How to Travel Alone (and Not Cry in a Confusing Subway...But If You Do, That’s Also Fine)

Notes on solo travel, feminine risk, awkward empowerment, and the quiet magic of wanting more.

I booked the trip because I needed to see “the world”. Or plot an escape. Or develop a plot point. I told myself I was doing it for the growth. The freedom. The adventure.
But really, I wanted proof. Proof that I could do something bold and self-actualized, even though I still Google “fun things to do alone without looking weird.” And yeah, I also wanted a photo of me holding a spritz and looking unfazed in front of an old building. Who doesn’t.

The Fantasy vs. The Fight-or-Flight

Everyone romanticizes solo travel until you’re standing in an unfamiliar airport bathroom, trying to remember how to unlock your suitcase without crying. The first few hours alone in a new place are weirdly loud. You’re hyper-aware of your limbs. Your shoes feel wrong. You can’t find a grocery store. You’ve never felt more capable and more feral. Every street feels like a test. Every quiet dinner, a pop quiz on self-worth.

Solo travel, for women especially, is sold as the ultimate empowerment flex. A "you go girl" move. A soft-lit story for your future memoir. And it can be…But it’s also this strange mix of fear and freedom. Of learning how to order food in a language you don’t know and then sitting with the ache of wishing someone were there to laugh with you about it. It’s courage in comfortable shoes and mild nausea. It’s being alone in public and realizing there are only strangers to share this moment with. And grappling with how that makes you feel.

The internet tells us solo travel is the ultimate flex. That you’ll discover something ancient in yourself after 48 hours in Lisbon and three oysters. That if you eat pasta alone in Italy, you’ll magically become a woman with a skincare line and emotional closure. But what if the transformation is… quieter?

What if the actual win is surviving a confusing train transfer? Or navigating a dinner reservation solo without pretending to be on the phone? What if you don’t come back with a tattoo and a breakthrough, just a little more trust in your ability to keep showing up? There’s no montage music. Just you. Trying. Again and again. And sometimes, screaming into your elbow because you’re utterly overwhelmed halfway across the world.

Which, frankly, is iconic.

Let’s talk about the unglamorous side of solo travel: logistics. The logistics Goblin is real. The errands of adventure. The bone-dry, spirit-cracking tasks you must complete before you can feel transcendent in your wide-legged pants. You will spend 45 minutes comparing SIM card plans with the intensity of a war general. You will pack outfits for seven emotional climates and still forget pajamas. You will download five translation apps and still mime “tampon” in a pharmacy like it’s a cursed game of charades. This is part of it. It’s not a failure of the dream, it is the dream. The dream just wears compression socks and sometimes cries in public.

The trip doesn’t need to be perfect. You don’t need to have the best meal of your life or discover a hidden cove only locals know about. Maybe you eat a weird sandwich alone on a bench and journal something mid. Maybe your highlight is learning how to navigate a foreign grocery store without imploding. And maybe, wild thought, you don’t share any of it. Maybe you just let the experience live in your chest like a little glowing secret. Travel doesn’t need to be a spectacle to be sacred. Your proof of life is enough. You’re the main character because you said so, not because the algorithm approved the reel.

Feminine Risk and the Awkward Glory of Being Seen Alone

There’s something deeply gendered about being visibly alone. Solo travel as a woman is low-key political. It’s a rejection of the idea that you need to be chosen to have a story worth telling. It’s saying, “This moment is enough. I am enough. Even if I feel entirely emotionally exposed and I’m sweating through my linen.” It’s choosing presence over palatability. Not needing to be part of someone else’s timeline in order to live a good story.

The gorgeous picture of you at sunset? You took 43 versions. You were nervous. You almost got hit by a bike. The museum tour? You cried in the restroom after a portrait reminded you of your mother. Or your ex. Or a version of yourself you forgot you missed. You don’t need to pretend it was all soft breezes and Aperol. You’re not curating a character, you’re archiving a life. Your solo travel doesn’t need to be profound. It just needs to be yours.

So, Here’s How to Travel Alone (and Not Cry in a Restaurant)

• Don’t wait to feel ready. You won’t. Go anyway.

• Don’t wait for someone else; they probably won’t be ready either.

• Choose the table by the window. You’re not being watched. You’re witnessing.

• Choose a seat at the bar. You will make conversation with a stranger. They may become a friend or a lover.

• Pack electrolyte tablets, comfortable shoes, a paper copy of your passport and a power adaptor. You will need them.

• Write the address of your hotel in the local language. On paper. Your phone will die, and you will look like a Victorian orphan trying to mime “I’m lost.” JIC Pin your hotel on Google Maps before you go out. Bonus: drop a pin at the grocery store, pharmacy, and nearest café with Wi-Fi.

• Bring earplugs and a sleep mask. Hostels lie. Your room is next to a street performer with a maraca and a dream. Always bring a luggage lock.

• Have a screenshot folder with your passport, travel insurance, and any booking confirmations. Also: emergency contacts w/country codes. If you’re anal like me you’ll make paper copies of everything.

• Pack a tiny sealable tote. You will buy a stupid ceramic thing. You will need to carry it like a baby across three cities. Protect against pickpockets (they’ll want your wallet, not the ceramic thing).

• Learn one phrase that means “no, thank you” and one that means “where is the bathroom.” Together, these form the backbone of all feminist foreign policy.

• Eat something small before you attempt public transit. Hunger and confusion are not friends. They are chaotic co-workers.

• Have at least two international cards. One lives in your bra or a shoe or a tampon box. Because the universe loves to test someone with frozen cards at the worst possible time. Let your bank know where you’ll be before you leave.

• Double check your visa requirements months ahead of time.

• Be a little delusional. Smile at people. Pretend you’re mysterious. Walk like you have a secret. Say yes to the hostel excursions. Go off on your own when they get too ridiculous.

• Create a “Just in Case” pouch: safety pin, band-aid, extra earring back, breath mint, Ibuprofen, and one weird trinket that reminds you of home. Trust me.

• Walk five minutes past the first tourist-heavy strip. Your lunch will be €4 cheaper, and the waiter might flirt with you instead of rushing your bill.

• Learn how to say “Can I sit here?” in the local language. It unlocks wine bars, secret courtyards, train station benches, and (sometimes) your own personal movie scene. Say thank you in the local language, even if you butcher it.

• Romanticize the awkward. The wrong turns. The slightly-too-long walks. The weird bread. Give yourself time in between stops. This shit is exhilarating and tiring.

• Say hello. Ask questions. See where the night takes you. You don’t have to be the “____” you were back home.

Because sometimes bravery isn’t jumping out of a plane. It’s going to a new place alone. With your shoulders back. And your heart cracked open just enough to let the world in. You did not come here to be polished. You came to be present. And maybe get a little lost. You’re doing it right, because you’re doing it.

xo, Sofia