There often comes a time in life when you simply need to say goodbye to all the hustle and bustle of your super busy 9 to 5 routine and go on a self-discovering adventure. A large number of people cannot afford to travel while others think it is not necessary. Some seek medical help, while others find happiness in small things. However, there is another powerful way to learn independence and be your own friend: Travelling alone.
We have always been asked or told to do things in a group. Like we should eat our meals with our group, we should go out with our mother and sisters, we like to group chat but nobody ever said that we should sit alone, or we should go out alone. However, living alone or spending some time on your own can be healing. Solo travelling has numerous advantages and it can become of those life-changing experiences as well.
Travelling is a two-way learning method, where you absorb the positivity, you experience new things, you react to nature and you share. But, when you are travelling alone this process intensifies. Want to know? Because you learn a lot of new and strange things about yourself. Travelling alone can unravel a lot of mysteries, answer a lot of questions, and clears a lot of confusion which was impossible in the busy urban routine. This is the time to be YOURSELF!!
Travelling alone can change lives in many ways and here are 5 reasons that HOW it can:
1. How To Value Yourself
When you are travelling alone, you should be all prepared for unplanned situations. Prepare your mind to starve for days if you run out of food, prepare to sleep under the open sky if your sleeping bag is lost, or be prepared to get hurt if you fall in a pit hole. If you are lucky enough to survive these situations, then your mind will not let you rest peacefully. So many questions will pop into your mind that will build a cloud of confusion. Under such circumstances, it is completely understandable why people love to travel in groups rather than solo.
If you want to discover yourself, if you want to value yourself, then solo travelling is recommended. You will be alone all this time, you cannot share or seek advice yet you have to value your decisions because you will be your own boss while travelling alone. You will have to hear the voice in your mind which will constantly nag you throughout the journey. Only like this, you will value yourself, your decisions, your ideas, and anything that you have doubted before.
2. It Teaches How to Be Patient
Nobody wants to wait for the signal to turn green, nobody wants to wait in the queue for long, in short, nobody has the patience. We start shouting in a restaurant because our food is delayed by 5 minutes, we start scolding the delivery guy because we have not received our order yet, we cannot wait for the handicapped guy to completely cross the road and we drive right beside him. BUT WHY? Because we are impatient and we cannot tolerate delays.
The only way to be patient is by going on a solo trip with no friends and no family. This solo trip will be life-changing because you will have to deal with certain situations patiently. Like changing weather, certain delays, lost paths, non-functional hand torches. There will be no one to take your tantrums, you won’t be able to shout at anyone. You will learn to be patient with things that are out of your control. After returning from the trip, you will witness a change in your personality. You will be more patient with certain things in life.
3. Build Kinship With Strangers
When you are travelling with a group, your mind knows that there are people around who can help you when you will get in trouble or you can discuss the next route with them. But when you are travelling alone, you know that there is no one to help you out and you have to step out of your very own bubble.
A famous world traveller Georgia Hopkins is a trained solo traveller and she says that the kinship you make during travelling alone is stronger and lasts long. You meet complete strangers who have a passion like yours and instantly build a long-lasting connection.
“You open yourself up to meeting complete strangers — oftentimes who share a like-minded wanderlust and passion for the world.”
When you are living around your family and friends, you never thought to step out of your bubble and meet and greet strangers. Travelling alone lets you experience this newness which can be life-changing. You connect people from diverse backgrounds, ethnicity, status and you learn a lot.
4. Take Reigns Of Your Independence
There is no doubt that solo travelling can be scary and the idea of going out in mountains and woods all by yourself can be daunting especially for young females. According to a Trafalgar survey, it was found that about 87% of US women were not afraid to travel no matter what going on in the outer world, 73% of women felt that solo travelling made them stronger than before and 69% of women said that they seek inspiration from travelling.
In reality, solo travel allows you to take reigns of your independence. Anyone can hop on a plane and land at an unknown place with their safety in their own hands. Travelling alone makes women empowered because they are not dependent on anyone. Women need to push themselves when travelling alone because their partner won’t be there to hold their hand when they will slip through a puddle or when they will lose their backpack, so they will have to completely rely on themselves and take hold of their own independence.
Travelling alone will reveal the biggest mystery that the best and most interesting person in this world to travel with is YOU, YOURSELF.
5. Not To Be Afraid Of Loneliness
Most of the time we are afraid of being alone. We think that loneliness can be fatal, but it is not the case. Travelling alone teaches you to spend time with yourself. It also teaches you about your rhythm, pace, and preferences which are going to impact every corner of your life. It will show you the true meaning of life and how you should live it. In this busy routine, we rarely find time for ourselves, so this is it, solo travelling gives you this gift.
Your inner demons may haunt you at times but it’s ok. One day when you will master the art of being alone, you can invite those same demons over tea and you can tell them that now you are not afraid of being alone. It will take a lot of time and practice to get used to loneliness but once you will, you will see that nothing is better than to be with yourself.
So, if you were in doubt earlier then these reasons are enough to motivate you for going on a solo trip.
