15 Benefits of Travelling Solo (From a Full-Time Traveller)

Wondering what the benefits of travelling solo are?

Then you’ve come to the right article as I’m a full-time traveller and I’ve solo travelled for months at a time.

Taking your first trip takes a lot of courage, and it’s not something everyone will do in life. But I strongly recommend it!

There are lots of benefits of travelling solo, but it can be hard to imagine what these are before taking your first trip.

From personal growth to making new friends, I’ve found there to be tons of advantages, so I’ve put together a list of the biggest benefits I’ve discovered.

Benefits of Travelling Solo

Taking a solo trip is one of the best things you can do in life and I’d really encourage anyone to try it at least once. Once you have taken a solo trip, you’ll never think twice again. There are so many benefits of travelling alone, and these are just some of my favourites.

1. Easy to meet people

One of the biggest benefits of travelling solo is that it’s super easy to meet other people. The thing with travelling by yourself is that even though you’re alone, you don’t actually want to spend all day every day on your own.

And everyone else is in the same position, so it’s really easy to make friends with other solo travellers and spend the day together. Especially if you stay in hostels. It’s impossible to truly describe what it’s like to stay in a hostel without staying in one, but the atmosphere makes it really easy to meet new people.

Speaking statistics for a second, 76% of people say that meeting people is a deciding factor for what hostel they stay in. If that doesn’t summarise how easy it is to meet people in hostels, I don’t know what will.

But you can meet people anywhere and everywhere. Free walking tours are another good way to meet people. These are popular amongst solo travellers, so if you’re in a group with other solos, strike up a conversation.

I’ve even made friends with a guy who asked me to take a photo for him randomly in Sintra, Portugal, and we just started talking to each other afterwards. Don’t neglect the power of a simple “Where are you from?”.

When you travel with other people, you’re more likely to just stick with them, stick with what’s comfortable. But one of the best parts about travelling is the people you meet, and solo travel makes it a lot easier to meet new people.

A selfie with a backpacking group on an escalator, capturing the spontaneous connections and shared joy among solo travelers meeting on their journeys.
A group of friends I made while we were all travelling solo.

I actually love meeting new people so much that I created a backpacking Facebook group where you too can meet new people and make new friends. There are hundreds of thousands of backpackers in the world. If we come together and help each other, it’s a win-win for everyone.

A promotional image for my Facebook Group. If you click the image, you will be taken to my group.

2. Freedom and Flexibility

Another benefit of travelling alone is that you have complete freedom and flexibility. You don’t have to compromise with anyone or do anything you don’t want to.

You can do whatever you want, whenever you want.

If you want to wake up at 6 am and catch a sunrise, you don’t have to convince someone else to wake up early to go do it.

Or if you want to go to a museum that you’re interested in but your friends wouldn’t be, you don’t have to convince anyone again.

You might even just want to spend a day chilling in the hostel, and that’s totally fine.

Everything is up to you and you don’t have to make any compromises with other people. One of the great things about solo travel is you can be selfish!

A young man sitting on a stone ledge at Lindenhof with Zurich's cityscape in the background, with a serene view of the river and historical architecture.
When I visited Basel, I wanted to take a day trip to Zürich…so I did! I didn’t have to ask anyone, I just went.

3. Building Confidence

Before travelling solo, I wasn’t the most confident person in the world, but solo travel pushes you out of your comfort zone and forces you to be confident.

Whether it’s something as simple as asking a stranger to take a photo of you or having the confidence to use public transport in a country where you don’t speak the language, you need to be confident.

And taking a trip by yourself obviously requires a lot of confidence, especially if you’re going far away from home like to Southeast Asia. And solo travel really helps to develop confidence along the way.

I could never have imagined myself sitting alone in a restaurant, but I’ve done it loads of times and it doesn’t even phase me now.

Solo travel doesn’t leave you with much choice but to be confident. It’s a ride-or-die kind of situation, so naturally, you grow in confidence.

A young man standing before the US Capitol building in Washington D.C.
A picture of me on my own in Washington D.C., more than 3,000 miles from home.

4. Improved Social Skills

Since solo travel makes it so easy to meet new people, you will naturally develop better social skills.

One of the biggest advantages to backpacking is that you will meet people from all around the world. For example, this friend group below consists of me, a Brit, a guy from Greece, a guy from China and a guy from the Philippines.

In any other situation, it’s a pretty random mix of people. So you develop better social skills as you are meeting all different kinds of personalities, different senses of humour, etc.

Plus, aside from the friend-making aspect, you need to speak to people in everyday life. Staff in hostels, servers in restaurants, workers in tourist attractions, you pretty much need to speak to people everywhere you go.

You might notice that many of these benefits of travelling alone are interlinked. Meeting people, confidence and social skills are all related.

A group of friends posing together with the Washington Monument in the distance, highlighting the friendships forged through solo travels and hostel stays

5. Self-Discovery & Personal Growth

It’s quite cringey to say, but solo travel does lead to a lot of self-discovery and personal growth.

Long bus rides and train journeys leave lots of time to sit and think. You get to know yourself a lot better.

For example, you might try something that you would have never done before, and you really enjoyed it.

Or you might realise that you’re actually a morning person or a night person. Spending time by yourself allows you to discover what you actually enjoy doing and what you do because you feel like you “have” to.

But it’s not all mentally related things either. It’s more a benefit of general travelling rather than travelling alone, but I used to be a really fussy eater, but now after travelling, I’ll eat pretty much anything.

6. Unbiased Experiences

One of my favourite benefits of travelling solo is that you get a completely unbiased perspective, you can form your own opinions completely on your own.

If you’re visiting somewhere with someone and they don’t like it, they’re going to portray that to you and you’ll probably like it a bit less too.

When you’re by yourself, you can form your own impressions and opinions about places and cultures without being influenced by the views of travel companions.

I also find that solo travellers are less likely to believe in stereotypes or prejudice. Lots of people actually travel solo to countries which people would have you believe are completely unsafe like Pakistan or even Afghanistan.

The mindset amongst solo travellers is to get an authentic travel experience and see the world for what it is, rather than what people want you to believe.

The Grand Place in Brussels basks in the sunset glow, with a solo traveler enjoying the moment.
I absolutely loved Brussels, but I see lots of people say it’s a really boring city. I disagree!

7. Cost-efficient

When travelling solo, you can more easily stick to a budget since you’re making all the financial decisions based on your personal preferences and priorities.

For example, if you don’t want to spend $20 on a sit-down meal, you don’t have to do it because someone you’re travelling with wants to.

You’re on your own, so it’s completely up to you. On the other end of the scale, if you want to spend out on something, you don’t have to ask anyone beforehand, which goes back to the point of freedom and flexibility.

When you’re travelling alone, you’re also more likely to stay in a hostel, keeping the cost of backpacking down and saving you money.

Close-up of a hand holding Icelandic currency notes against a blurred background, symbolizing the financial aspect of solo travel and budget management

8. Go at your own pace

When you’re travelling with other people, you might feel like things are going too quickly, or also too slowly.

Whether it’s on a day-to-day basis where you want to spend longer at a tourist attraction, or you want to do more things in a day; or a longer basis where you want to spend more days in a destination, or move onto the destination quicker.

But if you’re on your own, it’s entirely up to you. If you really like a museum, you can stay there as long as you want.

If you don’t like the city you’re in, you can move on sooner than expected. If you’re on your own, you dictate the pace you do things.

A cheerful solo traveler smiling in Amsterdam with lush trees and a serene canal in the background.

9. Develop Problem-Solving & Decision-Making Skills

I’ll be honest, when you’re travelling, a lot of things go wrong. Like, all the time.

Silly things like buses being late, trains being cancelled, or maybe even getting on the wrong train happen so often.

But it’s how you deal with these situations that define you. Travelling solo means you need to fix these problems and make these decisions completely on your own.

And you will make mistakes, and that’s okay. For example, one time when I was in Oslo, I accidentally got on a train thinking I had a ticket, it turns out I had a ticket for a different company. So I had to pay for the train again, doubling the price of my ticket. Oslo is expensive enough as it is!

Everyone makes mistakes when travelling, but solo travel means you’re solely responsible for these mistakes. Learn from your mistakes and your problem-solving and decision-making skills will grow massively.

An Oslo train ready for departure at a platform during the evening. I paid twice for this train, but one of the benefits of travelling solo is that I learnt from my mistake.
The train in question…

10. Mindfulness and Reflection

Those train rides I talked about where you have a ton of time to discover things about yourself and grow as a person; they also leave a lot of time for reflection.

Mindfulness and reflection help you to appreciate things more. When you’re travelling with others, you tend to jump from place to place, and it’s always “what’s next, what’s next?” whereas when you travel alone, you think more about where you’ve been.

A random example from my time travelling in Europe was I didn’t initially think Hamburg was amazing, but when I was getting the train from Hamburg to Berlin, I thought about it a bit more and it actually has a lot to offer. And now I even recommend visiting Hamburg to others.

But it also makes you more grateful for the opportunity to travel, and pretty much it just makes you appreciate life a bit more. Whenever you’re having a bad day, the mindfulness and reflection you do on your good days will help to cheer you up on those bad days.

A young man standing alone, gazing at the intricate architecture of Hamburg's city hall, reflecting on the personal growth and self-reflection benefits of solo travel
Hamburg City Hall

11. You notice the finer details

On top of mindfulness and reflection, another benefit of solo travel is you also notice the finer details, which also helps you appreciate things more.

When you’re on your own, you take things in more. You don’t have conversations to distract you, and as I said earlier, you dictate the pace.

You notice the finer details in both definitions: the literal finer definitions such as the individual sculptures on the Trevi Fountain rather than the fountain as a whole, but also the finer details “of life” as the saying goes.

Something as simple as sitting with a group of newly made friends enjoying breakfast in the morning will lead to some of your best memories from solo travelling, I guarantee it.

The majestic Trevi Fountain in Rome during daylight, illustrating the cultural enrichment one experiences while exploring famous landmarks alone

12. Learning to Enjoy Your Own Company

Even though you do spend a lot of time with other people while solo travelling, you do still spend a good amount of time by yourself.

But the benefit of this is that you learn to enjoy your own company. If you’re an introvert, you probably already enjoy your own company, so this one doesn’t apply as much to you.

Extroverts tend to get lonely when alone quickly, but travelling solo can help combat this and help you learn to enjoy your own company.

Going for a walk in the evening around some sights on your own is a really simple way of beginning to enjoy your own company.

13. Improve Language Skills

Travelling alone doesn’t leave you with much choice but to learn some basic phrases in the local language.

Simple things such as learning “hello”, “thank you”, “please”, etc., not only help you get by, but your efforts are really appreciated by locals.

If you’re going to somewhere like Latin America where English isn’t spoken as well, it might be worth your while learning some more advanced phrases. Personally, I use Duolingo to learn Spanish.

And while it’s obviously very beneficial while travelling, research shows that learning a second language helps your brain in everyday life too.

14. You become a better traveller

One of the biggest benefits of travelling solo is that you become a better traveller.

Because you are doing everything yourself, making every decision yourself, experiencing everything yourself, planning everything yourself, travelling from place to place by yourself, you simply become a better traveller overall.

You’ll pick up so many things along the way such as navigating public transport in languages you don’t speak, learning how to pick good places to eat, and just general travel know-how.

Plus, you need to be safe when travelling alone, so you learn how to take personal safety more seriously too.

Solo traveler in front of the majestic Seljalandsfoss waterfall in Iceland, showcasing the awe-inspiring natural wonders discovered while traveling alone

15. You don’t have to wait for anyone

And possibly one of the biggest benefits of travelling alone is…you don’t have to wait on anyone. The best backpacking countries are arguably suited better to solo travel too.

You know that dream trip you’ve always wanted to go on but you’re just waiting to find the right person, just book it! Go by yourself.

Or that friends holiday that’s been in the “planning stage” for 6 months? Go on your own!

Travelling alone is the biggest blessing you can have, because travelling is one of the best things in life, and you shouldn’t stop yourself from travelling by waiting on others.

There’s no better time to travel than now, so stop waiting for the “right time”. Circling back to my very first point, you’ll always meet people along the way.

A smiling traveler in front of the cascading waters of Krka National Park, Croatia. One of the best benefits of solo travel is that you don't have to wait for other people to make memories like this.

Benefits of Travelling Alone: FAQ

Below are some questions related to the benefits of travelling solo along with my answers to each question.

What are the advantages of travelling alone?

There are lots of advantages of travelling alone. You get to do what you want when you want, you decide the pace you travel, you meet people much easier, and you grow as a person developing skills such as confidence and problem-solving skills.

Why is solo travel empowering?

Solo travel is empowering because

What are the joys of travelling solo?

There are lots of joys of travelling solo but one of the biggest joys is the people you meet. When you travel alone, it’s much easier to meet people and make new friends. Solo travellers will often group together and make new friend groups, which is always special.

What are the psychological benefits of travelling alone?

Some psychological benefits of travelling alone include increased confidence, better social skills, improved problem-solving and decision-making skills, and the opportunity for self-discovery and personal growth.

Final Thoughts: Solo Travel Benefits

And there you have it, a complete list of the best benefits of travelling solo.

There are so many benefits such as growing as a person and enjoying your own company, to improved confidence and social skills, but also just the ability to do whatever you want whenever you want.

Taking a solo trip is one of the best things you can do, and I really think everyone should take a trip on their own at least once in their life.

I’d recommend starting out by taking popular routes for backpackers, so it’s even easier to meet new people along the way.