When I started traveling alone on a long road trip, it would be for three months. It ended up being almost two years.
I didn’t intend to transform. Now, I know that experiencing and learning so many new things about myself and the world makes it unavoidable. Inevitable.
My solo travels have taken me through many states in the US, parts of Mexico and Canada. With time alone in ways that we are otherwise never alone, I dove deep. It allowed me to discover many things about my life, my personality and how I see the world.
Solo travel reveals or renews your sense of self
I’ve realized that solo travel gives us a new perspective, whether done in short bursts or long term. It helps us see and understand ourselves anew.
Not only are the places new, but we are different in those places. Every place we go, some new aspect of our character is created. This aspect would have never existed if we hadn’t traveled.
We discover new flavors, smells, and tastes in each place. We encounter new sights, textures, and sounds. In response, we learn new likes, dislikes, and behaviors.
I’m always finding new foods, music, clothes – new everything in places I’ve never been before. I try things. Discovery reveals facets of myself to me. I allow myself more freedom to explore who I might be. I step outside of who my family thinks I am. Who I have come to believe myself to be.
When I travel solo, I can be anyone. Often, I find hidden pieces of myself that I have not tucked away again.
Solo Travel Resets Your Focus
One of the best parts about long-term traveling is having new things to set our focus on. This Death Valley National Park sunset reset my focus after I camped there alone.
Years ago, I couldn’t travel anywhere. I had a “Death Valley” t-shirt that looked like the image above though I’d never been there. I couldn’t believe a sunset really looked that way.
But as I sat on the hood of my van, that picture became real. It felt like a dream manifesting. Camping alone in Death Valley was an uncomfortable choice, but I was rewarded with this gift.
Solo travel has given me many moments like this. It turns disbelief into near magic. When we’re alone, it’s easy to believe that unreal things exist. That mysteries and magic await us just outside of our comfort zones.
Traveling alone resets your focus on the mystery and wonder around you. It allows you the quiet time to revel in it. You can’t experience this in the same way when you’re with others.
Solo Travel Brings Us Face-to-Face with Fear
Fear stops most of us from traveling solo. Especially women. As I traveled solo I had to face them down one by one. When you travel solo, be prepared to manage if you break down in a remote place. Consider what to do if you are approached by nefarious characters. If you’re a hiker, there are always, bears, snakes, spiders and cliffs to worry about.
The first three months of my solo road trip were filled with panic attacks. I couldn’t look at a long stretch of road in the desert without losing my cool. But then, something happened. Nothing.
I kept being competent and prepared and working through it, and nothing ever happened. I faced fear over and over again. Now, I long for a stretch of desert highway to myself. I crave a trail without another soul for miles. I hope I’ll see a bear. Honestly, the things we fear are incredibly rare.
It’s OK and probably wise to be afraid. Let it make you more prepared. Don’t let it stop you from living.
The Way New Landscapes Open Our Minds
Maybe I didn’t pay enough attention in geography class. I know I didn’t. Finding new landscapes I didn’t realize existed while solo traveling feels like being on a new frontier. It’s silly in a way, but I imagine it’s how the great explorers must have felt.
Being alone, I feel as if I’m discovering something new for the very first time. Much of it is new to me.
Monument Valley at the four corners of Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, for example, changed my view of the United States.
Nature begins to quiet, the land evens out, then builds. I knew it existed, but I didn’t realize how surreal it was. Nobody told me how unreal it felt. How different it would be to just drive through it. No drive is like that.
The Hall of Mosses in the Hoh Rainforest on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington is another one.
I had no idea the U.S. even had a rainforest. The area is a World Heritage Site and UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.
Everything is covered in so much moss that it hangs from the trees like curtains. Bizarre mushrooms and slimy things grow from obscure places.
When I discover places like this I wonder: What else don’t I know? It makes me realize there is so, so much I’ve yet to learn about our world, but I want to.
Traveling Solo Makes us Try New Things
Whenever I travel, I always stumble upon things to try like volcano boarding, shamanic cleanses, and surfing. Sometimes, these things take skill, belief, patience, fortitude, or bravery.
I’m more open to trying things when I’m solo traveling. It seems like I’m “supposed to be” experiencing the culture. I’ve learned so much this way. I’ve found plenty of things I can’t wait to try again. There are even a couple that have become a recurring part of my life—a part of me.
In San Jose, I spent a day learning to be a beekeeper. I was afraid, but I learned bees aren’t anything to fear. They’re brilliant, amazing and essential. It completely changed my thinking.
Solo Travel Allows us to meet More People
We meet so many characters while traveling. Sometimes, we become the characters others meet.
I almost always travel solo, even when I’m not on a long road trip and only take short trips. But sometimes, I’ll travel with others. Invariably, when I travel with others, I find we tend to stick together (or course). What I mean is I talk to locals less. I engage with people I’m around less.
When I’m alone, other people naturally want to engage with me more, and I them. I learn more about the people, culture, and places I visit in this way. I’m more engaged and interact more.
When I travel alone, I meet and engage with many more people than when traveling with others. The picture above shows me in Charleston. Here, I am the “character” on a shrimping tour, entertaining the crowds by failing miserably at casting a shrimp net. They laughed uproariously at my attempts to not lose my teeth. More than one person said it was something they wouldn’t forget.
Let’s us Get comfortable being uncomfortable
When we travel, we’re on planes, trains and automobiles. Sometimes a donkey, boats, bikes and others. It’s often uncomfortable.
Before I traveled full-time, I lived a pampered life of luxury. I hadn’t camped in years.
For my nomad experience, I bought a van and slept alone in it at national parks. I also rented monthly Airbnbs, but I was uncomfortable a lot. Nothing was mine, and I didn’t know where anything was.
I had to reset my expectations of comfort. It’s humbling. I had to relearn gratitude on a new level.
I can’t say I ever felt gratitude for a bed the way I did after my first year. But in the end, my appreciation for a bed of my own is something I’ll never undervalue again.
I have a new perspective on comfort and discomfort. My ability to be uncomfortable can last for days now. It likely goes much further than most others. No, I never slept on the hard concrete, but I appreciate and understand it.
I’ve developed a zen-like tolerance for discomfort I cherish.
Solo Travel Strengthens Self-reliance
You must be somewhat self-reliant even to consider solo travel. I traveled alone for almost two years. Confidence in your abilities is a prerequisite. If you have a little of this, there is no better way to strengthen these traits than solo travel.
You must pay for everything, plan it all, navigate, troubleshoot and think on your feet. Often, you won’t speak the language, understand the money, or even know which direction you’re facing. You must figure it all out on your own. You can. Once you do these things and more enough times you’re unstoppable.
Too much self-reliance can be a dangerous side effect of solo travel. It’s hard to wait for others when you know you’re capable of anything alone.
How Solo Travel Changed My Life
It is hard to define in a big way how my life is different. Life is not defined by big things. It’s a million tiny things that amount to great significance.
My life has changed in a thousand simple ways. I could list them all, but not a single one would seem compelling enough. But the mass of them together creates a mountain.
It is things like music, food, jewelry, clothes. The feel of different types of moss, earth, waters, air. The sight of things l’d never seen before or seeing through someone else’s eyes. Trees, mountains, animals, rocks.
I have less fear and more fortitude. The more curiosity I quench, the thirstier I become. I have not been bored for a moment. I can stare at the sky in wonder no matter where I am.
Gratitude for the time I have fills me. Being constantly moving away and seeing it pass by gives me a tangible sense of its daily loss. I now see its effervescence.
I take more time to see all the people around me and give them my presence, acknowledge them. I’m consciously rotating the canvas of my perspective and trying to see differently. Especially if I don’t agree or I lack knowledge.
Yes, is something I say often. Yes, to who I am becoming. No, to who I do not want to be.
It’s these things and many more. If you knew me before and after, you might see the difference, but there are very few who do. That’s part of the trade-off. We cannot transform a life, without letting go of what came before. Maybe that is the real gift.
A year of solo travel takes you outside of the everyday expected life you’ve lived. It allows to emerge as something new.
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