Things You’re Probably Overthinking About Solo Travel

When I first started Text When I Land, the whole idea was to open the eyes of travelers, especially the girlies who might be a little intimidated by the idea of traveling overseas on their own.

Because, in all honesty, that was me.

Before moving to Europe in 2022, I wasn’t necessarily new to travel. I had traveled plenty throughout the United States, and through the military I had deployed to other countries. I had been on airplanes, navigated unfamiliar places, and spent plenty of time away from home.

But traveling overseas for leisure, completely by myself? I had NEVER done that.

There was something about choosing a destination in another country, booking the flight and hotel myself, landing somewhere unfamiliar, and knowing the entire experience was mine to navigate that felt completely different. International travel, especially solo international travel, felt like this much bigger, more complicated thing.

And then I moved there.

It ended up being one of the best things that ever happened to me, and somewhere along the way I realized that so many of the things I had been afraid of weren’t actually that hard. Some of them weren’t even true!

So rather than giving you another recommendation for a city to add to your list, I wanted to spend today’s post demystifying a few of the things we tend to build up in our heads about traveling to Europe, especially if you’re considering doing it alone.

“Nobody speaks English.”

Absolutely not true.

Honestly, sometimes I think Europeans speak English better than we do. Hot take.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you should walk into another country expecting everyone to accommodate you. I always recommend learning a few basic words and phrases before you go like hello, goodbye, please, thank you, excuse me, and maybe how to ask if someone speaks English. It’s respectful, it’s part of experiencing another culture, and people genuinely appreciate the effort.

But if one of the things keeping you from booking the trip is imagining yourself stranded at a train station desperately flipping through a translation book like in the movies, I promise…breathe.

In most major European cities and tourist areas, you will encounter plenty of people who speak English. You’ll be able to navigate hotel check-ins, restaurants, airports, train stations, and the inevitable the travel chaos.

And when you do encounter someone who doesn’t speak English? You figure it out. Google Translate exists. Hand gestures exist. Pointing at things works surprisingly well. And honestly, some of those interactions end up becoming your favorite travel stories.

“Getting to Europe is going to be a nightmare.”

This was another one I made way bigger in my head than it needed to be.

If you’re flying from a major U.S. airport like Atlanta, Dallas, New York, Chicago, etc., you can often fly directly into Europe. Depending on where you’re headed, you’re looking at roughly an eight-to-eleven-hour flight.

Yes, that’s longer than flying across the States. But it’s also… just sitting on an airplane. Lol

You get to disconnect. Watch movies. Read. Listen to a podcast. Eat surprisingly decent airplane food. Have a glass of wine. Sleep if you’re lucky. Suddenly you’re waking up somewhere completely different.

I’ve actually grown to enjoy long flights because I romanticize the heck out of them. I download exactly what I want to watch, bring something good to read, pack my little airplane necessities, and treat those hours as the beginning of the trip rather than something I have to suffer through before it starts.

Maybe that’s a future blog post: how I spend a 10-hour flight to Europe

And even if you’re coming from a smaller airport, you’re usually talking about one connection, occasionally two depending on where you’re headed. It’s a travel day. That’s it. And at the end of it, you’re in Europe.

“Jet lag is going to ruin my trip.”

Jet lag is real. But I also think we give it a little too much power. You’re probably going to be tired. Your body might wonder why you’re asking it to eat dinner when it thinks it’s lunchtime. And coming home always seems to hit me a little harder than going over.

But I’ve found that if I commit to the new time zone as quickly as possible, I’m usually feeling pretty normal within a day or two.

Get outside. Walk. Drink water. Eat when the locals eat. Stay awake until a reasonable bedtime. And most importantly, don’t spend half of your first day in Europe lying in a dark hotel room thinking about what time it is back home.

You’re somewhere you’ve wanted to see. Go see it.

Adrenaline, sunshine, an espresso and the realization that you’re wandering around Europe tend to do wonders.

“A trip to Europe is going to cost a fortune.”

This might be one of the biggest misconceptions about traveling to Europe: that it automatically has to be this huge, once-in-a-lifetime financial undertaking.

It absolutely can be expensive. You can book the five-star hotel overlooking the Eiffel Tower, eat at Michelin-starred restaurants every night, and fly business class across the Atlantic. And hey, if that’s your vibe and your budget, live your best life. Judgement free zone.

But you absolutely don’t have to travel that way.

Europe can actually be surprisingly easy to do on a budget, especially if you’re willing to be a little flexible. Travel during off seasons. Watch flight prices. Stay slightly outside the most touristy part of the city. Take public transportation instead of taxis everywhere. Grab a pastry and coffee for breakfast, wander through a local market for lunch, and save your money for the dinner you’re really excited about.

And one of the best parts about traveling within Europe is that once you’re there, getting from one place to another can be incredibly affordable. Trains, buses and budget airlines can take you to an entirely different city, or even country, without requiring another massive travel expense.

I’ve also learned that you don’t need to spend a ton of money every day to have an incredible experience. Some of my favorite travel memories have come from simply walking through a neighborhood, sitting in a piazza with a glass of wine, finding a local café, wandering through a market, watching a sunset, or spending an afternoon people-watching.

The biggest thing is to decide where you want your money to go. I don’t do much shopping (I do a lot of looking!) but I’ll save my money for a nice bottle of wine at dinner or an Airbnb with a view.

Maybe you don’t care about a fancy hotel because you’re barely going to be in the room, but you’ll happily spend money on an amazing dinner. Maybe food isn’t your priority, but you’ll splurge on a tour or experience you’ve always wanted to do.

Travel doesn’t have to be cheap to be attainable. It just has to be intentional.

“I won’t know how to get around.”

This one makes me laugh now because public transportation in Europe is one of the things I miss the most.

Before you’ve done it, European trains and metros can sound complicated. Different platforms, different languages, connections, tickets and what if you get on the wrong one?

You might! And I have… multiple times.

And then you’ll get off and get on the right one.

Google or Apple Maps is incredibly helpful in most cities, train stations have signage everywhere, and transportation apps make navigating much easier than you probably imagine. I’ll typically just type in where I want to go and then instead of the “drive” or “walk” options, I’ll click the train and it gives me a super easy explanation for how to get to my destination and which color/number train to catch.

Once you’ve successfully taken your first train from one country to another or figured out a metro system by yourself, something clicks. And that confidence follows you everywhere.

📖 And sometimes, to be fair, things actually do go wrong… (story time) !!

Last Christmas, I flew from Italy to Spain to spend Christmas with some close friends in Rota. I landed late at night in Seville, picked up my rental car, and had about an hour drive ahead of me.

One minor problem: my phone was at 3%.

Naturally, I had a plan. The rental car only had a USB-C port and my charger was USB, so I figured I’d swing by a gas station, grab whatever adapter or charger I needed, plug my phone in and be on my merry way.

Spoiler alert, I did not make it to the gas station.

About ten minutes into the drive, I had an absolutely gnarly tire blowout on the highway.

So now I’m sitting on the side of a highway in Spain, late at night, with a rental car that isn’t going anywhere and a phone that is officially dead.

Thankfully, my friends had my location and knew roughly where I was. About 30 minutes later, there was a knock on my window from the Spanish police, who had stopped to help.

And here’s where we can revisit the whole “everyone speaks English” thing because, well… these gentlemen did not. 😂

My Spanish can only take me so far, their English could only take them so far, and yet somehow, between a few words, some hand gestures, and the universal language of yep, that tire is absolutely destroyed, we figured it out.

Eventually, I found myself sitting in the cab of a tow truck next to an older Spanish gentleman, heading all the way back to the Seville airport.

Was this how I envisioned starting my Christmas vacation? Absolutely not.

Could I have completely freaked out sitting alone on the side of that highway? Also yes.

But what exactly would that have helped?

At some point I remember thinking, Well, these are the consequences of my own actions for not charging my dang phone, but here we are.

And honestly, that’s travel sometimes.

You make the best plan you can. Occasionally you make a questionable decision involving a 3% battery. Something completely unexpected happens. You assess the situation, accept whatever help is available, laugh at the absurdity of it when you can, and figure out the next move.

I eventually made it to Rota. Christmas was wonderful. And now instead of remembering that night as some terrifying travel disaster, I mostly remember it as the time I ended up riding through southern Spain in a tow truck on Christmas vacation.

Which, honestly, is a much better story anyway.

“Traveling alone will be lonely.”

Solo does not automatically mean lonely.

Some of my favorite travel days or trips have been completely by myself. You wake up when you want. You go wherever sounds interesting. You spend three hours somewhere you love without worrying that someone else is bored. You change the plan because you walked past a cute wine bar. You sit at the bar instead of a table and end up talking to the bartender or the person next to you.

Traveling alone actually made me more social.

When you don’t have another person to retreat into, you look up. You notice people. You ask questions. You have conversations you probably wouldn’t have had otherwise.

And yes, there may be moments when you wish someone were there to share something with. That’s okay too. But being alone and being lonely are two very different things.

“Eating alone is going to be awkward.”

This deserves its own category because I know how many people hate the idea of walking into a restaurant and asking for a table for one.

My solution? Sit at the bar. Always!

This has become one of my favorite travel rules. A bar seat instantly feels less formal than sitting alone at a table, and it gives you an easy opportunity to interact with the bartender, ask for recommendations, or chat with the people around you.

Bring a book if you want. Write in a journal. People-watch. Order exactly what you want.

Eventually you realize something pretty liberating…literally nobody else cares that you’re eating alone.

And neither do you.

“I need someone to go with me.”

This might be the biggest myth of all.

There are trips that are wonderful to share with someone. There are places you’ll want to experience with your best friend, your partner, your family.

But I don’t think your ability to see the world should depend on someone else’s schedule, budget, relationship status, vacation days, or willingness to go.

If there’s somewhere you want to see, you are allowed to go see it.

Start small if you need to. Take yourself to dinner in your own city. Spend a weekend somewhere you’ve never been. Book the hotel. Navigate the airport. Learn what kind of traveler you are when nobody else’s preferences are part of the equation.

Confidence doesn’t have to come before the trip.

Sometimes the trip is what gives it to you.

Final Thoughts

There is something incredibly empowering about standing in a city where you don’t know anyone, navigating your way across it, ordering dinner, catching the train, solving the inevitable problem, and realizing at the end of the day: I did all of that myself.

Travel teaches you about the world, obviously. You learn about cultures, food, history, traditions and people whose lives may look completely different from yours.

But you also learn an incredible amount about yourself.

You learn how adaptable you are. You learn what you actually enjoy when no one else is influencing the itinerary. You learn to trust your instincts, talk to strangers, solve problems, change plans and be comfortable in your own company.

I genuinely think we should start doing that earlier in life…and never stop.

And sometimes I think about the version of me who was intimidated by the idea of doing all of this alone and wish I could tell her how normal it would eventually become.

Travel alone. Travel with people you love. Go across an ocean or spend a weekend somewhere a few hours away. The point is to just go. The more you travel, the easier it gets, and the more you realize that most of the things you were intimidated by are easy to figure out. You might miss a train, butcher a few words in another language, or end up somewhere you didn’t intend to be. You’ll figure it out. And chances are, you’ll come home already thinking about where you want to go next.

That’s all I got today! TYWIL 🩵