioning Whether Solo Travel Was Right for Me
Third day in Porto. I'd walked out to the Foz neighbourhood in the late afternoon, where the Douro meets the Atlantic. Wide, grey-blue water. A few fishing boats. Seabirds. Very quiet.
I sat on a low wall and watched the water. Didn't take a photo. Didn't text anyone. Didn't think about what to do next. The light went golden, then pink, then started to disappear.
Nothing happened. That's genuinely the whole story.
But I wasn't lonely. Not even slightly. I was just there, completely, in a way I almost never am in my normal life, and I'd gotten there entirely on my own terms, made every single small decision that led to that exact moment, and it was enough. More than enough.
That's why I keep choosing to travel alone. Not the self-discovery narrative. Not the freedom of solo travel speech. Just that feeling. The one where you're somewhere beautiful and present and not waiting for anything or anyone.
Should You Try Solo Travel? Here's What I'd Actually Tell You
Yes. Obviously.
But I'd also tell you: your first solo trip will have some bad hours. A lonely dinner, probably. Maybe a moment of standing somewhere unfamiliar wondering what on earth you were thinking. That's not a sign you're doing it wrong, that's just what the early part feels like, before your footing comes back.
Give it three days before you judge it. Genuinely, three days. Most people I've talked to find their rhythm by then, and once you find it the whole thing shifts. It stops feeling like something you're enduring and starts feeling like something you actually chose.
Which is, of course, exactly what it is.
Frequently Asked Questions About Solo Travel
1. Is solo travel safe for women?
Yes, with the right preparation. Research your destination beforehand, trust your instincts on the ground, stay in well-reviewed accommodations, and keep someone at home updated on your rough plans. Most solo female travelers report feeling safer than they expected.
2. Is solo travel lonely?
It can be — especially at mealtimes or on slow days. But the loneliness tends to be temporary, and it often pushes you toward experiences and conversations you'd never have had otherwise.
3. Is solo travel cheaper than group travel?
Not always on paper — you lose the ability to split costs. But in practice, solo travelers often spend less overall because they're only spending money on things they actually want.
4. What's the best destination for solo travel beginners?
Portugal, Japan, and New Zealand consistently come up as the most solo-travel-friendly destinations — safe, easy to navigate, and genuinely welcoming to people traveling alone.
Planning your first solo trip and not sure where to start? Leave a comment — I remember exactly what that mix of excitement and low-level terror feels like, and I'm happy to talk it through.
