On Travel For Confidence

How solo travel cured my social anxiety

Thinking back to about four years ago when I took off from Detroit on a one-way flight to London, I barely recognize the person I was at the time. I was timid, insecure, restrained by a heavy social anxiety that stood like a wall between me and every other person I knew or met. I was afraid of making a phone call to schedule a haircut, yet was comforted by the idea of flying away from home with no idea if I’d ever move back.

Maybe it was spending my childhood abroad and the constant travel that came along with it that made me feel like six years in Michigan was too long to spend in one place — long enough for me to see how unhappy I was and how much my lack of confidence was holding me back. So I left. I was running, in a way, but the idea of a new place, new people, new experiences loosened the vice that had a constant grip on my chest. It felt like an expansive sort of relief.

Flat hunting in London was a flurry of friendly strangers, dodgy estate agents, potential housemates, and closets that called themselves bedrooms. I settled on a creaky old room in a quaint Southwest London borough with a window that looked into the stairwell rather than outside – no sunlight but at least there was space to roll out my yoga mat. The other girls there were friendly and invited me to join in on their wine-and-cheese nights and after-work drinks.

I took a liking to a nearby pub and began to venture there by myself — something I would never have dared to do before I left Michigan. I would stand at the bar and the regulars there would strike up conversations with me. I needed a gin and tonic or two before the conversations felt natural, but eventually, they did. I was making connections, beginning to break down the hard shell that kept me safe and comfortable, even dancing at the end of the night. Slowly strangers became friends.

Three months after moving, I ended the four-year-long relationship that I had continued long-distance after I left Michigan. We had been unhappy since long before I left but it wasn’t until I had been away for months that I finally had the courage to bring it up. The vice around my chest loosened another notch.

I planned a weekend trip over Valentine’s day, took the train alone from London to Paris, and walked all the way from the station to my hostel in the city. I strolled the streets of Montmartre, walked along the Seine to the Eiffel Tower, queued to see the Louvre at 8:00 on a crisp February morning, and wandered through the catacombs under the city. I ate alone in charming restaurants, ignoring the feeling of the nonexistent eyes that I knew weren’t actually watching me, and sipped coffee in bustling cafes. I found a wine bar near my hostel and spent the evening with a glass of Malbec, sketching from photos I’d taken of the Notre Dame.

On another long weekend I flew from London to Budapest. Leaving the airport, I had to decipher the payment instructions for the train to get to my hostel. It was all in Hungarian – no English in sight. Hesitantly, I bought what I hoped was the right ticket and boarded the train. By some miracle I made it to my hostel in the city center and spent the next three days exploring Budapest, finding comfort in the unfamiliarity. I spent a day by myself in the Gellért thermal baths, sat in quirky cafes, walked by the parliament building and through Fisherman’s Bastion, and met a Ukrainian girl exploring the city who I toured the famous Budapest ruin bars with.

Months later, I moved to Egypt for eight months to study Arabic. The adventures I had and people I met in my time there are a collection of weird and wonderful stories for another time. Downtown Cairo was an eclectic mix of manic Uber rides, smoky cafes, drunk diplomats, and strange house parties — more stories than I can tell in one article. One highlight was a bucket-list-worthy trip through Jordan:

I was in Cairo when COVID shook the world in 2020 and cut my time there short. I made it out of Cairo two hours before the Egyptian borders shut down and flew back to London for a surreal series of lockdowns, then ended up working as a bartender when things began to open back up. Bartending was another thing that nudged me out of my comfort zone, forcing me to fake charisma until it became a part of me. By the time I left the job two years later, the staff and regulars at that pub were like family to me. The last of my shell of social anxiety had fallen away and the vice around my chest had lost its grip.

In reality, travel was just a catalyst. What actually changed me was the new and challenging experiences that solo travel exposed me to. Meeting tons of new people showed me that even when I was a bit awkward, nervous, or didn’t know what to say, people still wanted to hear from me — people still liked me. Doing new things independently, navigating new places on my own, and having new experiences taught me that I can rely on myself and that I can figure things out on my own.

In other words, if we want more confidence, we need to get uncomfortable, do things that scare us, and break out of our comfort zones. Eventually we’ll be comfortable doing things that were once scary. Whether it’s speaking to a stranger, navigating an airport, going out for dinner alone, or performing on stage — with exposure, difficult and scary things become easier and confidence grows.