Traveling alone – many smart people have written smart blog posts and articles about the topic. In the end they all boil down to the same. There’s some things you just experience differently when you travel alone than when you travel with your friends, family or partner:

• You get to know people. It’s much easier to connect to fellow travelers and locals when you can’t just stick to the people you know and are forced to reach out and talk to strangers. So you will for sure meet new interesting people, make new friends and maybe even improve your social skills.
• You are free to do whatever you feel like. You want 12 hours of sightseeing? Or you prefer staying in your hotel and relaxing the whole day? Go for it! No compromises, arguments or relationship-threatening conflicts.
• You get to know who you are and what you want. Sometimes we are not even aware of how much we rely on other people to take decisions for us. When you are traveling alone you have to decide everything for yourself and this can actually teach you what like and what you don’t, what you can do and what you can’t and in the end you will get to know yourself much better.
• You become more confident. Heading off to a place you’ve never been to all by yourself takes a lot of courage, but if you dare it will teach you what you are actually capable of.

So yes, traveling alone is amazing and probably there are a lot more arguments in its favor. But instead of repeating what has already been said about it, here’s my story of what traveling alone has taught me and how it has changed my life:

When I booked my first solo trip I didn’t really think about it that much. I had been on a 3 months trip to South America with a friend a year before and I wanted to see more of this amazing continent. So I booked my ticket for my solo trip to Colombia without hesitating. When people told me I was crazy and that the country was dangerous or asked me whether I wasn’t afraid I calmed them down. I was confident. I was excited. I didn’t even think about all the things that could go wrong – until I sat in the plane to Bogota. Suddenly I realized what I had done. Instead of excited I was nervous and scared. Colombia all by myself? What a stupid idea! 3 weeks in a place where I didn’t know anyone, a different culture, a foreign language. Maybe I would spend 3 weeks not even talking to anyone. Even worse, I could be robbed, kidnapped, murdered, without anyone even knowing. As it was too late to turn back I spent the whole flight imagining everything that could go wrong. I arrived late in Bogota, took a taxi to my hotel and told myself that in the worst case I would just spend the 3 weeks in my hotel room, fly back and never tell anyone. So I slept for 9 hours and then lay awake in my bed not wanting to ever leave it. But that became quite boring quite soon. Also I got hungry. So I hesitantly stepped out of the hotel, nervously turning around at every step. First I felt like everybody was watching me, like everybody new that I was here all by myself. An easy victim. But nothing bad happened. So I spent a nice day exploring Bogota. The next day I took a bus to Manizales. The bus terminal was a huge mess and I had no clue which bus to take, but I started asking around and in the end I managed to find my bus. The bus driver drove like a maniac, but I survived. When I arrived there were several taxi drivers insisting to give me a ride. But I just turned away and left. So step by step I realized, that I can actually manage on my own. And suddenly the most amazing things started happening. I became friends with 2 nuns in the back of a bus, who started praying for me and invited me for lunch. I spent 3 days trekking through the jungle alone with a guide and 3 Colombian guys who freaked my out completely in the beginning but turned out to be a real fun group. I walked into a bar and had a beer on my own without feeling uncomfortable. I walked up a volcano with a group of strangers and when we came back down it felt as if we had known each other for a long time. I talked to as many strangers as I never had before in my life. I bargained with taxi drivers, found my way in cities I had never been to, spent a night in a completely empty hostel. I did all of this on my own and for some amazing incomprehensible reason I was fine. And when I came back to Bogota at the end of my trip I felt like a different person. I wouldn’t have gotten to know all those people, have experienced my trip that way if I had not been on my own. But most importantly I realized that I can manage. I can do whatever I want to do, I can go wherever I want to go and I will be fine. The world is mine. And that realization is one of the most powerful ones I’ve had in my life. So here’s what traveling alone has taught me: there are no limits except the ones you set yourself.

Exploring Colombia on my own…