We’re over the moon to be able to encourage and inspire women to travel the world, whether or not they have a partner to see it with. But as with some things in life, some travelers form an elitist attitude about traveling solo—you either do it, or you’re not doing it right.
Today I wanted to write this post to disagree. What’s really important isn’t whether you’re traveling alone or traveling with a group—what’s important is that you GO.
When you make the decision to change your life and travel, you inherently start to learn more about who you are. You’re faced with challenges, which you then have to navigate around.
The Hard
Picture this: it’s 3 am and your bus is dropping you off at the “bus stop”—a sign on the side of the highway in Uruguay (this is a true story, can you tell?)
Your hotel is somewhere in the nearest town, a 20 minute walk from where you stand. Your driver points you in the right direction. Do you cower at the thought of walking alone at night? Do you find a gas station to sit in until the sun comes up? Do you ask other people at the bus stop for help? Or do you put on your backpack and walk?
There’s no right or wrong answer here, this is just a sample of an experience you might have when traveling solo. Do you think you could handle that? Of course you can!
And as you find yourself overcoming these challenges, you start to realize how strong and capable you really are, and it pushes you to do more and more in life.
But before any of that fun transformation stuff happens, there’s usually fear. So let’s talk about that.
The Good
It’s scary to get out there and travel, whether you’re going for a week or a few months or a year. We’re sometimes told that we can’t go places, that it’s irresponsible of us to leave behind our jobs and our responsibilities for the purpose of seeing the world.
I’m here to tell you it’s not. It’s taken me years to stop feeling guilty about traveling—I was always worried about the burden I would be placing on my co-workers who’d have to cover my shifts, or my roommates who’d have to make sure the bills were paid, or my boyfriend who’d have to manage without me.
But sod it.
I can’t live my life in fear of what the impact my decision to travel has on other people,
because I know the impact it has on me is much greater.
The Take Away
If you’ve never traveled before, I want you to know it’s totally 100% okay to travel with a friend, or with a group, for your first few trip. Hell, it’s totally 100% to travel with a group forever if that’s how you feel most comfortable experiencing the world. The most important thing is that you actually go.
Book that trip. Start planning that adventure. Travel with a tour company if you need to. There are several different companies that offer women’s tours—we have a company that does this also (Damesly).
Don’t let the elitists scare you away from pressing the “book” button. Press it, and go!
