Whenever it comes down to thinking about what traveling alone can mean to me, these words define it the best – initiative, intuition, decision and action.

It’s more like designing an art. Taking a leap of faith to start, listening to the calling of the heart, and just doing it the way we want.

Philosophical? Maybe.

Before we begin, this space is not about telling you what solo traveling is or how you should probably do it. Google has enough for it.

The idea is to understand the relevance of grabbing any travel opportunity that comes our way, to help ourselves become more of who we are.

Being on your own, for your own self, in an unknown place, around unknown people can be frightful. But that’s exactly why one should do it.

It’s fearful. It’s daring. Hence, it’s exciting.

You’ll never know what’s coming your way and how will you deal with it. That’s what makes it so thrilling. It’s similar to taking risks in a business.

Everyone is always asking us to take up challenges, right? There you go: being alone makes you rely on your own spontaneous decisions, and to have faith in them.

It teaches you to take big life decisions.

The more adventurous your experience is, the more enlightening your own reality is.

Here are a few ways how traveling on your own can be a journey to leadership:

1. It helps you understand your inhibitions

It’s often said that it’s only when you’re put in a hard situation you’ll learn how you’ll deal with it.

Becoming self-aware is one of the key aspects traveling alone teaches.

You understand your fears, attributes that hold you back and your behavior in unexpected or unusual situations. This is exactly how you get to know yourself better and realize your potentials.

You must build on your instincts around people and the environment.

It helps to gain the capacity of dealing with critical and analytical activities like managing teams, assessing people and identifying opportunities.

2. You learn how to find a way in the chaos

As the only person responsible for your life, you learn to become self-reliant and start searching for solutions in a menace.

You try and talk to locals for directions, finding places to feed your stomach, knowing more about the city and its culture. The entire journey revolves around you making attempts to finding a way out.

You’re usually clueless about what will happen next and how, but you still keep moving forward to discover. There’s a solution to every problem, known or unrevealed. To search for it is up to us.

3. It pushes you to stay out of comfort and embrace challenges

As a traveler, if we shift our approach from ‘why do I have to tackle this problem’ to ‘I need to take a next level challenge’, the scope of personal growth intensifies.

Comfort brings in ease, inviting fear and resistance to difficulties. On the other hand, overseeing comfort over opportunity upskills strength, maturity, and quality of life.

Even in business, the best of ideas emerge when a workforce chooses to think on broader spectrums. They come out of distinct realities and not from easy situations.

There might be a hundred reasons for you to escape traveling alone, but if you can dare to dream, you can become what you envision.

Venture on your own to discover, enhance and rebuild a new life.

If this interested you, you can read 7 Things I Achieved, Thanks To My Exchange in Turkey

Would you like to travel alone while working on an amazing project? Learn about our exchanges!

Written by

Vanyashree Chaudhary is a light-hearted Journalism student from Delhi. She’s crazy about her love for graphic designing, Oreo shakes and Daft Punk. Find her the happiest while she’s traveling!