Pros VS Cons of travelling alone

As I sit here on a cold Wednesday afternoon in London, working and attempting to warm up with tea, I let my imagination drift. I think about the trips I’ve been on, and how I’ve not backpacked properly in ages. There’s a sense of freedom when it’s just you and your backpack, wondering around aimlessly. Now that I have a job that allows me to work from wherever, I’m attempting to save so that I can live elsewhere. All I need is for my boyfriend’s business to do the same, and then boom we are off (hopefully).

Legggooo

Anyway, so I’ve been thinking about those solo trips and how there were pros and cons to it. Sometimes it really was just what I needed. It helped me get out of my head and let me process emotions more easily. Other times, I was downright lonely.

Here are my top pros vs cons of travelling solo:

Pros

You can literally do whatever you want without annoying anyone. Want to chill? Do it. Want to go out? Do it. Want to ignore everyone? Do it. Want to be friends with the entire city? DO IT.

The same goes for visiting places. It’s up to you if you want to visit all the tourist sites or go walking down random streets for no reason other than to explore.

Travelling alone really helped my confidence and made me realise I can figure out things and rely on myself for pretty much everything. It’s a great feeling.

Not me, but I dig her energy

Cons

Let’s get real. It can be lonely. You can meet nice people, but then they leave and it can be difficult to adjust to alone time again.

Imagine being this dude – bit lonely

It’s hard to get back into that mindset of knowing you’ve got what it takes to be alone. I travelled alone for almost two years before COVID hit. My brain can still at times convince me I’m going to forget how to take a bus by myself in a foreign country. It’s weird.

It’s usually impossible to take a nice picture to send your mum and you’ll probably up either taking lame selfies like this. Don’t worry though, Helen loves the lame selfies.