How to Have a Solo Adventure — And Why You Need One

Stop waiting around for a plus-one to start your adventures.

Before my marriage, I enjoyed going to a movie or to a restaurant alone. In fact, I had many memorable meals by candlelight, happily enjoying the food and my own company. Then, I went and got married at a too-young age, and suddenly, I had what I thought was a built-in plus-one.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

My then-spouse didn’t care to travel. Not for short road trips. Not on vacation. Not to visit my family or friends who all lived out of state. He also didn’t enjoy going to see many of the same films. Our musical tastes couldn’t have been more different. The longer we were together, the more readily apparent it was that we didn’t have much in common.

At first, I didn’t do the things I wanted to do because I wanted someone to go with me. My ex was, even then, an automatic no, and so I would ask friends and family members if they were interested. My interests were so diverse that I was sure someone somewhere would be interested in the same things I was. I was wrong about that, too.

Until the year I had what now appears to be a massive existential crisis. I was in my mid-to-late twenties, and everyone else in the world was talking about New Year’s resolutions. They were all looking forward, and I was looking back at a year where all I did was work, go to classes, sleep, rinse, and repeat. I was wasting my life.

I was wasting my life.

I decided that it didn’t matter if I had to go it alone. It would be better to embrace my interests and live my life than skip it because of everyone else’s lack of interest. Here’s what we need to do to start having solo adventures.

Stop waiting around for someone else to go with us.

This was key. Life doesn’t hit pause and wait for us to work out a plus-one to all the things we want to do. In fact, my first international overseas trip was taken alone. Yes, it was intimidating, but I had decided that what I wanted to do mattered more than if I had anyone to do it with.

I began seizing the day — rather than waiting for someone else to want to seize it with me.

Make a budget, and make it happen.

Whatever it is we want, we need to be doing things that actually help us get there. Learning to sacrifice small luxuries now for a big one later is a life skill, and it’s one that’s sure to help us when we’re planning to check something off our bucket lists.

There are adventures available for any budget or lifestyle. Often, it just takes time and effort to figure out how to do what we want to do on whatever budget we have to work with. Of course, to have a budget, we have to be willing to prioritize saving for the things we want.

Research everything, and make a plan.

Planning for our adventures necessitates research. It might start with a list of things we want to do during our lifetimes, but then it needs to be broken into actionable steps. Whether our lists include travel, learning a new skill, or simply having a new experience, we need to put energy into researching everything we can about that goal. After that, we break it down into small, achievable steps in that direction.

When I wanted to travel but knew my funds were limited, I started researching how to travel cheaply. I looked into hostels, discounted accommodations, reward miles for credit cards, and anything else that could help me go where I wanted for the amount I had to spend. It may seem impossible, but my first flight to Ireland, round-trip, was $46.73. It took creativity and resourcefulness, but I did my research and made a plan. Then I watched and waited for the best deal.

Practice safety.

As solo travelers, we need to practice safety. Some activities do benefit from having a plus-one — or at least letting someone know where we are at all times. Hiking is one such adventure. We need to make sure we stay aware of our environments and take basic precautions regardless of the type of adventure we’re undertaking.

Make every day an adventure.

Living an adventurous life doesn’t always look like jumping out of an airplane or going on an extravagant trip. We can make every day an adventure. It’s all about our mindset.

When I first became a single parent, I helped my children see everything as an adventure. I could make going to the grocery store something fun to do. It was all about the attitude I took with me. We began taking short day trips, and sometimes our adventure looked like finding a new park with a playground or going for a drive to see the sights.

Often, we play tourist in our own town or find something new and novel nearby to see. Adventures don’t have to be a rarity. They can be the way we live our lives, and we don’t have to be accompanied by anyone else to choose to go have a picnic or take a drive or find a new place to visit.

See the upside.

There are so many upsides of being a solo adventurer. Not only do we have the opportunity to shape what we do and set a pace we’re comfortable with, but we also get the opportunity to really get to know ourselves and have the headspace to think about our lives.

In one travel group I’m in, we have a regular hilarious thread of people asking members to Photoshop their exes out of pictures. That’s unnecessary when we travel (and adventure) alone.

Think outside the box.

Maybe we start with a list, and it just doesn’t have much on it. It can be difficult to think outside the box when it comes to adventuring. But we can consider trips we’d like to take, retreats that interest us, events that sound like a good time, classes we might want to take, and anything that might enrich the lives we’re living.

This isn’t about being busy all the time. Maybe our ideal adventure is taking a hammock on a hike and laying around reading a book for an afternoon. Maybe we want to find a specialty food shop and sample their wares or go to a wine tasting. It’s not about thinking bigger. It’s thinking bigger and smaller and deciding what kind of life we want to live — and then not waiting around for anyone else to actually go live it.

Throw away the idea that every activity needs a dance partner. Whether we’re single or not, it doesn’t really matter. There’s something beautiful about being happy to have solo adventures — even if it’s something we do once a year or when the mood takes us. We can even be part of healthy, intimate, loving relationships and still make time to see or do something on our own.

The point is we don’t have to wait for anyone else to live the lives we’ve always dreamed of when we could be living them right now.