What Travelling Alone Taught Me
You’ll find thousands of helpful articles telling you why taking a solo trip is the best thing you could do for yourself. The trip is usually spurred on by a terrible breakup, existential crisis and the horrific downpour of “realisations” that are showered on you after the needle moves past 25 in the form of mini hail stones of despair.
2016 was the best year of my life. I didn’t have a break up, I wasn’t really having an existential crisis and sure, while those “realisations” had slowly started trickling in, the full force of it hadn’t engulfed me just yet. In theory, I didn’t really need to do a solo trip to “find myself”. It was merely a promise I had to fulfill. I had promised myself that it would be the best year I ever had and I kept it.
Plan The Best You Can
No brainer, right? Well, guess what? No matter how much you plan, something will always go wrong. I planned my month long Europe trip to every tiny detail. It was a foolproof excel sheet that was a frikkin' work of art. Everything about my trip was flawless until an airline lost my bag.
What Went Wrong: I stepped out of Berlin airport (the final destination on my solo backpacking trip) with a sling bag, my passport and the clothes I was wearing. The airline didn’t load the entire plane’s luggage from Florence and I was left with the hope that someday, I would be united with my 14 kg backpack of memories I had been lugging around for a month.
How to Handle It: Firstly, don’t panic. What a stupid piece of advice you say? Well, not panicking is the only thing that’s going to keep you sane. Trust me, the pandemonium that was brewing inside me was gruesome. I did the best I could — gave them 3 different addresses and 3 different numbers in the hope that I’d get it. Countless calls and hate messages to Vueling later, Emirates came to my rescue — I got it back!
TL;DR: Budget airlines are great for Europe but do not ever fly Vueling. They don’t care.
You’ll Never Really Be “Alone”
One of the main reasons I was so excited to travel alone was because I’d get to be alone, explore alone, eat alone and do things at my leisure. That being said, I met some wonderful people in every place I visited — purely out of chance. I became best friends with a delightful 70 year old Frenchman when we both missed our connecting TGV, my Airbnb host in France met me in Barcelona and showed me around the city, I had a great evening with a stranger sitting next to me at a restaurant in Florence; we walked around the city with gelato, had the best conversations and he worked with Justin Trudeau! I didn’t plan it but here’s a little heads-up, you’ll never be alone and no matter how much you say you want to be, you’ll love these random people who meander into your plan and they’ll be pretty amazing.
AirBnb All the Way
I get that most solo travelers prefer hostels because you get to “meet people” and they’re so “budget friendly”. If like me, you hate small talk, would rather keep to yourself and prefer wandering alone, throw in a few more euros and just get an AirBnb, man! It has been an integral part of pretty much every trip I’ve done and with that, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting wonderful hosts and the experience of living with a local has been something else.
Things To Keep In Mind Before Booking Your AirBnb:
- Check how close it is to places you think you’ll frequent. If it seems really great and is about 20–30 minutes away from the main centre but the public transport is really sorted, then go for it.
- Check how far your AirBnb is from your train station or airport — I used Rome2rio for this — it even shows you how much it costs to travel, segregated by mode of transport. It’s a great website to keep a tab on your travel budgets.
- Reviews do matter and Airbnb takes its review process very seriously. Read a bit about what people have said about the place and you’ll get a better idea on which host to pick.
- In case you’re using AirBnb for the first time, make sure you have entered details about yourself in your profile. Most Airbnb hosts have a “Request to book” option — which means they will review your profile before they accept.
- Look out for ‘Super Host’ tags — these hosts go the extra mile for you and since you’re travelling alone, you want to make sure that the people you’re living with are fantastic.
Here are the places I was lucky enough to live in — each host was wonderful and went out of their way to make my trip memorable.
Flights Are The Best Way To Travel Within Europe
After a lot of contemplation and researching, I realised that flights were the best way to travel within Europe while backpacking.
- They were cheaper
- They saved time (even though they’re located away from the city, it’s incredibly convenient to travel to the airport from most European cities)
- Budget airlines are perfect for backpackers — most of the flights allowed cabin baggage so I didn’t have to lug my huge bag around!
Budget airlines that are great:
Air France — This airline can’t really be considered ‘budget’ but I was very lucky to get a super cheap flight from Paris to Barcelona. So could you! Not only was the flight wonderful, but they also served snacks!
RyanAir — Very professional and you get what you pay for — just be sure to read everything you’re booking before you do. If you think your free cabin baggage might exceed 7 kgs, just buy the extra add on to check your luggage in — it’s not expensive and it will save you the trouble of getting delayed at the airport because they’re not tolerant to luggage that exceeds the weight limit. Since August last year though, they’ve implemented new rules.
Budget airline to avoid:
Vueling — I mentioned this earlier but unless you want your luggage to never reach you, potentially ruin your vacation or not have any clothes or underwear for days, do not fly this airline.
Helpful websites for finding the cheapest mode of transport within Europe:
Goeuro — This compares flight, train and bus — mapping out time, convenience and cost for you perfectly.
Rome2Rio — This gives you an approximate cost of travelling within the city too! So, I knew exactly how much it would cost me from the airport to my AirBnb and what was the best way to get there.
Data Wasn’t A Big Dilemma
Just get data plans worth €10, this easily lasts you 3 days with heavy usage. If you get calling included, it gets more expensive. There’s WiFi pretty much everywhere -WhatsApp call! Make sure you carry identity proof whenever you’re getting a sim card and visit independent phone/photocopy shops — they’re more helpful. Also, in case you choose to use one sim card in multiple countries within Europe, you won’t have to bear any roaming charges. Pretty cool, right? If you need more details to decide, this article is pretty helpful.
An Itinerary Is A Great Idea
While I didn’t intend to be a travel nazi and stick to this itinerary I had built for myself, just knowing what all I would like to see, eat, drink and discover did help. I love making extensive spread sheets before I travel because it’s a wonderful way to document your trip.
What I’d Recommend: Use Google Drive for different sections. Have a spreadsheet with all the details of your flights and stay. This way, it’s very easy to access all of this at a glance, wherever you are. You can also have a different sheet for places you’d like to visit and why — so it’s easier for you to prioritise in case you’re crunched for time (which you definitely will be)
If You Love To Eat, Walking Around Or Cycling Helps
I’m a tiny person so when I went out, I could only eat for one person. That was incredibly frustrating because I couldn’t try everything I wanted to! I began walking or cycling a lot — this way I could cover more things to see and I used to get magically hungry pretty soon! Most European countries are wonderful to cycle through and I’d highly recommend sightseeing on a bike!
Treat Yourself To Great Food
Even though I was on a budget, I made sure to treat myself at a really nice restaurant in every city I visited. Eating alone at a bad ass restaurant in a foreign country? Truly, no better feeling.
You Will Learn To Embrace How You Really Feel About Yourself
This is the most important one of them all. I don’t think I can explain how amazing it felt to be doing all these things by myself. I’ve always been independent but the rush I felt while planning every single detail from scratch and enjoying every moment of it by myself, is something I will always cherish. I ate alone, explored alone and I can’t even begin to tell you how liberating that felt. It made me really like myself more and I think that’s an amazing start to having a healthy relationship with yourself.
Make 2018 the year you’ll follow through on all the promises you made to yourself. Do that solo trip, spend time with yourself and grab this year by its metaphorical balls cause you’re going to be unstoppable!
Disclaimer: All images in this post belong to Michelle Varghese
