I was twenty-two. Freshly heartbroken. Standing in Vienna with an Interrail pass, an overpacked backpack, and forty-two days ahead of me that were supposed to look completely different.
The trip was meant to be ours. The tickets, the plans, the cities. All of it planned for two. And then, suddenly, it was just me. I didn´t make a conscious decision to travel alone that summer. I just refused to let the plans disappear with the relationship.
So I went anyway.
My new plan was simple: get to the places where I could surf, and stop in cities worth stopping in along the way. No fixed itinerary.
I was not fine the whole time. Some days were hard.
But I was moving. And moving, I learned, is its own kind of medicine.
Lesson one: keep your things where you can see them
Day four in Barcelona. I got robbed.
It happened fast, the way those things always do. One moment, everything was normal; the next, it was not. My backpack was sitting next to my suitcase, just slightly out of sight. That was all it took.
Because of this, the first thing I will tell anyone going solo for the first time: keep everything where you can see it. Always. Not next to you. On you. The moment your bag leaves your direct line of vision, it is vulnerable. At ticket machines, at café tables, at hostel check-ins, this is when it happens. I learned this on day four, so hopefully you do not have to.
Lesson two: let go of what you cannot change
After the robbery, I almost went home.
For a while, I was sitting there thinking about everything that had been taken, replaying the moment, feeling sorry for myself. My choices were: let this ruin the next thirty-eight days, or keep going.
I chose to keep going. I bought what I needed. And honestly? I felt lighter. Carrying two bags had been exhausting anyway. 😅
Here is the lesson I want you to really hear: things will go wrong. Something will get stolen, cancelled, missed, or broken. Getting emotional about it will not change it. The only useful question is what can I do from here?
Let go of what you cannot change. Look forward. Find a way to make it better. The trip is still there waiting for you on the other side of the bad moment.
Lesson three: the fear dissolves once you are inside it
South America changed me permanently
My first solo trip taught me I could do it. South America taught me I was actually brave.
In the first days in Peru, I was scared to leave my accommodation alone. The streets felt loud and unpredictable, and nothing was familiar.
Yet after weeks, it became my reality. And after months, it became a year
By the end, I was not the same person who had arrived. Making friends from nothing no longer felt impossible. Reading a street, sensing when something felt off, knowing when to trust – these things had become instinct. I knew that most fear lives in the anticipation and dissolves once you are actually inside the experience.
When I arrived in India alone years later. The chaotic, loud, overwhelming India. It felt strangely familiar. Not only because India and Peru are similar in some ways. But because I had already learned the most important thing: you adjust. You always adjust.
Lesson four: always check the entry requirements yourself
I missed a flight to South Africa once because I did not have a visa.
My research consisted of asking German friends who were already there. I assumed the same rules would apply to me as a Slovak. They did not.
Do not assume. Do not rely on what applies to someone else. Instead, check the official entry requirements for your specific passport, every single time, even for places that feel familiar or easy. This is a mistake that costs money, time, and a lot of embarrassment, standing at a gate being told you cannot board.
Check your flight dates and the visa requirements twice. Then check again.
Lesson five: solo does not mean alone
In two and a half months on the road, I was rarely lonely.
The reason is simple: you make friends. You smile at strangers, and conversations begin that lead somewhere you did not expect. You sit at a beach in the evening with people you met three days ago, and it feels like you have always known each other.
In addition to the friendships, solo travel changes your relationship with yourself. It teaches you that being alone is not something to escape. On the contrary, it is where you find out who you actually are when no one is watching, and there is no comfort zone to hide behind.
What the road has quietly taken from me
I used to be terrified of losing people.
I thought the friendships and connections I made would stay forever if I just tried hard enough. I used to hold on to people, to plans, to the way things were supposed to go. Losing a connection felt like a kind of failure. Travel cured me of that.
Not because it made me cold. The opposite. Travel showed me that people are meant to move in and out of your life. That some are there for a night bus, some for a season, some forever, and that none of those is less real than the others.
Moreover, the ones who pass through often leave something permanent, like a lesson, a memory, a shift in how you see the world.
What I know now
Now I prefer to stay longer in one place than to rush through many. I would rather know one neighbourhood than photograph ten.
Solo travelling is about being available. To what the day brings, to who sits next to you, to the version of yourself that shows up when there is no one watching.
The honking. The chaos. The smell of somewhere new. The weight of your bag on your back that you no longer think about.
Above all, now I know that solo travel is not about being fearless. It is about going anyway.
Go and try it yourself. That is the only real advice I have.
Ready to travel but want company? See upcoming group trips.
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