Travelling with friends and family is always a fun thing but sometimes your best travelling companion is you yourself. When you travel alone you can explore a place the way you wanted and on your own terms and if you have tried it and it didn’t went the way you thought it be, then, don’t be upset because whatever you do, you will learn something and that lesson can be really useful. Here are 10 reasons that why you should travel alone.
We all have bucket lists of places we want to travel to in our lifetime, but all too often we hold ourselves back from experiences because we have no one to share them with. Everyone has different schedules, budgets, and travelling interests, so waiting around for the right time or the right person to join you for a train trip to Niagara Falls, gourmet dining in Lyon, or backpacking around Southeast Asia is a waste. When you travel alone, only your needs matter, and you can plan something at the last minute if you desire.
In our ever-connected world filled with digital distractions, it can be a challenge to take the time that’s necessary to recharge one’s battery. Fortunately, solo travel offers the time and space that’s necessary for valuable alone time. Even if you’re not the type of person who goes off the grid when travelling, being alone on the road will give you the opportunity to reflect on life and enjoy your own company. Some people have an innate aversion to doing things individually, but giving yourself alone time, especially for an extended period, is a gift that you will eventually learn to relish.
Why not make the most of your time and money by planning the getaway of your dreams without any interference? Whether you want to spend three days on a beach doing absolutely nothing or visit ten museums in one weekend, there’s no one to stand in your way when you’re travelling alone. You can sleep as little or as much as you want, eat what your heart desires, and indulge yourself with whatever makes you happy. Travelling is supposed to be relaxing, and it’s never more so than when you are your own trip planner. You don’t even have to plan if you don’t want to—be spontaneous if that’s your thing. The whole point is getting what you want out of a vacation.
Without a doubt, one of the biggest deterrents from solo travel is the fear of feeling lonely. The truth, however, is that you’ll never feel this way if you make the right choices. For meals, find restaurants where you can dine at the bar and interact with the bartender or skip restaurants altogether and stick to street food or groceries. Want to meet some locals? Research lively cafes or bars that appeal to your tastes; if you’re in a foreign country, try to find spots that are popular with expats. Sign up for cooking classes or museum tours to meet people with similar interests.
Obviously there are many benefits to travelling with friends or loved ones, but other people can often serve as distractions from the destination you’re visiting. Whether you make a new international friend or discover your favourite new museum, the experiences you have when travelling alone tend to feel more profound, and those memories tend to last longer.
The more you travel alone, the more likely you are to feel confident, like you can tackle any challenge. Of course, the more confident you feel when travelling alone, the more confident you’ll feel at home. Whenever one of life’s little challenges emerges, you can simply remind yourself of all that you've handled on your own all over the world—it’ll put your problems in perspective.
Travelling alone makes you a better observer of people and places around you, which in turn has the power to make you more compassionate and a better person overall. Being an outsider, however slight or extreme, automatically changes the way you interact with others, and these changes are positive when it comes to travel. In addition to making you kinder and more patient, solo travel increases your curiosity about your surroundings, and chances are you’ll learn a lot about others simply by paying more attention than you would if you were with a travel companion.
Money is always a pressure point when it comes to travel, and everyone has different spending habits and attitudes. So it’s easier to figure out your budget for a trip and plan accordingly. It’s simply much easier to create your own budget and stick to it rather than overspending because you travel with someone with expensive taste.
When you travel alone, the stakes are lower because you only have to worry about keeping yourself happy. Are you going to feel bitter because you slept in one morning? Highly unlikely. Will you hold a grudge because you spent too much time at a museum? Nope. Will you feel like you’re wasting time if you just want to sit in a café for a few hours? Not a chance. When you make yourself the sole arbiter of what to do on vacation, you remove the risk of disappointment and you keep things drama-free, which is a good way to keep your trip feeling both relaxing and satisfying.
If you’ve never travelled alone because your first thought is, “What would I even do with myself?†In addition to everything mentioned above, you will daydream, you will read, you will have exciting adventures, you will encounter funny things to tell your friends about, you will sleep well, you will eat new things, you will discover new neighbourhoods, you will talk to strangers, you will take risks, you will buy new clothes, you will learn about history and culture, you will go to concerts, you will stroll through parks, you will explore cities by bike and so much more. In fact, there’s so much you can do when you travel alone that you’ll wonder how you ever managed to travel with someone else in the past.
