Travelling alone

Many of you have asked me whether I am not worried or scared about travelling on my own and I want to give you a quick update on my current opinion :-)

Of course I am not some weird antisocial nerd that doesn't feel like talking to other people within several weeks. So I would prefer to travel with somebody (that I enjoy travelling with!) but since these people didn't have time, I rather go by myself than not to go at all.

But now about the being scared thing: I think there are two points to it. First of all, people might be scared of travelling itself. Of being in danger while on the road, of not finding the places or buses they want to find or of the new environment / country itself. I am sure this fear pretty quickly fades away once you have travelled to another country and you find out that people are more or less the same everywhere (or at least human nature is in general a friendly one) and you will always somehow find what you are looking for. Apart from this, I am pretty convinced that the US or big cities in Europe are a lot more dangerous than most parts of the world (and for sure than Southeast Asia!).

Second of all, people might be scared of actually being alone. That obviously depends on the person, but although I am quite happy to hang out by myself, I must admit that I felt weird in the beginning. Somehow, you just think that everybody else has somebody to talk to and you are the only one wandering the streets alone (and you think that everybody notices and that makes you feel even weirder!). However, you soon realize that it is not like this and there are actually many lone travellers. And there are certainly advantages to being on your own: it is a lot easier to get in contact with local people since they are more likely to talk to one lonely foreigner, you can observe your surrounding a lot more and you actually get to take more pictures (that you can chose to delete afterwards...).

Apart from that, you always meet other travellers and that can actually show you even more how nice it is to travel alone... I travelled with quite some people over the last few days and apart from that it is of course more complicated to organize a bigger group of people, it can have many other downsides, too. You would think that the travellers you meet here are more or less similar to yourself and have similar interests, but no way! I met some people that are just not interested in local people and their life and actually behave so rude towards them that it is embarrassing to be in the same group with them... There are so many different interests and you constantly have to compromise and don't get to see the stuff you actually want to see. After meeting some of those weird people that I can't identify with at all, I actually prefer not to talk all day than having to talk to them.

So don't worry! I am really happy here and completely fine with being by myself! (Although I am looking forward to travelling with Natalie to East Africa!)