Solo Travel: Escaping Your Comfort Zone

Our comfort zone is a place where you feel safe and comfortable, but growth and progress, and especially solo travel, often require leaving that place behind. In this article we will take a look at ways to escape your comfort zone, ideas to ease into solo travel, as well as the benefits gained when travelling alone.

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For those of you who have never travelled alone, remember you have to learn to walk before you can run. Solo travel is much like training for a marathon, you have to take it just one step at a time.

“Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere” – Mae West

How To Escape Your Comfort Zone and Travel Solo Like A Pro

Solo travelling can be daunting and intimidating for those of you who have never ventured out on your own before. 

Start Small

For those of you who have never travelled alone, remember you have to learn to walk before you can run. Solo travel is much like training for a marathon, you have to take it just one step at a time. Visiting a place on your own that you’re already familiar with is a great place to start, even if it’s being a tourist in your hometown.

New Activity Or Hobby

Doing something you’ve never done before, like taking a cooking class or learning a new language, can help you challenge yourself and develop a new skill.

Meet New People

Strike up a conversation with someone new, attend a networking event, or join a social group. Meeting new people can help you to gain new perspectives, and help you feel comfortable in a crowd of strangers.

Face Your Fears

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Identify something that scares you and makes you feel uncomfortable, and take steps to overcome it. Whether it’s public speaking, skydiving, or just having a difficult conversation with someone, once you do it, you will feel an immense sense of accomplishment.

Change Your Routine

Trying a new route to work, rearranging your workspace, or taking a different approach to a project can help you break out of your routine and experience things in a new way. Solo travel requires adaptability which changing your routine will help you to accomplish

Remember, escaping your comfort zone is not always easy and can be stressful, but the benefits can be worth it. By taking some small steps, you can start to challenge yourself and grow in new ways.

Ways To Prepare For Travelling Alone

When preparing to travel alone, it’s not necessary, nor even recommended, to travel abroad on your first solo trip. Remember take small steps to ease yourself out of your comfort zone.

To help you get started to preparing for travelling alone, here are a few simple ideas:

• visit your favourite local weekend destination. You may even already have a favourite hotel or B & B that you like to stay at. This is even better, as the fear of solo travel is the unknown and a familiar place is a good place to start, so book it!
• do your research to determine what your destination has to offer. Whether it be cute little shops, wineries, cycling tours along a river, be sure you create an itinerary. If you don’t do this, you will find yourself sitting in a room alone trying to figure out what you want to do, all while feeling sorry for yourself. This defeats the purpose of travelling solo.
• If you don’t feel comfortable stepping out on your own, book a tour with a group.  This is also a great way to meet other travellers.
• Even after a decade of travelling solo, I still find meal time the most intimidating.  There are ways to get around this.  If you don’t feel comfortable eating at a restaurant alone, grab some food to go (make sure that it’s healthy), or hit the nearest grocery store and pick up some snacks.  If you really want to escape your comfort zone, the following can make eating alone easier for you:
  1. sit in a corner of the restaurant against a wall.  This is also a good idea for safety, so that you can see what is happening around you;
  2. sit at the bar and chat up the bartender
  3. bring a book or newspaper with you to read while you are waiting for your food;
  4. scroll through your phone
  5. this is a good time to journal your travels

The more often you take that step on your own, the easier it will become to escape your comfort zone and you will then be ready for that first big trip abroad and to travel solo like a pro.

Benefits of Solo Travel

Once you decide to escape your comfort zone into the world of solo travel, you will be surprised to learn the any benefit of travelling by yourself, such as:

• meeting new people and making new friends
• set your own budget
• complete freedom to do what you want, when you want
• you’ll become the best problem-solver and decision-maker
• you learn so much about yourself
• it’s less stressful than when travelling with others
• you are forced to step out of your comfort zone

These benefits not only apply to travelling solo, these are also benefits that can be adopted in other areas of your life.

Escape Your Comfort Zone and Travel Solo Like A Pro: In Conclusion …

Solo travel is all about discovering your inner strengths, connection with people, nature and culture, as well as getting out of your comfort zone. Enjoy the freedom of solo travel and get out and explore your surroundings. After-all, you deserve it!

HAPPY TRAVELS 🙂

SAVE TO LEARN HOW TO TRAVEL SOLO LIKE A PRO!