Reflections on Six Months of Travel

February 15th marks six months of full time travel that have gone by extremely fast. From Europe to Southeast Asia, in the last six months I have been able to meet many awesome people, visit amazing places, and make memories all over the world. The last six months have been filled with so many adventures; it is crazy to think that it has only been six months and I now have enough memories to last a lifetime. Even after six months it still feels like I’m living in a dream vs reality and I couldn’t be happier with my decision to take this time to travel and see the world.

"Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Full time travel is a lot of work. It’s tiring and it isn’t for the faint of heart. It isn’t always glamorous or picture perfect, but that’s what makes it rewarding. While seeing the different sights and attractions in all of the places I have traveled is super cool, I have found that the moments I remember the most are the little things, the in-between moments, the times when things went wrong or simply didn’t go the way I imagined they would. From breathtaking sunsets, to finding a great group of other solo travelers, spontaneous adventures, going off the beaten track, and more, these are the moments and stories I remember most and have become some of my best memories. While in the moment, situations can be very stressful and not very fun, I also greatly appreciate the stories and learning experiences that come from things going wrong or having simply been chaotic experiences.

Since it has been such a full six months of adventure, learning, and growing, it is hard to sum everything up, but I’m going to do my best to do just that. The following are some things that I have learned and things that didn’t fit into other blog posts, but that I still want to share.

The first thing I want to share is that solo travel really doesn’t mean that I’m always alone and I hope I’ve conveyed this through the stories I have shared. A lot of the time I have to actively work to make sure I am getting enough time to myself. While at some locations or times I may not meet many people or I may spend most of my time alone, at most places I have been I’ve met a bunch of other travelers. Staying at hostels is the best way to meet other travelers and is how I’ve met most people. After hostels, I meet most people through people knowing others or while on scheduled tours. A statistic I heard a while ago was that 80-85% of solo travelers are female. I can attest to this based on the fact that most other solo travelers I’ve met or have seen at hostels have been women. Another thing about travel, especially long term, solo travel, would be that it seems many people think you have to be fearless or brave to travel solo. What I have found is that at the end of the day it’s about determination and drive. From speaking with other solo travelers and knowing myself, we’re not fearless and we do get stressed, even over little things. We just work through our fears because it comes down to the fact that the experiences outweigh any possible downside or stressful moments.

Over the last six months one thing that I have had to actively work on and still do work on even now, is changing my mindset as to time. Before this trip, whenever I have traveled places it has been on vacation and during vacations I have always kept busy since I only had a limited amount of time. Now that I don’t have any time constraints I have slowed down the pace at which I do things during a day or how many sites I visit in different locations. For the first few months I would be out all day having full days of sightseeing and exploration. This pace wasn’t sustainable for many more months of travel. One way I have helped myself to slow down was to compare long term travel to a job. With a job you only go for set hours during the day and you aren’t there from the moment you wake up to when you go to bed. My travels are the same. I don’t need to be gone exploring from the moment I wake up to when I go to bed; I can have slow, relaxed mornings, be back at my hostel in the evenings, and/or take long breaks in the middle of the day to beat the heat. The main takeaway I’ve had is that it is ok to take days off from doing activities and not to be gone all day everyday. While I do take days off from activities, I never truly have a day fully off since I’m either having to navigate where to find food or where I am going next, I’m writing another blog post, or I’m creating an Instagram, or Tik Tok post. From the beginning of my travels until now the time between planning/booking new locations and leaving has drastically decreased. At the beginning of my trip I would plan where I was going a few days to a week before leaving. Now, I figure out where I’m going next and I book my accommodations usually the day or night before I leave. By booking as I go it allows me to be flexible with my locations and where I go next, I also can then hear where other travelers do or don’t recommend visiting.

Traveling for so long and going solo has helped me to grow so much as a person and as a global citizen. It has given me some amazing stories and has also put me in highly stressful situations, from seeing the awe-inspiring Colosseum to getting really sick all alone in a foreign country, from celebrating multiple countries' national days to having to wash my clothes in a dirty bucket or in a bathroom sink. By going through both the highs and the lows I have been able to better learn how to navigate high stress situations and to realize just how capable I am of handling whatever life throws at me. Through meeting so many people from all over the world, I have been able to see how even though we speak different languages and have different cultures and cuisines, at the end of the day we’re more alike than we are different. I have also seen how people are inherently good and most people are willing to help. A great example of this was when I ended up stranded on a beach outside of Çesme, Turkey. I asked for help and kind strangers were willing to help and even enlisted the help of a friend to drive out of his way to rescue a stranded tourist.

“Travel is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sky, the sea – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.”

- Cesare Pavese

During these last six months I have been able to learn about and try so many different cuisines from Italy to Turkey to Thailand and everything in between. I have learned about common dishes, ingredients, and flavors. There is so much more that goes into the foods of the different countries than just its ingredients. Food tells us about a country's culture, geography, history, and more. For example, when looking at the foods from Turkey and Balkan countries, such as Bosnia and Bulgaria, I have seen a lot of similarities in dishes and foods. The Ottoman empire used to stretch across all of these countries for hundreds of years. Having one empire rule so many countries has created large similarities in cuisines with even the same dishes being claimed as their own between multiple countries. In Southeast Asia I’ve seen a lot of similarities in dishes between Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, with some dishes being the same just with different names. Overall, I have been able to try so many amazing foods and have enjoyed learning more about the different ingredients, spices, and dishes in all of the countries and regions I have been to.

Finally, for the last six months I have been living solely out of two backpacks, carrying only what I can fit and what I pack needs to have a purpose. Packing such a small amount of clothes and belongings may seem crazy to some, but I have really enjoyed living such a minimalist lifestyle. For me, organization is key and so everything has an exact spot in my bag and most items are in containers, from packing cubes to reusable liquids “bags”. This has made packing quick and easy. Deciding what to wear usually comes down to what is the least dirty item. Living so minimalistically makes getting ready easy since I only have five t-shirts and, as of recently, one tank top. Another unglamorous truth about long term travel is that your clothes and belongings are never fully clean. I can have freshly washed clothes, but the second they go back into my bag they’re no longer clean. This is because I am always having to rewear clothes and pack clean clothes with dirty clothes. It may sound crazy with how little I carry, but I still constantly feel as if I am overpacked. Whenever I look through my bags to get rid of items I can never seem to find anything that I am able to leave behind; everything has a purpose and a need. Also, for anyone wondering, since I only have five t-shirts, I have gotten sick of my shirts. I will continue carrying them for months to come, but I look forward to the day when I get rid of these five t-shirts.

Overall, it has been an amazing six months filled with highs and lows. I’ve navigated new countries, cultures, and cuisines, and so much more. It isn't always pretty but that’s what makes travel great. I am so excited to see what the future holds for my travels. The world is huge and I have no end in sight! Thanks for following along on my journeys around the globe.

- Lauren

“As you travel alone, being totally responsible for yourself, it’s totally inevitable to discover just how capable you are.”

- Unknown