Yes, I am saying it. Traveling by yourself is the greatest life hack that everyone needs to know about. The best part about it is that it doesn’t require any sort of experience or a specific job. All you need is some courage to take the first steps. This post can be applied to both a weekend getaway to somewhere close by or a 1-year backpacking trip across the world. Most importantly, the person who does the 1-day solo getaway can’t expect it to contain nearly as many benefits as doing it for extended amounts of time. I’m here to give you some motivation to solo travel and 2 lessons that could be learned from it.

Motivation to Solo Travel

Is there a certain place you have always wanted to go to, but you haven’t because there’s nobody to go with? Maybe it’s to see a certain city or country. It could also be to do something like a hike up a mountain, learn a certain skill, or attend an event of some sort. It doesn’t necessarily have to be something big across the whole world. It can be as small as an hour drive from your home. I am sure everyone has something that they’re being held back from doing because of the fear of doing it alone.

All I can say is STOP WAITING AROUND. Nobody is going to magically appear who can take the same time off as you and have the same amount of passion towards doing it. The most common response will be that they just currently aren’t ready to do it but will be at some point in the future. Which could be true and gives you something to look forward to. Till then, you just got to learn how to do it alone.

Taking that first leap is very difficult. Although I have to say… gaining the courage to put aside all your excuses and forcing yourself to book something for the future leaves you with such a euphoric feeling. Knowing that you’ve locked yourself in and must do this trip will have your heart racing within minutes of getting that confirmation e-mail. From this moment on you will feel like you’ve been injected with motivation to make all these minor lifestyle changes in order to be ready for when that day comes.

2 Important Life Lessons Learned From Solo Travel

Helps you get “unstuck” from the daily routine.

After coming home to the USA from a 1-month solo backpacking trip across Europe. I right away got back to slaving away at my bartending gig. At around 3 months, I had an epiphany. I couldn’t believe how insanely fast time had gone by. What I realized was that this was the effect of being stuck with a daily routine for too long. I was being productive and getting important tasks done, but overall my days were the same. I was mindlessly focusing on getting tasks done and not thinking much about anything else. This left me with no time to focus on myself and so as a result autopilot mode was turned on and life was zooming by right before my eyes.

While I was on that trip across Europe, I remember each day going by very slow. They were long and filled with activities from start to finish. By having no real tasks to do or someone with me to worry about. I was giving my mind room to think about something more important like figuring out what it is in life that really brought me joy & happiness. Quite simply, without a routine holding me back, I was allowed to truly feel alive every day of that month.

We often mention that life is flying by us at a very fast pace. The reason why I believe this happens is that our bodies turn on this autopilot mode that does the same exact tasks every single day. It gets to the point where you can’t even remember what you did last week or the week before because of how likely it is that both weeks were practically identical. Once you get to this point, time can fly by right in front of your eyes and you won’t realize it until you’re 30-40 years old having a mid-life crisis. Some people get so embedded in their daily routine that if it’s not done, they begin to panic and feel like something is off. What I call this point is getting “Stuck”.

Solo travel, in my opinion, will almost always allow you to break free from those shackles and progress on a pace of your own. You begin to live life for every single second of every single day. It gives you space to think and contemplate everything going on in your life. It can really be a liberating experience.

Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone = Growth

A very important lesson that I have learned over the span of my life is that going through adversity, suffering, or difficult times are unavoidable major factors to our mental growth. Whatever it is that you overcome, you end up as a stronger person that has learned from the pain caused from that experience. Now, there’s also another way that can be less traumatizing and still provide the same type of growth. Forcing ourselves to leave our comfort zone is that other way.

All of us have our own comfort zone. It keeps us relatively comfortable and calm, helping us stay free from anxiety and worry. We fear to challenge ourselves because of the thought of failing or getting hurt in the process. However, if you don’t step out from this comfort zone as often as possible, you may miss out on big opportunities to grow and ultimately transform yourself. These missed opportunities are things that define who you are and give your life meaning.  We need to be able to step out of our comfort zone when the time comes to transition in our lives.

What “stepping out of your comfort zone” means is to do something that makes you feel uncomfortable. Things you would never expect yourself to do. Agreeing to solo travel is agreeing to force yourself out of your comfort zone in so many ways. You’ll constantly be meeting new people, trying foods you had no idea existed, and witnessing foreign lands with unique cultures. It pushes you to dig deep into your mind of untapped knowledge and resources. You really have no idea what you could be good at until you’re faced with an unfamiliar experience.

Conclusion

You can’t be afraid to take risks. Risks need to be taken in order to fully gain a growth experience. To me, the word fail isn’t a bad thing. Failure is what provides you with the most experience. Stop waiting around and begin making confident life choices. Book your ticket to somewhere you have always wanted to go and see how this life hack really affects you.