As an introverted woman, exploring on my own brings its own unique challenges and rewards from cost, to loneliness, to empowerment. Today I will be speaking to the challenges specifically. I’ll save the pros for another post so that I can do them justice.
- Selfies– Guys, I am really shy about taking selfies. I have some friends that will stop walking in the middle of a busy hallway or street to snap a quick picture for Instagram or Snapchat. I wish I was that bold. I don’t always view taking selfies as bold though. It often seems self-centered and self-absorbed when there are grandiose monuments or radiant geography with me standing in the foreground. I usually just quickly look around and say quietly, “It’s for my blog!” and rush off. Let’s be serious, no one cares if they could even hear my barely audible justification. This leaves me with lots of beautiful pictures of other people and places, which is not always so good for writing blog posts or texting parents. Don’t even get me started on the selfie stick. Yikes.
2. Cost – Invariably, traveling solo costs so much more. Hotels, cabs, Ubers, food, booze, etc. is always so much more when you are paying for them on your own. There are, of course, very cheap ways of traveling for which I usually make weird sacrifices that almost always turn out to be rookie mistakes (as evidenced in this post).
3. Loneliness – Sometimes there are things that I see, smells that I pick up walking by a restaurant, or familiar music on a breeze that invariably remind me of someone I know. When traveling by myself these moments remind me that I’m in a place where no one knows me or cares for my general well-being. I usually trust in the good will of humans, but it can be difficult to be surrounded by strangers who you cannot count on, especially when it causes excruciating anxiety to speak to someone, much less ask them for help. This sunset, though picturesque, left me feeling so alone. By the end of the day, the excitement of exploration and empowerment often erodes, leaving a sense of fear and exclusion.
There are a multitude of gifts that the world offers only when traveling solo which far outweighs some of the negative aspects. I often prefer exploring by myself to being with a group or even my significant other, but selfies, high costs, and unavoidable loneliness can make me rethink going it alone.
Daisy-Head Maezie 
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