Travel Entries

18, and Solo Traveling

I was humbled, the extent of my knowledge about the world was limited by the boundaries of comfort. I lost my comfort, I have gone two months without seeing a familiar face.

Being a solo female traveler at eighteen was possibly the best decision of my life. I always knew I was going to travel. I began dreaming about it since I was seven. My mentality has been, if I'm going to live in the world, and we have modern technology to see it, why not?

When it came time to apply for college, I was not taking the process as seriously as my peers. I originally mistaken my lack of motivation as laziness and immaturity. Later I realized I was not ready to start my adult life, without seeing some of the world.

I saved up $6,000 from my part time highschool job, and left for three months.

For the month leading up I was scared. Not many people I knew had solo traveled, as young as eighteen, and certainly not female. To make matters worse I did not know Spanish, Portuguese or Italian, the countries I would be visiting. But after this experience I have gotten to know myself and navigate my life with tools I didn't know were accessible.

There are no wrong choices.

Life presents two options, inspiration and lessons that are necessary. Discomfort is the best tool for knowledge. For example I got scammed a few times, by being widely overcharged. I always knew they were going to overcharge me, but I was stressed in these moments, so I let it happen. Later, I would look at my bank account and feel shame for my stupidity. I realized I needed to spend that money, in order to learn, the best decision will never be made under stress. I am grateful for this lesson. On the other hand when things did go my way, I found myself hungry for life. I got to see something so beautiful for the first time, and I want to see more, this is the seed of drive.

It's all about confidence

I am a young, female and foreign, obviously I can be perceived as an easy target. I always managed to keep my safety by learning that it is entirely confidence. People always told me, “you never know what could happen, stay safe.” That is true. However, what's overlooked is knowing your worth is the best self defense mechanism. When I felt unsure about my circumstances I kept my head up and posture strong. Other than a few tourist traps nothing bad happened, and I did not let fear limit my chances of having fun.

Values have different words but the same meaning.
This is my favorite lesson. The world is one huge community. At the end of the day people just want to make others happy. Something that led me to this revelation is street performance. They exist in every country, and people of all cultured participate. I always wondered why people perform. They make themselves so vulnerable and usually get judged for it. But now I understand it's because their craft makes them happy, and they want to share that with the world. This goes further than street performance, people take pride in their culture as they should. Their culture brought them joy, and they want to share that feeling with others.