Nat Locke: I'm here to dispel the myth that you have to be brave to do solo travel — you absolutely do not

West Australian

19-07-2025

Last week, I travelled around Turkey (after they finally issued me that eVisa) in the company of three English people. We were all doing a small group tour, and as it turned out, we were all solo travellers, thrown together in the back of a minibus.
One was a retired dentist from London who had already taken 46 trips with this particular tour company and has been to just about everywhere you can think of. His wife is not as keen on travelling, so stays home while he gallivants around. It works for them.
Another was an almost retired accountant from London who was also very well-travelled. He had a plethora of stories about tropical parasites (don't google botfly larvae, whatever you do), and has planned a trip a month for the next year.
And then there was the nurse from the south of England who was on her first ever solo trip at the ripe old age of 48.
As a first-time solo traveller, she was a bit nervous about how she would go. Her main concerns seemed to be about whether she would get along with her fellow travellers (she did), and whether she would miss having a buddy to have a sneaky gin and tonic with in the evening or dinner with if there were no organised meals on a given night (she didn't).
It turns out her fears were thoroughly unfounded. The four of us — unlikely friends on paper — got along famously. We laughed our way around Turkey, sipped G&T's in the long evenings, went shopping together, signed up for hot air ballooning together and helped one another when someone fell over (the retired dentist, not me for once).
My new nursing friend is not the first person to be spooked by travelling on their own. Whenever I post about my trips on Instagram, I get private messages from people telling me how brave I am to go on solo adventures and suggesting that they can't imagine feeling confident enough to do it themselves.
So, I'm here to dispel the myth that you have to be brave to do this. You absolutely do not. You just have to have a plan. And you have to be prepared to enjoy it more than you could imagine.
The joys of travelling on your own are that you can do exactly what you want to do at any given time.
If you want to sleep in one day, you can, without upsetting someone who wants to get up and about at sunrise. If you want to sit in a cafe watching the world go by for half the day, rather than traipse around a motorcycle museum, you absolutely can. If you want to eat baklava in bed instead of going out to dinner, oh boy, can you. You are utterly free to do whatever you want which is a very liberating feeling.
But similarly, if you are the sort of person who likes the company of other people, there are so many ways to achieve it, even when travelling solo. Small group tours have been an amazing way for me to connect with fellow like-minded people and have the safety of a tour leader with some inside knowledge, especially when I'm going to a place I've never been to before, or where there's a significant language barrier.
When I'm not with a tour group, though, I like to seek out activities to keep me busy and to have the opportunity to meet and chat to other people. In Istanbul, I did a food tour where it turned out I was the only person on the tour, so I got a private experience where my guide took me to a bunch of her favourite spots and by the end of it, we felt like old friends. I also signed up for a perfume making workshop because, why not?
In Vietnam, I did a leatherwork class where I made my own coin purse, and a lantern making workshop. In a small town in Italy, I went on an ebike tour of the surrounding countryside.
In Florence, I learned how to appreciate aperitivo hour and in LA, I toured the Farmers Market with an enthusiastic woman named Jodie who loudly proclaimed to every vendor that 'NATALIE'S ON THE RADIO' which was both mortifying and hilarious.
The reality is that if I was travelling with a group of friends, I never would have done any of these things because there's no way we could have all agreed on any given activity.
Travelling solo forces you to try new things, to smile at strangers, to ask for directions, and to do whatever the hell you want. And I really, really like it.
Now excuse me, but I'm off to a Turkish bath house, because I can.