You Don’t Need to Travel Alone to Find Yourself

Sometimes the most liberating thing about going somewhere nobody knows you is that you get to introduce yourself.

When I left home and started travelling through Asia, something happened that I hadn’t expected. I was suddenly somewhere nobody knew me.

Nobody knew the girl I’d been at school. Nobody knew the teenager who had sometimes felt like the weird one. Nobody knew the version of me that had spent years worrying about what other people thought, trying to fit in or quietly suppressing the parts of myself that didn’t seem to fit.

They only knew me. The person I was in that moment. And there was something incredibly freeing about that.

Nobody knew who I was supposed to be

When you’re young, it’s surprisingly easy to become a version of yourself based on what other people think you are.

You become the quiet one. The funny one. The awkward one. The sensible one. The one who doesn’t quite fit in.

And after hearing those things enough times, you can start believing them yourself.

But travelling gave me a clean slate. I could walk into a hostel, a bar, a restaurant or a new group of people and nobody had any expectations of me.

I could be loud. I could be spontaneous. I could talk to strangers. I could say yes to things. I could wear what I wanted, go where I wanted and make decisions based entirely on what I wanted to do.

And slowly, I realised something. I hadn’t actually become a different person. I was finally allowing myself to be the person I’d always been underneath everything else.

Why solo travel can be so powerful for women

There is something incredibly liberating about travelling somewhere nobody knows your story.

At home, we’re surrounded by our history. Our routines. Our responsibilities. Our relationships. Our expectations.

People know us as someone’s mum, someone’s wife, someone’s daughter, someone’s colleague, someone’s friend.

And those identities aren’t bad. They’re incredibly important. But sometimes they can become so loud that we forget there is a whole person underneath them.

Solo female travel gives you the opportunity to step outside those roles for a while. You get to make decisions without explaining yourself. You get to have conversations with people you’ve never met before. You get to experience something completely new.

You get to discover that you’re capable of navigating unfamiliar places, making your own choices and stepping outside your comfort zone.

And sometimes, when nobody knows who you were, you realise you have complete freedom to decide who you are now.

You don’t have to travel completely alone

Here’s the thing. I don’t actually think you have to travel completely alone to experience this. In fact, I think there’s something even better.

You can travel solo without travelling alone.

That’s one of the reasons I love women-only small group travel. You can book the trip yourself. You can get on the plane yourself. You can arrive knowing absolutely nobody.

But then you walk into a group of women who are in exactly the same position. And suddenly you’re not alone anymore.

You have people to explore with, laugh with, eat with, drink with, get lost with and share those “I can’t believe we’re actually doing this” moments with.

What happens when you stop waiting for someone to come with you?

I think this is one of the biggest barriers women face when it comes to travel.

“I’d love to go, but my husband doesn’t want to.” “My friends can’t get the time off.” “Everyone I know has children.” “I’ll go when someone can come with me.”

And before you know it, years have passed. You keep putting the trip off because you’re waiting for someone else’s circumstances to line up with yours.

But what if they never do? What if you stopped waiting?

Travelling solo doesn’t necessarily mean booking a backpacking trip around the world and spending three weeks eating dinner alone. It can simply mean making a decision for yourself. Booking the trip. Getting on the plane. Showing up. And discovering what happens next.

You don’t have to find yourself alone

This is probably the biggest misconception about solo travel. People imagine sitting alone at a restaurant. Walking around a strange city alone. Getting on a plane alone.

And for some people, that’s exactly what they want. But solo travel doesn’t have to mean doing everything by yourself. It can mean choosing yourself. And there’s a big difference.

You can travel to Sicily with a group of women and still have that feeling of independence. You can arrive not knowing anyone and leave with friendships. You can try things that scare you. You can discover places you never would have found on your own.

You can laugh until your stomach hurts with women who, a week earlier, were complete strangers. And you can go home feeling like you’ve pressed pause on the version of life you were living and remembered that there is so much more available to you.

For me, travelling through Asia changed the way I saw myself. It gave me permission to be the person I had always been underneath the expectations, labels and insecurities.

And perhaps that’s why I still believe so strongly in travel. Not because every trip changes your life. Not because you have to “find yourself”. But because sometimes you simply need to step outside your normal environment to remember that you are more than the person you have become at home.

And perhaps that’s not finding yourself at all. Maybe it’s finally giving yourself permission to be yourself.

Maybe you’ll discover somewhere incredible.

Maybe you’ll make friendships that last long after the suitcase is unpacked.

Or maybe, like me, you’ll discover that the person you’ve been looking for was actually there all along.