Solo Female Travel: The Side Nobody Talks About

Alright, I know. I have been bragging about traveling solo so much that this article seems pointless, but trust me, it is not.

There are some dark sides to female solo traveling.

Get ready to carry heavy stuff

My backpack. I love and hate Bob (that’s its name) in equal measure. And not having a strong, muscly boyfriend who can carry it from A to B is becoming annoying and that’s why I finally got Tinder. No joke. Bag carrier first, lover second.

There will be a time when traveling solo will suck

There are some moments, very weird moments, when I’m in front of an incredible sunset, and randomly start crying. It actually happened to me last week, when the imaginary ghost of my ex came back to sit next to me on a beach here in Sydney while the sun was going down. He said he missed me and asked me again WTF were we doing and why we were living separate lives.

This is to say that spending time traveling solo will put you in tricky situations, where memories will play up with your head and sometimes, perhaps after a drink or two, you might find yourself calling your boy/girl friend in another continent in the middle of the night. Yup, done that. Clap clap.

Traveling solo can get expensive

Enough about love and emotions, let’s get practical. When you think about rooms in hostels or even sites in campgrounds most of the time, you get the price for a room and not per person. So if you are traveling alone, you can either hit a sleeping buddy (Tinder comes handy here again) or just pay more attention to your other expenses and afford that bed alone.

You will be a magnet for random (and sometimes creepy) dudes

Actually this literally just happened as I’m sitting in this hostel in Sydney while busy-busy writing this and with my headphones in place. This dude came up to ask me some random questions about something. I politely tried to tell him that I was busy (hello! I gotta deliver these Spotahome articles man!)

But he kept going on and on forever asking even more random questions. This IS what happens when a gal travels alone. Always. Listening to music, working, watching movies, reading a book. There are always some over-social guys and girls who will want to talk to you, even though you are clearly telling them this is not the time, or the place.

Respect my space. Respect my silence.

You’ll automatically receive a label

Yeah, it sounds harsh, but this is what our judgmental society constantly does. Yup, you guessed it right: a judge. Dining alone in a restaurant? She must be a b**ch / mad / widow / lonely / whore / junkie / enter here whatever you want.

People will look at you and judge you, sometimes openly, most of the times whispering to their friends/partners acting as you were not there. I now find this hilarious and if I hear somebody talking about me, I loudly interrupt them and tell them that one might want to travel alone.

You don’t do everything you would like to do

Because I am gal, there are things I cannot do. Put aside sexism and gender equalism, I wouldn’t go out at night in a city by myself. Whether you believe it or not, every girl fears to be molested or worse on the way back from a club or a party. So, sometimes, if I can’t find anyone to give me a lift or walk me back I just don’t go. Too cautious? There is no such thing when you’re traveling solo.

Traveling solo WILL change you

Don’t date a girl who travels, huh?

Traveling has made me so confident, so independent and so free, that most people I meet who lead normal lives bore me to death in a matter of minutes. It’s not that I find them uninteresting, but I no longer have patience to hear about “normal lives” and corporate boring stuff.

When I hear about office politics, my brain immediately shuts off and it start wandering wild and far. This is quite harsh, I know. But as I said many times already, TIME is what matters the most to me right now and I ain’t any to waste. Not with mediocre people.

Call me a b***h if you want, but I’m just time-wise and a man (or a woman for that matter) has to be pretty awesome to impress me today. So maybe it’s true – DON’T date a girl who travels.