Solo Travel | Tips for Your First, or Next, Solo Trip (3/3) | Episode 30

Speaker A: 00:00:02

A solo trip is like a trip to your own mind, in a sense. Welcome back to All About Being Single. Or welcome if you're new here. I'm Wioleta, your host, and I'm very happy that you're listening.

This is a continuation of last week's episode.

So if you haven't yet, go listen to last week's episode and I'll link that episode in the show notes for you so that it's a nice click away if that makes it easier. But so let's go ahead and keep talking about different solo travel tips.

And some of these are very like solo life things, but some of them are just also tips I've learned from just traveling in general. Ideally, you want to arrive to new places when it's light out. I know that always cannot happen.

And I know sometimes, especially nowadays, it feels like flowers. Lights are always late, so you truly never know.

But as always, again with any of this, whether it's this episode or any other episode, take what resonates. Leave the rest. So not everything will apply to everybody. And you don't have to listen to any of this, you don't have to do any of this. But.

And some of these tips just won't seem applicable to you. And I myself have broken some of these in the past, which is also why I have these as rules now. But all I'm saying is just trust your discomfort.

So if something feels off, you know, leave, change plans, spend the extra money, you know, don't over explain yourself. Listen to your intuition over trying to be polite. Because your safety is what's most important.

If you're worried about loneliness, or maybe you even want to just meet more people who might also be traveling solo or just be by themselves, maybe try to book one social activity, whether it's like a walking tour or cooking class or some kind of a group day trip, either way, I still wouldn't tell them that I'm there by myself. I will just mention that I'm separating for the day from whoever I'm with on that trip. That's just something I personally do.

Another one is create small rituals on your trip.

It helps with loneliness and maybe just adding activities and grounding, you know, so it could be like a morning coffee journaling in the hotel lobby, or just maybe at a cute coffee shop nearby, or reading a book or looking at the surroundings at a cafe or Boise, Idaho was actually one of my favorite trips. And Boise, Idaho was so much nicer than what a lot of people think Boise is, I think.

And I definitely Got to spend a lot of time just in the hotel lobby looking out at like the beautiful mountains in the background and just eating my breakfast super slowly and just journaling a little bit and just thinking and reflecting on my life. Or it could be maybe walks around town with no purpose or with a purpose, whatever.

But basically every new place I know I go to, I purchase something for my house at. Something that has no mention of the name of the place, but that I know I can place in my house. So that's a ritual that I have.

Like I always have to walk into a gift shop of some sort. At least one. Sometimes it's more. And I usually spend a lot of time in that gift shop trying to figure out what I'm going to purchase.

Then I purchase it. But so that's like a ritual that I do have for my trips, whether it's solo or with other people. And I usually do take my time.

So it's like a pretty big part of my trip every trip. Maybe send one photo to a friend or a family member daily.

That could be a ritual or it might be just writing one, like reflection per night, you know, Especially if it's your solo trip to just kind of remember how it went much better than you thought it would. Because I promise you it will go much better than you thought it would. This one's about food.

If you're going to ask for food recommendations, I highly recommend not asking Google or Yelp or whatever. I highly recommend.

I highly recommend asking locals for food recommendations because I know that those have been the best food places that I've eaten at is by just listening to locals tell me where to go eat. The last one I'm going to leave you with. Just live girl or guy, whoever's listening to this. Leave room for the magic. Basically.

I think that the best moments from the solo trips I have taken are from just talking to random single strangers, honestly, and just getting a little bit lost and changing plans last minute and just living life on my own damn terms only. Only on my terms.

Like I know on my New York City trip, two out of like the three day, like the two mornings that I spend there, I took my sweet ass time. And I actually normally the hotels that I stay at do not have a good view. But because this was in Manhattan, my views were beautiful.

So I didn't care as much about like leaving the hotel. I mean, I did still care about leaving the hotel. I don't want to just spend my whole trip in the hotel.

But like I literally took like three hours just getting ready and walking out the door. And it was nice. It was nice that I didn't have to, like, rush to go do something that somebody else wanted to do. I didn't have to be anywhere.

Like, I did not over plan. Which is again why I highly recommend not over planning.

Like, I knew what I was going to do each one of those days, but I didn't have any, like, set set plans. So I was able to just get up and go and move around when I wanted to.

Or like when I was in London, I took like a billion selfies by the London Bridge. I still don't like any of them, but either way, I took my time because I was able to. Okay.

And for the Hill Al Dayan, I truly believe that a solo trip is like a trip to your own mind in a sense. Like, I think because there's so much time for reflection, you have so much time with yourself in a different place in this world.

You learn so much more about yourself than I think you do at any other point in your life. Which is why I highly recommend going on a solo trip at least once in your life to learn things about yourself that you didn't even think you knew.

And the note to self for today is what's an unusual trip tip that you have that maybe most people don't think about? I would love to hear what you guys have to say. And I know obviously I've given you quite a few over the last few episodes.

For those of you who are new here, I dance as a little break while I'm recording these because I do believe in dancing every day.

And that kind of gives you a little bit of time to either think about this note to self question that I give you or to dance with me, whatever works for you.

But anyhow, once we come back from the break, I'm not going to give you my weird, you know, trip tip because I've given you so many over the throughout the last few episodes. But I do believe that I've given you some weird ones or ones you maybe haven't thought about. Okay? And for the glow up.

And this one again, applies a little bit more to those of you who haven't taken a solo trip. But what I would highly recommend is maybe coming up with a goal of how many people you're going to try to start a conversation with on this trip.

And it could just be once, okay, whatever solo trip you take next. So if you've already taken a solo trip just, just for your next solo trip.

But if you haven't taken a solo trip for the solo trip that you have been planning since a few episodes ago that we talked about. Or maybe you've just been planning one for years and you just haven't taken one.

Whatever the case might be, think about how many people you are going to try to start a conversation with. And it could just be saying, hi, how are you?

It could be asking somebody to take your picture on a trip and it could just be just once on the entire trip. Or maybe your goal is once each day. Whatever the case may be, just come up with. Just come up with a number. Okay, that's your. That's the glow up.

Because I do believe starting conversations in unfamiliar places also helps you grow so much as a single person and as a person in general. Just having the skill of starting conversations I think is a skill and it's a skill worth learning. As always, thanks so much for listening.

If this episode resonated with you, please take a moment now and just share it with somebody that you know whom it might also help. I really appreciate that and I appreciate you listening. And as always, remember, even if we're late, we're right on time.

If you, if you've never taken a solo trip, you're not behind. It just hasn't been your time. I will talk to you next Tuesday, Sam.