10 Weird Things You Learn About Yourself When You Travel Alone

One of the most enlightening experiences you can have is traveling solo.

It takes you out of your comfort zone, makes you depend on yourself, and shows you things about yourself that you never dreamed you had.

There’s something about the freedom of being your own person in an unfamiliar place that reveals sides of you that don’t always make it out in normal life.

Some of them are lovely, some are unexpected and a few are downright strange.

But every solo traveler will tell you — once you start knowing these things about yourself, there’s no stopping.

1. You Talk to Yourself More Than You Thought

If you spend long periods alone, you may find yourself talking your thoughts aloud without even realizing.

It’s not unusual to find yourself saying, “Where did I put my passport?” or “Wow, that street food smells delicious” to yourself.

It seems odd at first, but you get used to it. Without the presence of anyone else your inner voice goes public.

And let’s face it—sometimes, you’re the best company you could ask for.

2. You Are Much More Capable Than You Thought

Before you embark on your own solo adventure the fear may arise of whether you can do it all on your own.

But once you’re out there, wandering around foreign cities, maneuvering around public transportation, figuring your way around unexpected issues, you realize how capable you can be.

You learn how to trust yourself, look for help when you need it, face tough situations with strength.

After a while a part of you has to wonder what you were thinking questioning yourself to begin with.

3. You Have Odd Eating Habits

With no one there to judge, you may find you eat in odd ways.

Perhaps you like to eat breakfast at 2 PM instead, or you take a new interest in eating peanut butter directly out of the jar in your hostel room.

Sometimes you become so immersed in the exploration you even forget to eat.

At other times you’ll eat three meals in one sitting simply because you can.

When you’re traveling solo, you can indulge each of your quirks and peculiarities without worrying about anyone’s judgment.

4. You Are Either Seriously Social or Total Introvert

You fall one of two ways when you travel by yourself—you either become the greatest chatter in the world, engaging everyone, or you go into the world of silence and observation.

Some days you’ll want to have deep conversations with other travelers, while other days you’ll want to wander through a new city without talking at all.

You discover that you’re not just one or the other; you’re both, depending on the moment.

5. Your Fears Are Not What You Thought They Were

You have probably worried about being lost somewhere or alone in a restaurant, but you hardly care in real life.

Instead, you encounter different fears that you didn’t expect.”

Perhaps you panic every time you have to sort out foreign ATM fees or, to take another example, you become anxious about walking across a busy street in a foreign city where traffic rules seem nonexistent.

Travel makes you confront these fears, and as you do, you come to realize that most of them weren’t nearly as big as you thought.

6. You’re Capable of Making Terrible Decisions (And Living to Tell About It)

When you travel by yourself, every decision is on your shoulders — the good ones and the bad ones.

So you take the wrong bus and wind up in a different town entirely, or you trust Google Maps a bit too much and end up in a dodgy alley at midnight.

But here’s the thing — you live. Each mistake teaches you something else, and soon you learn to make better decisions.

And even if you screw it up, you laugh about it later.

7. You Have a Strange Relationship to Time

Time is a strange, fluid thing when you are traveling alone.

Some days, you wake up early, roam and roam, and feel as if you’ve lived a lifetime before noon.

Other days you do nothing but sit for hours in some café and stare at people walking around and still remember the day well spent.

When no one else’s schedule is dictating your time, you realize that you can stretch or condense your day however you want.

It is a freeing realization.

8. You Care Less About What People Think

You might think twice about performing some sort of socially unacceptable behavior at home, like dancing in the street or taking a million pictures of your food, but that social guide isn’t there for you when you travel. But traveling alone does something to you.

You don’t care what strangers think you look like anymore, because honestly, nobody’s looking at you that closely.

This freedom allows you to be doing the things your enjoy most without fear of being judged for it.

It’s perhaps one of the most unanticipated yet refreshing lessons solo travel offers you.

9. You Come up with Strange Little Rituals

When you don’t have compatriots to guide you in a routine, you develop your own strange habits.

Perhaps you always touch a historical monument before departing a city, or you insist on purchasing a local snack from every airport you pass through.

Some jot in their journals every night at precisely 11:11; others snap selfies with every dog they encounter.

Whatever it may be, those little rituals become your journey, and suddenly no two trips are ever alike.

10. You’re Never Truly Alone

Solo travel can, at first, sound lonely but you will soon find you are never, well, alone.

Be it the locals who help you navigate yourself, the other travelers you meet at hostels or the online communities that put you in touch with people on the route, there’s almost always someone around.

You even try to go a whole day without speaking to anyone, and you come to feel a strong connectedness with everything around you.

Traveling solo teaches you that, alone doesn’t have to mean lonely, it means free.

Conclusion

Solo travel is perhaps the weirdest and most rewarding thing you can do.

It removes the distractions of daily life and forces you to face yourself in ways you never imagined.

You’ll learn about habits you didn’t know you had, strengths you never recognized and quirks that make you who you are.

The best part?

Whatever the new lesson learned on every trip.

Once you dive into the weirdness of solo travel, you’ll never want to quit.