Bravo you! I am a 52YO single solo permanent traveler, writing this comment from Vienna. Going to Istanbul end of the week.

Solo travel offers up opportunities to meet new people from different walks of life, like you experienced, every day. I find it makes me more humble and compassionate—and more aware of how much we’re all basically made from the same hopes and fears in one world, together.

There’s an amazing tradition of solo travel in history, pilgrims, explorers, and adventurers—we seemed to have forgotten how much history, literature, and philosophy was written by solo travelers.

Despite it now being so much easier (and safer).

Hopefully everyone will realize they can, at any age and for any reason, get lost in the world alone.

Good news for the faint of heart: mobile devices have GPS that work without a SIM, so you can feel free to get lost and still know precisely where you are.