Solo Travel Musings of an Introvert

*Updated July 2020 in the midst of the c****19 pandemic*

Search for a Solo City

I have always wanted to embark on a solo travel for a long while even before the fad of “solo travel” hit social media. I fantasized being in a beautiful location just doing whatever I wanted without having to compromise to different personalities and choices in a group. Still, the thought of solo travel filled me with anxiety: I’ll be alone on foreign soil, alone as a woman and more scary, alone as a Black woman.

Furthermore, I tell my friends of my solo plan and their answers amuse me. The girls are very supportive and wish they have the balls to take a plunge like me. The guys?? “Won’t you be bored? So you’ll have no man with you? It’s not safe for a woman. Do you want to meet men there?” *wink,wink* – *insert my rolls eyes emoji here*.

Jeez! I laugh at all their comments and re-assure them that I’ll be fine. Do I need someone or a man to travel with me now? Society’s antiquated gender roles are a thesis on their own especially as I come from a culture that still upholds these roles. Ok. Enough about gender social norms…for now.

I fervently begin researching European and South American cities and reading experiences of female solo travellers of all stripes. I surf through Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark and Czech Republic and Pinterest doesn’t help either with picturesque and scenic locations in these countries. Mon Dieu!

I've always wanted to experience Scandinavia and Copenhagen is one of the cities in the region I fall in love with for its fairy-tale castles, palaces, green lifestyle, bilingualism and chill mien. Click To Tweet

I also discover that I can cross the Oresund Strait and visit Malmo, Sweden, for a day trip thus maximizing travel with my limited vacation time and I am so stoked!

Read More: Maximizing Travel with a Full-time 9-5

 

I wonder why I am so nervous. After all, I go to work solo, explore my city solo, sometimes take myself to lunch solo…so why the apprehension? I discover on darling Twitter, my second home, that that feeling is:

Resfeber – Swedish for “the restless race of the traveller’s heart before the journey begins, when anxiety and anticipation are tangled together.”

Well. After Germans, Swedish are definitely a close second in expressing eloquently those confusing thoughts and feelings we have within ourselves. If resfeber isn’t Serendipity, I don’t know what is, seeing as I decide to add Malmo to my itinerary.

 

Preparing for Solo Travel

I am convinced by Copenhagen and book combo flight+hostel accommodation on Orbitz after much research. Now the hard part: breaking the news to my mum. Lol. I’ve been telling her for months that I want to do a solo travel but she thinks I am just pondering and won’t actually take the plunge. Wrong!

I send my Orbitz confirmation details two months before departure to prepare her and she seems calm. The calm before the storm, that is. Days before my departure, it hit her, and her barrage of questions also hit me. We’re Nigerian and anyone who knows anything about Nigerians knows that we’re mad fun but also dramatic, especially our mothers.

“So you’re really going alone to Denmark, ehn? Are you sure no one is going with you?” *hands akimbo*

“Yes ma’am. I already told you so months ago, remember?”

“But why is no one going with you, nau? Can’t one of your friends go with you? I don’t like this oo. Eh hehn!”

Sigh. “Should they drop their lives just to follow me? Haba! Besides, I want to experience solo travel. That’s why it’s termed so.”

“Oya! Send me all your travel details immediately!”

Deep sigh. “I already did. Two months ago. Check your email, nau.”

Silence as she checks. Suddenly, “Ah! Ah, ah ah! You’re staying in a hostel?!?”

I know what’s coming next…”Yes. It’s much cheaper. Hotels are ridiculous but I read reviews and they are all positive, don’t worry.”

She sees the mixed-gender dorm details and freaks out. “Mixed-gender room, ke?!?!? So it is with men, abi? It’s not safe oo! Why??? Hmmnnnn. Okay. It’s ok.”

Anyone with a Nigerian mother knows that “ok” categorically means that everything is NOT OK. Lol. I settle her nerves as best as I can and continue preparations. I make sure to do the following:

• Print out a copy of my passport bio-data page and Travelex Insurance details.
• Email bio-data page to mum which she is very happy to receive. “Eh hehn! Thank you. Let me save this one.” Lol.
• Buy copious packets of dried fruit snacks and pack my non-BPA refillable water bottle. I do this because my research finds Copenhagen to be in the top 10 most expensive cities and I plan to be Polly Penny-Pincher there.

Read More: 7 Penny-Pinching Tips for Copenhagen

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Everyone wonders if I won’t suffer from boredom on my solo travel or crave a friend to talk to. Um…no. Lol. I’m an ambivert/introvert and live in NYC, a fast-paced concrete jungle with 24/7 noise and after a full-time 9-5, I require quiet and a charge down to recoup my juices.

People who know me never believe that I’m an introvert because I’m so bubbly not knowing that it all depends on the company and my mood. I require a charge-down after all this hence, my need for a solo travel to explore, be myself, act like a tourist and escape from life for 6 days. Bliss!

Solo travel is the best for introverts, I strongly believe, because it allows all of the above. I amble and strike up conversation with random strangers, sit on a park bench to soak up the atmosphere and spend 10 minutes just staring at an actual castle that I’ve only seen on Disney and in fairy-tales. All on my own time without feeling rushed by anyone.

 

Nevertheless, if you’re an ambivert or introvert that *might* miss human interaction on your solo travel, there are ways you can ease that.

 

SOLO TRAVEL TIPS FOR HUMAN INTERACTION

 

Join a walking tour. Hotels and hostels have flyers of walking tours advertised that cover niche attractions. E.g. a mural tour, haunted walking tour during Hallowe’en or a free city centre tour where you tip your guide after.

Interact with locals. There are many platforms that offer activities – salsa or dancing lessons, cooking classes, history tours etc – with locals for an immersion experience but the most popular is Air Bnb Experiences offers. I’ve never used this but I did look through during my Cuba girls’ trip preparations and saw salsa and cooking classes on offer.

One Experience that interested me was a Yoruba history tour of Havana, seeing as I’m part Yoruba from Nigeria and most Afro-Cubans are descendants of Yoruba and Efik tribes taken from present-day Nigeria and enslaved in the Caribbean. Alas! The tour was sold out but I will seek a similar tour for a Cuba return trip.

Couchsurfing has locals on their platform that are available to “just hangout” even though they don’t have extra room for a solo traveller.

 

Volunteer. Many travellers want to do more than just travel. They want to contribute to the local environment and support local causes while doing so. It’s all about responsible travel, folks!

If you want to commit a couple of hours or a full day of your travel itinerary to volunteer projects, Projects Abroad is a great site to browse through and they cater to travellers of all ages.

Not only do you get to meet people and locals from all over the world but you get to do a good deed too. It’s a win-win!

Fitness. If you’re #fitfam and #fitspiration and alladat, this is the ideal spot for you to meet new people and make friends abroad. You can inquire about discounts for travellers from the gym or hotels/hostels depending on how often you want to use it. This is the perfect ice-breaker as you will be introduced to locals, strike up conversation and take it from there.

Activity Tours. If you happen to be up for even more adventure, you can join sports tours in your destination city. Fellow blogger, Lori Wilson, blogs about 3 Ways to Counteract Loneliness during Solo Travel from kayak tours (I didn’t even know that was an option!) to running tours that encourage you to meet locals and other travellers during sojourn.

Other activity tours to get into abroad are of the environmental kind, such, as canal cleaning and plogging in major cities. Plogging involves jogging and picking up trash on beaches, roads or whatever planned route requires clean up. It is Swedish coined and has taken off in major cities in the past 2 years.

Every major city has environmental activities for residents and tourists to contribute to cleaning up their environment and interact with fellow travellers, such as spending a sustainable day in New York City.

 

Hostel Events: One of the benefits of a hostel is the communal events for residents e.g. Generator Hostel where I stay in Copenhagen offers Petanque evenings and a live band, but I am so tired from my daily explorations that I dive into bed. In my mixed dorm, I meet fellow travellers from all over: a Ugandan guy from Aarhus who speaks fluent Danish, U.S. Army guys stationed in Italy and folks from Ireland and Belgium.

People are curious as to what I think of my mixed dorm residence and my response is that it is great, because it really is. The dorm holds 8 with 1 toilet and 2 showers and 2 of the residents are female rooming with very pleasant guys. I have no issues at all. The shower is always dry every morning because these guys never use it! Just wake up, use the bathroom, throw on jeans and are off. Smdh!

I must confess though: the things that get to me about a mixed dorm are the numerous farts and snores from our male inhabitants. Lmao! Thankfully, I have a top bunk and despite the cold, I always leave the window wide open for ventilation.

Go to Church/Mosque/Temple. These are places where you’ll definitely not lack human interaction. If you’re atheist or agnostic, of course this doesn’t apply to you. If you’re *somewhat* religious and an occasional religious house goer, you might like this.

Day 1 of my adventures, I walk past a Reform Church and on the railings what do I see? I see a flyer for the Presbyterian Church of Ghana! I let out a hearty laugh because I always look out for Africans wherever I go. They hold service every Sunday evenings after the main church is done and I note down the time and vow to go on Sunday.

It is so nostalgic and reminds me of childhood. When they discover that I’m neither Ghanaian nor a Danish resident, they ask me to introduce myself to the church and state where I’m from. Lol. Every single African church does this and it just fills me with…comfort and longing, I guess. I need to look up those German and Swedish words for the right term. The service is usually in Twi – a Ghanaian language – but they use English for my benefit. Bless ’em.

Get Lost. Alternatively, you can be like me and get lost in a neighbourhood while exploring. Believe me, you’ll have a touristy expression that *might* endear you to people and cause them to walk up to help you. It happens to me but this depends on the city, though. I know that I stand out with my waist-length braids, a street map glued to my palm and a very lost look.

One day, I get on the bus to Norrebro and end up at the end of the line 40 minutes away. I’ve missed my stop because the robot voice calling out stops doesn’t pronounce Norrebro how I, an Anglophone, pronounces it. Oy vey!

So here I am at Herlev Hospital, way out in the suburbs and thoroughly lost. There is a guy waiting for the return bus and I ask for directions and hope he’s an English speaker. From there, we get chatting about the Danish system and how it differs from America and my mouth is agape all through. Can you say free healthcare, free education and a helpful social welfare system?

While preparing for Malmo, my Swedish friend, Camilla, proposes that we meet up since she’s close to Malmo. I jump at the idea because I haven’t seen her in 6 years and I thought she was in Stockholm. We meet up during my Malmo day trip and she’s my unofficial photographer. A huge chunk of my photos from Sweden are from her and they’re amazing!

I do the same wanderings in Amsterdam, getting lost in the Red Light District till I discover the Museum of Prostitution, and wandering the Haarlem centrum in search of hofjes and windmills. It’s extremely interesting discovering history on foot not part of a tourist pamphlet and I enjoy “getting lost” safely abroad.

All these options help quell the need for human interaction regardless of personality type and for introverts especially, it helps that they last for a couple of hours and we return to recharge in silence. Most people don’t realize that we desperately need that recharge. We aren’t moody, or have RBF or angry…we’re just re-fueling.

I thoroughly enjoy my Copenhagen rookie solo travel and learn lessons that I’ll be applying to subsequent solo trips. Now that I’ve been bitten by the solo travel bug, I’m hooked!

I know I’ve only been on one solo trip but honestly, Copenhagen stands out for me because the residents were all so helpful and kind to me, an obvious tourist. As mentioned, I was a bit apprehensive but was stunned by the city’s diversity, especially in Norrebro, and I plan on returning in warmer weather whenever U.S. citizens are allowed in the EU with the pandemic happening.

Let me know if you enjoy solo travel and if you ever crave human interaction during this.

Thank you for reading! Pin graphic below and don’t forget to comment xoxo.

 

 

 

 

 

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