Travel Solo

Minette Yu
Jul 27, 2017 · 3 min read

Sometimes I like traveling by myself better than traveling with another person or a group. For example, if I don’t want to coordinate traveling with another person, if I feel like stepping outside of comfort zone, and if I just want to spend some time doing some self-reflection, I often choose the solo option, buy a plane ticket, and just go. Solo traveling has its own pros and cons.

I’ll start with the cons first. The most challenging aspect of traveling alone is, it could mean many meals eaten by yourself at a restaurant. I once overheard a conversation between an old couple sitting not too far from me, and I was flattered to learn that I was the subject of their conversation. The man said “She probably ran away from home”. And the woman said “No, I think she just broke up with her boyfriend”. That was very entertaining to hear.

For a lot of people, eating alone at a restaurant is a very daunting thing to do. There is still some social stigma associated with eating alone. People are afraid of being alone and of looking like they don’t have anybody. Some skip the prospect of eating alone altogether by ordering takeout, so they won’t be seen eating alone by the outside world. And there are the others brave enough to be seen eating alone, but they try to look busy by reading on the phone, reading a book, or having a fake conversation on the phone. Eating a meal is a social experience, so eating by yourself when traveling can be quite intimidating. To this day I still avoid going to nice sit-down restaurants and having a three-hour tasting menu alone, and instead prefer the fast casual ones, because I know I won’t be the only one there by themselves.

Aside from eating alone, concerns for safety are always near the top of my mind . I have to pick a place that’s known to be safe. I took a women’s self defense class in college in preparation for my future solo trips, and that was a lot of fun. We were in the basement of a random building, and had us say “NO” extremely loudly while doing boxing jabbing motions. So we went “No! No! No!” while jabbing. We looked like a bunch of crazy people.

When I travel by myself I tend to stay in hostels so that i can meet new people. One time I stayed in a “mixed” dormitory at a hostel, thinking that it’ll be a mix of guys and girls. I walked into the room, and saw three guys perched on their bunk beds. “Hi…” I waved at them awkwardly. I was truly scared for a few seconds. I was in an unfamiliar place, sharing a room with three guys. In my head I was going over all the different defense moves I had learned, and i felt an adrenaline rush. I was ready to fight. The stay went smoothly, but I learned my lesson that “mixed” dorms really means all guy dorms. From then on I only stay in all female dorms.

Traveling alone as a female does have its pros, which is people tend to be nicer to you. I was in Paris two years ago, and did not find the Parisians there to be arrogant at all. In fact, the waiters at the restaurants were quite nice to me and let me finish ordering food in broken French. That blew my mind. Though I came ready for some snobbery, so I was a little let down by how nice they are.

Another upside to traveling alone is that I am more open to making new friends. When i travel with another person or a group, I tend to socialize just within the group and seldom go out of my way to befriend a fellow traveler. I still remember when i was in Korea, I used a service that pairs me with a Korean college student who wants to learn English, and we bought some delicious Korean fried chicken, sat by a river, drank some beer, and had a deep conversation. I still think that was cool.

I have just impulsively purchased a round trip ticket to Berlin over the thanksgiving week, and I’ll be going there solo again. I’ll give a speech on that experience when I come back. Stay tuned, everyone.

Minette Yu

Written by

product manager turned entrepreneur | avid traveler

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