How to Travel Solo for the First Time — A Guide for the Ones Still Overthinking It

The Google searches I never made before my first solo trip. Consider this your shortcut.

Start easy. The world isn't going anywhere. But you are.

Book the accommodation that lets you actually sleep.

Tell someone everything. And I mean everything.

The less you pack, the more you move.

You will eat alone. It will be fine.

Spend smart, but don't forget to spend.

Meet locals. Yes, through apps.

Get travel insurance. I'm not asking.

Have a plan. But hold it loosely.

Learn a few words in the local language. Just a few.

Get an e-sim before you land. Seriously.

Document everything. Even the boring parts.

The coming home part is weird.

My hands were shaking. Heart so loud it drowned out every rational thought. Laughing, or crying. Maybe both.

I sat staring at my screen the way you stare at something you've just broken on purpose. Because that's what it felt like. Breaking something. Cracking open the sealed-shut life I'd built over two years of a pandemic that made me forget I ever wanted out.

I booked a flight to Europe. Ten cities. Just me.

I ate alone, got lost alone, figured it out alone. I sat in cafés where no one knew my name and somehow felt more like myself than I had in years. Strangers became friends before I even learned their last names. Some of those friendships outlasted the trips that made them.

I am not telling you this to make travel sound like a cure. It isn't. The hard things were still there when I came home after my solo trips. But I came home different every single time. Softer in some places. Braver in others.

And if you've been standing where I stood, wanting to go but held still by something you can't quite name, stay with me. Everything I learned out there, I learned for both of us.

I know the temptation. You've finally decided to go and suddenly your brain says go big or go home. You start looking at flights to places you can barely find on a map, reading about solo treks through mountains, convincing yourself that if you're doing this, it might as well be legendary.

No. Stop.

Those travelers deep in remote villages with nothing but a backpack and an unreasonable amount of confidence? They're incredible. But they weren't that person on trip one. Neither was I. Neither should you be.

Your first solo trip should be forgiving. Somewhere with reliable transport, a language barrier you can survive, and enough fellow tourists that your confused face blends right in.

Think Tbilisi, Yerevan, Baku, Bishkek. Underrated, affordable, and far more welcoming than most people expect. Or go east. Bali, Hong Kong, Hanoi, Taipei. Places where solo travel is practically a lifestyle. And if Europe has been living rent-free in your head, start with Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Lisbon. Familiar enough to feel safe, different enough to feel like an adventure.

The point isn't to impress anyone with your first destination. The point is to come back a different person than the one who almost didn't go.

I'm going to be honest with you. I have spent an embarrassing amount of time on Booking.com comparing two places with a 30-dollar price difference like it was a life-altering financial decision. And you know what I've learned? The cheap one always costs you something else. Sleep. Safety. Sanity. Sometimes all three.

Your accommodation on a solo trip isn't just a bed. It's the only place in a foreign country that belongs to you. The one room where you lock the door, drop your bag, and finally stop being brave after a whole day of navigating the unknown. You need a good place to rest.

So don't book the one with two reviews and photos that look like they were taken in 2009 on a flip phone. Don't book the one that's "only 20 minutes from the city center," because 20 minutes at midnight, alone, in a neighborhood you can't even read the name of, is a completely different 20 minutes.

Book somewhere with real reviews, a host who replies before you land, and a location that doesn't make you nervous after dark.

Hotel, Airbnb, hostel with a private room, it doesn't matter what it is. What matters is that when you close that door at the end of the day, you exhale. Because you're home for the night.

Save the adventurous stays for trip three. Trip one, you sleep well or you enjoy nothing.

Before you leave, pick one person. Your mom, your best friend, that one cousin who watches too many true crime documentaries. Give them the full file. Flights, hotel address, passport copy, phone number abroad. Everything. If you go missing, this person should be able to brief Interpol without hesitation.

I'm not being dramatic. Okay, maybe a little. But I have a group chat that gets my live location every single time I travel solo. They know where I sleep, what I eat, which train I'm on. One time I forgot to update them and woke up to 17 missed calls and a voice note that started with "are you alive."

Is it a lot? Yes. Do I care? Not even slightly. Because that group chat is the reason I walk through foreign cities like I own the place instead of looking over my shoulder every five seconds.

You're not being paranoid. You're being smart. There's a big difference.

Whatever you're thinking of packing right now, take half of it out. Then take out a little more. That third pair of shoes? You won't wear them. That "just in case" outfit? The case will never come. That massive suitcase you're eyeing? Leave it. It will become your enemy the second you hit a cobblestone street or a flight of stairs with no elevator in sight.

I learned this the hard way. I once dragged a suitcase through Austria, Switzerland, and Italy that weighed more than my will to live. By day four I was sweating through a train station wondering why I packed like I was relocating and not vacationing.

Here's the truth nobody wants to hear. You will wear the same three outfits on rotation and nobody, absolutely nobody, will notice or care. You're in a different city every few days. You are your only audience. Just find a laundromat or hand wash in the sink like the rest of us. Your clothes will survive. Your back won't if you overpack.

Pack what you need. Wear what you love. Leave room in your bag for the things you'll buy along the way, because you will.

This is the one that scares people the most. Not the flying. Not the navigating. The sitting in a restaurant by yourself with no one across the table to pretend to be busy with.

I get it. My first solo meal was in Brussels. Escargot. Of all things I could have ordered for my first meal alone, I chose the one that requires a tiny fork and a technique I definitely did not have. I sat there trying to dig the meat out of the shell convinced that every single person in that restaurant was watching me butcher French cuisine in real time. Nobody was. They were too busy with their own plates to care about my war with a snail.

But halfway through the plate, I forgot to be self-conscious. I stopped looking around. I stopped performing for a room that never noticed me in the first place. I started actually tasting what I was eating. And it was good. Really good. Not just the food. The moment. The whole stupid, beautiful moment of sitting in a foreign country, alone, full, unbothered, and realizing I didn't need anyone across the table to make it count.

Bring a book if it makes you feel better the first time. Or your phone. Or nothing. Just sit with it. By the third meal you'll stop feeling weird. By the fifth you'll start choosing it.

You already booked the flight. You already took the days off. You already did the hardest part, deciding to go. So please don't spend the whole trip eating cup noodles in your hotel room like you didn't just fly to another continent.

I'm not saying throw your money around. Be smart. Find the cheap flights. Book accommodation early. Learn where the locals eat instead of where the tourists pay triple for the same plate with a view. Use public transport. Pack lunch for the long travel days.

But when the cooking class shows up, take it. When the local guide offers a walking food tour, go. When that restaurant with the tiny plastic chairs and no English menu smells incredible, sit down and order something you can't even read. When the boat tour is calling your name, get on the boat.

You didn't fly thousands of miles to say no to everything. Your budget spreadsheet won't remember this trip. YOU WILL.

One of the biggest lies about solo travel is that you'll be alone the whole time.

You won't. Not even close.

In Brussels, someone taught me how to eat mussels the Belgian way. That same night we ended up running through cobblestone streets, laughing and a little drunk after too many rounds at Delirium Cafe. In Berlin, I shared German food with a local while we talked about life and love and watched yellow trains pass by like neither of us had anywhere else to be. In Mexico City, someone took me to all the spots I never would have found on my own. In Amsterdam, I had company through the Anne Frank House, the Van Gogh Museum, and a canal cruise that would have been beautiful alone but meant something different with someone beside me.

Bumble BFF, Couchsurfing hangouts, hostel common rooms, even a random conversation at a cafe. There are so many ways to meet people when you travel solo. Some of them became friends. Others became beautiful memories I carry with no name attached. Not everyone you meet is meant to stay. Some people are just meant to make a city unforgettable.

But I need to say this. Trust your gut. Always. If something feels off, it is. Meet in public places. Leave when you want to leave. Being open to people doesn't mean being careless with yourself.

I know. It feels like paying for something you'll never use. Like buying an umbrella on a sunny day. And honestly, you'll probably never use it. But the one time you need it and don't have it, you'll remember this paragraph and wish you'd just done it.

A missed flight. A stolen bag. A hospital visit in a country where you don't even know how to say "my stomach hurts." These things don't happen until they do. And when they do, they don't care that you're on a budget.

Get it. Screenshot the policy number. Save the emergency hotline in your phone. Then enjoy your trip knowing that if something goes sideways, you're covered.

Please have a plan. I'm not one of those "just wing it" people. You're in a country you've never been to, alone, probably still figuring out the public transport. Winging it sounds romantic until you're standing in the middle of a foreign city with no idea where to go next.

So yes, plan. Book your trains. Map your routes. Know what you want to see and when things open and close.

But, and this is important, don't marry the itinerary. Because the weather will change. The train will get cancelled. The street you planned to walk will be blocked for a festival you've never heard of. And you'll be standing there, alone, with a plan that just fell apart in your hands.

Some of my best days happened because the original plan didn't work out. A rained-out afternoon turned into finding a cafe I never would have walked into. A cancelled train rerouted me through a town I didn't know existed. The trip you plan is good. The trip that happens is usually better.

Write it in pencil. All of it.

Not to be impressive. To survive. Hello, thank you, how much, and where is the bathroom. That last one is non-negotiable. That one is a human right.

But don't get cocky. I once tried speaking full Italian in Rome. Full sentences. Hand gestures. The whole performance. Felt like a local. Then they responded. In actual Italian. Fast, aggressive, beautiful Italian. I stood there smiling and nodding like a bobblehead with no battery left. I understood nothing. I may have agreed to a lease. I may have adopted someone's nephew. I genuinely do not know.

Learn enough to get by. Not enough to start a conversation you can't finish.

Of all the tips in this blog, this is the one I wish someone had tattooed on my forehead before my first trip.

You will need internet the moment you land. Not ten minutes later. Not after you find a cafe. The moment your feet hit the airport floor. Because that's when you need to pull up your hotel address, message your host, check your connecting train, and update the group chat before 17 missed calls happen.

Airalo, Holafly, Nomad. Pick one, set it up at home, and forget about it. It activates the second you land. No SIM card shopping. No awkward airport WiFi that loads like it's running on a hamster wheel. No standing at arrivals staring at your phone willing it to connect through sheer desperation.

Easy. Five minutes to set up. And the reason everything else on this list actually works.

Take photos, yes. But also write things down. The name of that restaurant you stumbled into. The joke the waiter made. The way the light looked at 6 p.m. from that corner you almost didn't turn into. The stuff that feels unforgettable in the moment but fades faster than you think.

I journal on every trip. Not beautifully. Not poetically. Just messy, honest, in-the-moment scribbles about what I saw, what I felt, what I ate, who I talked to. And months later, sometimes years, I reread them and find entire moments I would have lost if I hadn't written them down. A conversation I forgot. A dish I can almost taste again just from reading about it. The small things that photos don't catch.

You think you'll remember everything. You won't. Your brain keeps the highlights but drops the details. And the details are where the real trip lives.

So write it down. In a notebook, in your notes app, in a voice memo at 1 a.m. when you can't sleep because you're still buzzing from the day. It doesn't have to be pretty. It just has to exist. Future you will thank you for it.

You spend days, maybe weeks, in a completely different world. You navigate foreign cities alone. You eat alone. You figure things out alone. You become this braver, bigger version of yourself. And then you land back home and your routine is right where you left it, waiting like it didn't even notice you were gone.

Everything is exactly the same. But you're not.

That's the part nobody tells you about solo travel. It doesn't just give you a trip. It gives you a reason to show up on Monday. Because every Monday is one Monday closer to the next adventure.

That's everything. Every wrong turn, every lesson I paid for in embarrassment, every truth I wish someone had grabbed me by the shoulders and said to my face before I had to learn it alone.

Forget courage, curiosity is what matters. You just need enough of it to push past the fear.

And one day you'll be standing in a city where no one knows your name. You'll find your hotel without asking anyone. You'll sit at a table for one and order in a language you barely speak. And at the second glass of wine, you'll catch yourself smiling at nothing, and you'll realize you're not lonely. You're free.

When that happens, I want you to remember right now. This moment. The one where you almost talked yourself out of it.

You were ready long before you found this article.

Now close this tab. Book the flight.

I'll be here when you get back. And you better tell me everything. ♥

If your packing list has a page two, delete page two.

You learn a lot about yourself at a table for one.

The best stories start the moment you stop saying no.

My favorite travel memories don't have a pin on Google Maps. They have a face.

Plans fall apart. Trips don't.

Montezuma's revenge is slang for traveler's diarrhea, the stomach trouble people get when visiting Mexico. The name comes from Montezuma II, the Aztec emperor defeated by the Spanish conquistadors. The joke? Centuries later, he's still getting his revenge — through the food.

Tbilisi, Georgia. Beautiful city, even better food.

My first ever Airbnb as a solo traveler and I hit the jackpot. Six-minute walk from Manneken Pis in Brussels, Belgium, and the hosts were away traveling, so I had their beautiful home entirely to myself for five days. Not a bad start.

Dragging my red suitcase through snowy Stockholm, Sweden.

First solo travel meal: escargot in Brussels, Belgium.

Me saying yes to life: paragliding over stunning Interlaken, Switzerland.

Wine, dough, and a cooking class: learning Albanian cuisine in Tirana.

Survived 3 days of Montezuma's revenge in Mexico City.

Ha Long Bay got cancelled. Which led me to the beauty of Mai Chau, Vietnam.

Went to Mexico City before I even enrolled in a Cervantes-certified Spanish school. How I managed to order all of this in Spanish is still a mystery to me. How I managed to finish it alone is an even bigger one.

Me making friends with wallabies in Ballarat, Australia. Best day ever.

Wheels down, mountains up. Touching down in Tirana, Albania.