I have always loved to travel. Whether it was to a ski resort an hour’s drive from my small New Hampshire town or a tropical paradise with sands whiter than the snow on the mountain, I skied the trip before. I always knew I was going to travel the world, it just seemed right ever since I started my postcard collection at age nine. Cards from the Cayman Islands, Italy, California, the Grand Canyon, and Paris sprinkled the mint green walls of my childhood bedroom, always luring me in with the promise of adventure when I grew up.
Well, I grew up, and my dream carried with me. After accepting an opportunity to study journalism in Edinburgh, Scotland, I knew it was my chance to see Europe. When I got there, the first place I wanted to go was London. As a long-time British boy band follower, I was ecstatic at the idea of getting on a train and being in London within a matter of hours. Unfortunately, The Queen had other plans, and her passing made travel within the UK extremely expensive. A flight to Budapest was cheaper than a train to London. So, I got on a $64 flight to Budapest, Hungary and it was one of the best decisions I made.
Budapest was always on my bucket list of places to visit, but it always felt just out of reach. A little too far, a little too expensive, and a little too, well, scary. I was scared to go somewhere that didn’t speak English- it seemed really, really daunting. But I swallowed my anxiety and booked the flight, the hostel, and a dinner reservation.
It was dark when I landed in Budapest, and I was beyond nervous walking around a foreign city that spoke a foreign language at night. I was confident in my ability to navigate public transportation. However, all the stops were in Hungarian, and the app I used to buy my ticket had no language preferences, so I was really struggling to find my way to my hostel. In the end, navigating this situation ended up being one of my proudest moments because it taught me that I was far more resourceful and clever than I ever thought.
Truthfully, the scariest part of the trip was eating dinner at a restaurant by myself. I could feel the slight judgment and questioning of the other people and my waitress, but, once again, I thought to myself ‘who cares’ and ordered myself a 24karrot cappuccino and sipped on it like I was royalty (except I wasn’t, and that became very clear when I saw the price of that coffee.)
Solo travel has been my most beneficial form of self-reflection. It has taught me so many things about myself that I never would have discovered had I not stepped away from familiarity and jumped into the unknown. Navigating new environments and cultures alone is something I recommend to everyone, especially women. The empowerment I feel now, knowing that I can handle myself in these situations, is something I take with me every day.