You meet amazing people

When you travel alone, you are forced to meet new people. Sometimes if you are traveling with a friend, you will just sit and talk to them the whole time. When you travel solo, it pulls you out of your comfort zone and makes you say hi to that person sitting next to you. Even after just a short time together, you can develop deep and lasting friendships based on your shared experiences.

You don’t follow any schedule

When you’re traveling alone, you are free to stay out as late as your want, or wake up as early as you want. Everyone has slightly different biorhythms. Some people are early birds and others are night owls. When you’re alone, you don’t have to follow anyone else’s schedule but your own.

You learn to make your own decisions

When you solo travel, you have the final say in everything and make all of the decisions. If there’s a mistake, it’s your fault. There is no one to blame if things go wrong. It is the ultimate form of accountability. No more, “Well, I don’t know. What do you want to do?” The buck stops at you.

You get alone time to reflect

If you’re like me, you need time to yourself every day to recharge your batteries. If you’re traveling with friends, it can be hard to get time for yourself when you are practically glued to each other 24 hours a day. When you’re walking down the streets of Venice by yourself and you take in the beauty in silence, you will thank me.

You inspire people

People you meet on the road sometimes act like it’s some superhuman feat to travel alone. But when you actually travel alone, you’ll realize that it’s not at all as crazy or dangerous as it seems. Who knows, maybe you’ll even inspire someone to do the same!

You defy gender stereotypes

So many girls tell me, “That’s okay for you, but it’s not safe for girls to do it.” This is absolutely not true. There is no question that it can at times be more risky, but that shouldn’t stop you. I know so many girls who have traveled alone. I know girls who hitch hike. I know a girl who spent two years traveling the world alone and went to 103 countries. She went to all the -istan countries of Central Asia by herself. And she’s been a huge inspiration to me!

You get invited to more things

If you meet a group of people and they learn that you are traveling alone they will be much more likely to ask you to join them. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve joined another group and made great friends. If you are in a big group of people, this doesn’t happen as often.

You don’t have to make compromises

Everyone has slightly different tastes when traveling. Some people like visiting museums and churches. Other prefer fine dining and cocktail bars. When you travel with someone, you often have to make compromises when making plans. In the end, you will have to do some things you don’t want to do. But when you travel alone, you have absolute freedom to do whatever you want.

You don’t fight with anyone

I’ve listed many reasons that you could disagree with a travel partner. But I haven’t spoken about the consequences. When two people have different agendas and different expectations from a trip, it can lead to friction. Sometimes I meet two people traveling together and as soon as one of them leaves the room, the other will badmouth them. It can even destroy otherwise healthy friendships.

You will have more adventures

One of the biggest misconceptions is that travel = adventure. But not all travel is created equal. Most people do what I would call sightseeing. Which is fine. But it’s not adventure.

People always say they want more adventure in their lives, but they don’t understand the word. Adventure is not planned. Adventure is not on a Bucket List.

Adventure is an uncomfortable and unexpected experience, which forces you to confront obstacles, and makes you grow as a human being.

And there’s no better way to do that than to travel alone.