I went alone when I was 19 for the first time and it exceeded my expectations, everyone I met was so down to do anything and so friendly! Still friends with a few of the people I met and it’s been 4 years since. The good thing is, if u don’t want to talk to people or just wanna hang by urself it’s so easy to do that and then if u want to talk to people and meet people. Just stay at a hostel. People will introduce themselves in the dorms, invite you to hand and chat, you just sometimes have to go up first which is abit scary but basically everyone is on the same boat, travelling alone and wanting to meet people. I loved that I had the freedom to do anything I wanted whenever I wanted. It’s scary in the beginning but as you meet people and hear their experiences it gets easy! Like I was scared to eat alone at restaurants in the beginning but hearing how the other solo travellers were so comfortable doing it, it made it so much easier and I realised there’s nothing to be scared of really. And also something that helped me ease into it was I volunteered to be a English mentor for 2 weeks in Europe in the beginning where I was travelling and I made a lot of friends there which was great cause after the program we would hang out and some people will meet u in other cities if they are also travelling around. It’s soooo worth it!

I did a lot of little trips on my own but my first big one was backpacking Southeast Asia for 3 months on my own. I did it after college so kind of just jumped right into the big-time solo travel world.

As someone with social anxiety myself, here are my thoughts:

• You don’t have to start big. I tell my friends who are nervous about solo travel to start small - go on a day trip near your hometown by yourself, then maybe a weekend trip, and then maybe a domestic trip before diving into an international backpacking trip if that would make you feel better.
• You don’t have to be social! I alternate between hostels and airbnbs. I usually avoid party hostels because that’s just too much. Even at hostels, sometimes I’ll pull the curtain and just not talk to anyone. I’m not saying hostels aren’t tough for us socially anxious people but there’s ways around it.
• One of the best “cures” for my social anxiety was traveling solo. Building the confidence to interact with different types of people and travel on my own has helped me to fight my social anxiety at home. I am so so so thankful that I discovered it. And I did it just by doing it. That first trip I had some REALLY hard days, and I still have them, but the impact on my overall improved quality of life is tremendous.