Solo travel isn’t about avoiding loneliness. It’s about learning how to sit with it. In the quiet moments between hikes, conversations, and long drives, you start to understand what truly fulfills you. And in that space, you often find a deeper connection. Connection to yourself, to others, and to the world around you.
I caught up with a friend yesterday, someone I hadn’t seen since getting back from four months in New Zealand and Australia. He asked about my favorite part of the trip.
Easy answer: renting a camper van and spending a month driving around New Zealand’s South Island. No plans, just moving between campgrounds and freedom camping spots. Hiking, swimming in lakes, pulling over whenever something felt worth stopping for. Just… vibing.
He said it sounded incredible, but also like his nightmare.
“I’d get way too lonely,” he told me. “I could never do that alone for a month.”
Then he asked, “Do you ever get lonely when you travel solo?”
I laughed a little because… well, of course I do.
Loneliness Is Part of the Deal
I think we assume solo travelers have somehow “figured that part out”… that they’ve unlocked a way to avoid loneliness. But the truth is simpler: loneliness is part of it. It’s built in.
Solo travel is, by definition, being alone for long stretches of time. You can’t really opt out of that. You can only decide how you navigate through it.
I told him: loneliness in solo travel is like dirty dishes after cooking a great meal. It comes with the experience. You don’t avoid it… you accept it.
And I think a lot of us are uncomfortable with being alone because we’ve been conditioned to see it as a negative. Like if you’re not surrounded by people, something’s missing. Like your experience, or even your worth, is somehow less.
I’ve found the opposite to be true.
Alone Doesn’t Mean Disconnected
When I’m alone, I feel more connected than ever.
Not less.
Connected to myself.
To nature.
To small, unexpected moments.
To strangers I might otherwise overlook.
When you’re traveling with someone, your world naturally centers around that person. When you’re alone, it opens up.
You talk more: to locals, to other travelers, to the barista at a coffee shop, to someone swimming in the same lake as you. You notice more. You feel more.
The Small Moments Feel Big
On that trip, I listened to Zach Bryan on repeat, probably 20 times all the way through. I wore the same cologne whenever I felt genuinely happy, just to anchor the moment. I listened to 7 audio books. Seven. And read 5 more. I had full conversations with strangers that started with something as simple as “How’s the water?”
And some days?
The only words I said out loud were “can I get a flat white?” or “you’re welcome” after holding the door for someone.
Were there moments I felt lonely? Absolutely. A lot of them.
Where Loneliness Leads
But that loneliness forces something important: it pushes you back onto yourself.
When you can’t rely on friends, partners, or familiar faces to fill your time or validate your experience, you start asking a different question:
What actually fills me?
You end up doing things purely because you want to.
Listening to an album three times in a row.
Choosing a hike that’s too long (or too easy!) for anyone else.
Sitting in silence.
Starting conversations you might normally avoid.
A 20km hike alone isn’t just about the destination. It’s about the space it creates. Space to think. To notice. To feel.
That can be uncomfortable. Even scary.
But uncomfortable doesn’t mean bad. Sometimes it means necessary.
You Experience More When It’s Just You
I experience places more deeply when I’m alone. I connect more with people, with my surroundings, with myself. I couchsurf more. I follow my instincts more. I do exactly what I want, whether that’s a long hike or staying in and watching TV.
And yeah, sometimes that also means sitting with thoughts I’d usually avoid. Thinking about past relationships, mistakes, memories. Calling friends during long drives. Filling the silence. Or not.
I remember listening to an audio book that was about a relationship that reminded me so much of one of my own that I paused the book and had a 5 minute monologue about my own relationship. As if I was narrating my own life story. Why? I have no idea. Did it help? Who’s to say. But there was no one to hear me or judge me. I just did it and when it was out of my system I simply pressed play and drove on.
Life is A Little Lonely
At the end of the day, loneliness isn’t just part of solo travel.
It’s part of life.
We come into the world alone, and we leave it alone. In between, we spend a lot of time trying to connect: with others, with experiences, with meaning. But what we spend far less time doing is connecting with ourselves? What we pass off as connecting with ourselves is distracting ourselves. There is so much value in taking classes, in meeting with friends, in going to therapy. But there is also value in sitting in silence with yourself.
Connecting with others is one of the most beautiful things we do in this life. But how well can we really connect with anyone else if we haven’t connected with ourselves first?
How can you truly know someone if you don’t know who you are?
How can you be a good friend if you’re not one to yourself?
So… Do You Ever Feel Lonely?
The next time someone asks me if I get lonely when I travel solo, I’ll probably just smile and say:
That’s kind of the point.
Because sometimes, it’s only in those moments of loneliness that you find the deepest kind of connection.
Thinking about your first solo trip? Start a trip on CouchSurfing and find people who’ve been where you’re going or may want to connect with you along the way…