Solo-travelling is a means to liberate yourself from common world problems and stressors.
You would agree when you relate all your travelling plans as a break or recess from daily life.
But there’s even more significance to travelling alone regularly and safely during and after the pandemic.
Before heading to this article, I am assuming that all the safety and cleanliness measures will be followed by you whenever you travel or wherever you travel.
Also, try to make travel plans when the pandemic is a little less scary.
Anyways, moving ahead, let’s introduce you to the fantastic ways solo-travelling changes your mindset and lifestyle.
1. You learn to respect the resources at hand
While travelling alone, you are never sure when you will run out of resources like:
- Money
- First-aid kit or medical supplies
- Water
- Food
- Travelling accessories like clothes, sunglasses, sunscreens, etc.
Hence, you are always on your toes to make the best use of each resource available at your hand.
This makes you a better, responsible, and independent person.
You will realize every day how to make your solo trip worthwhile even with limited resources.
2. You learn to plan ahead
Solo-travelling is not a joke if you plan to go out for a long time or to a farther location from your home.
When you do so, you will eventually need to start thinking about how to fulfil your daily needs:
- Food
- Accommodation
- Finance
- Places to visit
For this, you will learn to place in advance. Otherwise, you will have to sort to things like:
- Hitchhiking
- Asking for help
- Taking up part-time jobs in an alien country or state
- Resorting to begging and borrowing – in extreme conditions
While planning, you might begin doing so 6 months to 1 year prior to your trip.
However, it depends on the longevity and complexity of your solo journey.
You will be planning to:
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Get a regular source of income while in the new place.
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Prepare a solo-travelling fund 1 year or 6 months prior to the exact date of making the trip.
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Knowing everything common and uncommon about the new place where you’re headed.
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Know about the travel scams at the targeted place to guard yourself when you are there.
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Get a city and country map of the new location.
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Travel light with all the necessary items if you are planning to move around a lot.
3. You learn about different cultures and natives
There is so much to know and learn about different people living in other countries and regions.
If you are keen on knowing about humanity, human behaviour, beliefs, ethics, and values, solo-travelling is the best guide for you.
It teaches you to deal with people belonging to different cultures, ethnicities, religions, regions, and nations (while travelling out of your home country).
And when you are travelling alone to know these people and their minds, you will widen the horizon of your perspective of life.
You become wiser, genuine, and more down-to-earth.
In brief, you actually start caring about humanity, and the development of all.
For many people, solo-travelling can be an eye-opener to see the ground reality of those living around or farther from us.
You see the naked and raw version of the struggles and success of others, free from any political agenda or interference.
4. You get to learn new languages
This is an interesting fact. If you love learning new things, solo trips will be pretty exquisite for you.
Every day on a journey you take by yourself, you get to know something new.
This includes learning the languages of the natives.
You can live, work, eat, and spend extended hours with natives of a new place (city, state, or country).
Then, you eventually pick up their slang. Finally, you start talking in their language too.
And it’s quite fun when you learn even more strange, uncommon, and difficult language.
5. You discover a lot about yourself
While living a regular life, we often lose ourselves competing against others for a better income and status.
But when you go on multiple solo trips, you discover your true nature.
You will meet very difficult, uncommon, rare, or common challenges while travelling by self.
You will only depend on your instincts, knowledge, and skills. This will enhance your observation of the world that goes and lives around you.
Hence, you will get to know how you respond, react, and perceive different situations when you’re practically alone.
However, it's challenging for those who are physically weak, mentally unaware, and low in resources.
So, as a safety measure, you should begin a self-discovery experience with short and easy solo trips.
By doing so, you can go back to your home whenever you feel you cannot do it anymore.
Once knowledgeable enough, you can start planning for a longer, more difficult, and slightly complex solo trip away from home.
6. You learn to be mentally and physically active
Solo-travelling can be hectic as it demands you to walk alone.
That happens for long hours when you want to go on a trek, hike, or save conveyance cash.
To enable yourself for long trips by yourself, you have to exercise daily when at home.
This makes your body physically fit to travel to higher altitudes and at steep locations by yourself.
Moreover, to avoid getting worked-up by fatigue, you will give more importance to sleeping and waking up on time.
References
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/monicahoughton/2017/09/15/why-everyone-should-travel-solo-at-least-once/?sh=1cb416ab495c
- https://www.insightguides.com/inspire-me/blog/benefits-of-solo-travel
- https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/six-things-solo-alone-travel-teaches-you
- https://www.lifehack.org/395020/10-benefits-of-travelling-alone
ABOUT OUR STAR AUTHOR
Nilakshi Garg is a well-known author of a contemporary romance novel called "Mirage".
The book has bagged 50k downloads all over India since its launch in January 2020. Nilakshi is also an owner of a pop-culture website called Popularity.world.
She is a guest blogger and a self-employed who indulges herself in writing scripts for short movies/ series, and versatile content for other websites or bloggers on any niche with proper research and command. .