Unsure if solo travel is for you or not? A Guide to Your First Solo Trip as a Woman
There is a particular kind of moment that often comes before a first solo trip.
You want to go somewhere. You feel like you need a change of scenery, a little space, maybe even a reset. The idea of travelling alone feels exciting in theory — but when you actually picture yourself booking the flight, arriving in a new place and sitting down for dinner by yourself, the confidence can disappear quite quickly.
You might start wondering: Will I feel lonely? Will I be safe? What if I hate it? What if I don’t know what to do with myself? What if everyone else seems to be travelling with partners or friends?
If that sounds familiar, it does not necessarily mean solo travel is not for you. It may simply mean you have never done it before. And unfamiliar things naturally come with uncertainty.
Solo travel is not about being fearless
One of the biggest misconceptions about solo travel is that you need to be naturally independent, adventurous or extremely confident to enjoy it. You don’t.
Many women who travel alone still feel nervous before a trip. The difference is not that fear disappears. It is that the trip is designed in a way that makes the unfamiliar feel manageable.
For your first solo trip, you do not need to throw yourself into the deep end. You don’t need to backpack across five countries, stay in a hostel or spend three weeks completely disconnected from everyone you know.
Your first solo trip could be three nights in a walkable coastal town, a beautiful hotel in a city you have always wanted to visit, or a quiet wellness-focused break where most of your days are gently structured.
There is no correct way to travel alone. The right first trip is the one that feels like enough of a stretch to feel meaningful, but not so much of a stretch that you spend the entire experience overwhelmed.
Start by asking a different question
Most people begin planning a trip by asking: “Where should I go?” But for a first solo trip, there is a more useful question: “What do I actually need from this trip?”
Perhaps you have just come out of a relationship and need somewhere that feels comforting rather than intensely romantic. Maybe work has drained you and the last thing you need is a city where you feel pressure to see ten attractions every day. Maybe life feels stagnant and you actually need novelty, movement and stimulation.
Or perhaps nothing dramatic has happened at all. You simply want to experience what it feels like to make decisions entirely for yourself.
Two women could travel to exactly the same destination and have completely different experiences because they arrived needing completely different things. That is why your psychological wellbeing, your personality and your current stage of life matter when deciding where — and how — to travel.
What kind of solo traveller might you be?
Before choosing your destination, think about what makes you feel comfortable.
- Do you feel calmer when your day is planned in advance, or do rigid schedules make you feel trapped?
- Do you recharge around people, or after several hours alone?
- Would sitting alone in a restaurant feel peaceful to you, or uncomfortable at first?
- Do busy cities energise you, or leave you overstimulated?
- Would you rather spend your afternoon exploring neighbourhoods and cafés, hiking somewhere remote, booking a spa treatment, or talking to strangers on a food tour?
None of these answers are better than the others. But they tell you something important about what your solo trip should look like.
Someone who enjoys predictability, for example, may feel much more comfortable with a detailed itinerary and reservations already made. Someone who becomes easily overstimulated might enjoy a smaller destination with plenty of downtime. Someone who worries about loneliness may be happiest somewhere with organised activities, communal experiences and opportunities for natural interaction. And someone going through a major life transition might need more quiet space than entertainment.
The goal is not to choose the destination everybody else recommends. It is to choose one that works for you.
“But won’t I feel lonely?”
Possibly, at times. Solo travel is not a continuous montage of sunsets, beautiful breakfasts and spontaneous revelations. There may be moments when you wish somebody was sitting across from you. There may also be moments when being alone feels unexpectedly freeing.
The important thing is understanding the difference between being alone and feeling lonely.
When you travel with someone else, much of your attention naturally goes towards the other person: where they want to eat, whether they are tired, what they want to do next. When you travel alone, that background negotiation disappears. You begin noticing your own preferences more clearly.
Do you actually want to visit another museum? Do you really want dinner, or would you rather buy something small and watch the sunset? Would you rather wake up at 6:30 for a hike, or sleep until 10?
These decisions sound small. But for women who spend much of their everyday lives adapting to work, relationships, family or other people’s expectations, making choices entirely for yourself can feel surprisingly significant.
If eating alone scares you, start small
For many first-time solo travellers, eating alone is one of the biggest sources of anxiety. If the idea of booking a table for one makes you uncomfortable, you do not need to force yourself into the most intimidating version of it on your first evening.
Start somewhere easy. Choose a relaxed café for breakfast. Sit outside somewhere with people-watching. Have lunch at a counter or casual restaurant. Bring a journal or book if it helps you settle in. By the time dinner comes around, the experience may already feel much more normal.
And remember: people are usually paying far less attention to you than you imagine. A woman sitting alone with a glass of wine does not look lonely. Quite often, she simply looks like a woman enjoying her own evening.
Safety matters — and planning can reduce a lot of uncertainty
Being cautious about safety does not mean you are too anxious to travel alone. It means you are thinking realistically. For a first solo trip, some practical decisions can make an enormous difference to how secure you feel:
- Choose accommodation in a well-connected neighbourhood rather than simply choosing the cheapest option.
- Plan how you will get from the airport to your accommodation before you arrive.
- Research how you will move around at night.
- Understand local customs and appropriate behaviour.
- Know which areas you may want to avoid.
- Keep your first evening relatively simple.
- Have key addresses, emergency information and transport options accessible even if your phone loses connection.
And most importantly, choose a destination that matches your experience level. Your first solo trip does not need to prove anything. Feeling safe enough to relax is what allows you to actually enjoy being there.
You also don’t need to fill every minute
There is another common first-solo-trip mistake: overplanning. Sometimes women feel that if they are travelling alone, they must constantly be doing something. Breakfast. Museum. Walking tour. Lunch. Gallery. Shopping. Sunset viewpoint. Dinner reservation.
Suddenly the trip you booked because you needed space becomes another schedule you have to keep up with.
A good solo itinerary gives you structure without taking away your freedom. Knowing where you could go can be reassuring. Knowing that you are allowed to change your mind is equally important.
Leave space for wandering. Leave space for sitting somewhere beautiful longer than expected. Leave space for an afternoon when you realise you don’t actually want to do anything. Sometimes that is the point.
So, is solo travel right for you?
You may enjoy solo travel if you are curious about spending time independently, want more freedom over your decisions, need some space from everyday life or simply want to experience something that is entirely yours.
But you do not need to know whether you are “a solo traveller” before you go. You can treat your first trip as an experiment. A few days. One destination. A well-planned environment. Enough structure to feel secure and enough freedom to discover how you actually feel when you are there.
You might come home desperate to book another trip. You might decide you prefer travelling with other people. Both are perfectly useful things to learn about yourself.
If the hardest part is knowing where to start
Sometimes the desire to travel alone is already there. The difficult part is translating “I think I need to get away” into an actual destination, hotel, neighbourhood and plan that feels right.
That is exactly what Grounding to Go is designed to help with. Rather than simply recommending popular solo-travel destinations, Grounding to Go looks at your personality, psychological wellbeing, travel preferences and what you need from this particular chapter of your life.
Because the best destination for you after burnout may be very different from the best destination after a breakup, a career change or simply a period of feeling stuck.
Not ready to book the whole trip?
The Solo Trip Direction Package is for women who are still in the “I want to travel, but I have no idea what I need or where I should go” stage. For €35, it includes:
- a 60-minute direction call
- a written summary of the conversation
- a private printable online diary with prompts to help you work out your next steps
And if you later decide to book the full Grounding to Go package, the €35 is deducted from your final price.
Want someone to work out the whole plan?
The Grounding to Go Full Package is a completely personalised itinerary created around you. For €40 per day of travel, your plan includes your daily activities, restaurants, cafés and bars, accommodation and neighbourhood suggestions, transport and flight guidance, safety vetting and access to Grounding to Go solo-female-traveller-certified businesses where available.
You will also receive a destination guide covering local customs, appropriate conduct, what to pack, souvenirs to look out for and beautiful places to photograph.
The itinerary is delivered in an interactive online format as well as a printable PDF, so you can arrive knowing what to expect without having to spend weeks researching everything yourself.
Because your first solo trip should not feel like something you have to survive. It should feel like something you chose for yourself.