Solo travel is one of the most empowering things I have ever done in my life and I want to tell you about five reasons why you need to be solo traveling in your future now currently this is such a weird time to be talking about solar travel or travel at all because we are currently in a worldwide pandemic
Dream about solar travel in the future and maybe this is just a perfect time to plan I want to tell you about five reasons why I think that solar travel is such a great thing for everyone to do at least once in their life and why so number one one of the first things when it comes to solar travel that is absolutely amazing is efficiency so efficiency wise you are only going to need to take care of yourself right when you have to go to the bathroom you find one when you're hungry you pick something up but if you're traveling with other people sometimes things can take a lot longer than anticipated earlier as well just the efficiency of knowing like
You have four days off and you want to jet somewhere and go explore City for 48 hours 72 hours whatever it may be then you can just do that in your calendar efficiency wise you're not going to be waiting for someone else to book that in your calendar and as well you're not going to be looking into what they want to do so number two one of the best things about traveling by yourself is getting to do what you want to do this was quite possibly one of the coolest things that I found and one of the biggest growth experiences for me
You are like me you are a go-with-the-flow person when I first did a solo travel trip I basically chose to go from Canada which is my homeland and went all the way to Australia to backpack the East Coast I flew into Sydney I met up with my friend Russell who lives in Brisbane he helped me get my bearings and then he flew back to Brisbane I did Sydney flew up to Cannes and then worked my way back down to Bruce so one of the things that I found the hardest and the most amazing to learn was choosing what I wanted to do versus going with the flow
I would wake up in the morning and it would take me so long at the beginning of my trip just laying in my hostel bed being like what do I want to do today well I can't someone tell me what to do just to make the decision and it can be so weird like you could be sitting on a beach enjoying the water and just simply making the decision we're gonna pack up now and we're gonna go and try to find a coffee shop like just something that simple and I found that that translated
Easily back into my normal life like even now I try to tell myself that even normal life is a solo travel trip despite that I live with a partner and I love Scott so much but at the end of the day what if he's working and I have the day off that's a solo day I got to decide what I want to do quickly so that I can amplify and make use of that day deciding what you want to do as well on a solo trip is really cool because what if you are someone who's like I want to hit that museum I really want to go to the museum and just look at everything and taking the culture and taking the art but you're with someone who's like that is not what I want to do at all you're gonna be in this museum hopefully
Because maybe you both made the decision to go and you're going to be looking at your clock not going to be able to be as present now the curve of this is hopefully you're traveling with someone who does really like doing what you like as well but if you solo travel that totally negates that from being an issue or a conversation another side of solo travel
When it comes to choosing what you want to do is sometimes you're gonna do things that you never even expected when I was on this trip to Australia I ended up going when I was up in the north of the country and Karen's I basically went to one of the Travel Guide trip planners and I was sitting in the chair and I knew I wanted to do a scuba of the Great Barrier Reef I mean like come on of course you got to do that and a snorkel as well but then they said would you be interested in doing a bungee I said yes and I ended up going and doing this bungee
Just being able to decide what you want to do is amazing and really really pretty good awesome number three is sometimes you're actually gonna end up saving money one you can find when the cheapest flight is from wherever to wherever because you're the only one that you have to rely on your schedule that kind of curves back to efficiency and saving money and when it comes to meals and shopping and things like that I definitely eat less and drink less when I'm on my own there is a magic and just waking up having a full breakfast going out and getting after it during the day packing some snacks and coming back and having a dinner and that's usually kind of the routine that I follow when I travel alone
I won't be sitting down having a long lunch or a long dinner and that as well can be so much quicker kind of bringing efficiency back in to saving money on this note as well is that if I'm having a meal I can be like okay yeah I'm just gonna grab this to go and just keep on going or I'm just gonna sit and enjoy and like read or people watch or talk to the person next to me and I don't need to feel worried about the timing of all this whether I'm wasting time because the fact is that when you're traveling alone all of those experiences are wrapped up in your trip you obviously don't want to stay in your hostel the whole time that's not traveling alone that is just being fearful of what lies beyond the front door but taking those small moments by yourself can be really really empowering one of the things
I found when I was as well traveling alone is this is number four you're going to end up talking to people more you're gonna end up talking to locals more you're going to end up talking fellow people on trips more when I did a little catamaran tour it was four days three nights' living on this boat and I ended up meeting these amazing women from the UK and we ended up getting on really well and we're still friends on social media but if I had a friend there maybe I wouldn't have chatted as much with other people now that makes more sense that I probably would have because I would have just been like hey let's all be friends on this trip obviously but in a more minute scenario
I was at one of my hostels in Airlie Beach I ended up meeting this amazing woman from Spain and we chatted for long this one morning over coffee and then she ended up leaving because her trip was still carrying on and I was staying there and there were something magical and I don't I think magical actually is the most amazing word for it but we were sitting there having coffee we're talking about life we were talking about travel we were talking about things in our life and experiences and then she was cut and it was kind of neat just to be like I hope you have a great life and I definitely would not I definitely would not have had that conversation that human connection that moment with that woman
I was with someone else cuz I would have just gone to a breakfast with them and chatted and made our own memories there which would have been great as well but in the cosmic reality of making connections with as many humans as possible in this earth I definitely wouldn't have had that one that was really cool and number five one of the most amazing and thrilling things about traveling on your own and taking a solo adventure and why I think it's so important for personal growth and it certainly was for me is that it is freaking empowering you guys like problem-solving troubleshooting making decisions the empowering note of traveling alone is every single moment of every single day there were definitely moments
Where I got homesick I'm not gonna lie but it was like no I'm here now we're living now and when I go home everything is gonna be the same but I'm gonna be different because I'm gonna be more empowered in my life I remember on my last day of traveling in through Australia I was back in Sydney so I done Brisbane and I'd flown down Sydney and I was actually flying standby so when you fly standby
There's a seat free you get the seat if it's not free you gotta wait till the next flight the flights back from Sydney to Vancouver there was one a day at this time anyways there was only one a day and the benefits of flying standby are it is so much cheaper and because I was flying on my own I had the flexibility of having that schedule so I was like well I might as well just fly standby and get a cheaper flight home
I ended up not getting on the first flight they didn't call my name for a ticket it was absolutely full there were no seats available I had a freaking pity party you guys like my boyfriend at the time bought me a hotel stay that night very close to the airport I did not venture outside I'd been staying at hostels I was like so thrilled to see multiple pillows on my bed but the next day I ended up seeing myself that first day as a girl who just had thought her trip was done and she was just gonna go home she was entitled to get that trip to go home and she didn't need a plan now Amanda the next day was like okay this has already happened to me there is a pretty good possibility that I'm not gonna get on this flight either because I called my dad he's a pilot
He was tracking the flight for me and he said yeah you know what this one's pretty full too you might not get on so I was thinking there's no way I'm gonna have the same day as yesterday I am in Sydney Australia I need to get back out there there are worse places you could be in the world so I end up not getting on that flight either so another whole day swiped by this this plane and so I end up training down to central Sydney found a hostel there it was called wake up it's it's really awesome it's still there and I ended up making my plan that day to go down