By Heather Stephens, AirTreks Marketing Lead
Solo female looking to travel the world? Why take the leap and go? Invigorate your soul with joy. Reinvent yourself. Mend your broken heart. Open your mind. Open your heart. Change your perspective. Meet new people. Get lost in new places. Challenge yourself to a new language. Make way for freedom.
These are all reasons to travel the world. And there are a million others to add to that list. Whether you pack up your life into a small storage bin and take off on a year-long journey OR you create space for as little as a month or two weeks to travel, you are choosing a different path from the routine day-to-day. A path that very possibly leads to self transformation and eye opening discoveries. Most importantly, by choosing to travel, you are choosing YOU.
Traveling is an alluring concept. The idea of taking off on a solo adventure like that of Elizabeth Gilbert, Cheryl Strayed, or Gloria Steinem (to name a few trailblazers), sounds brilliant. It’s an opportunity to change your life for the better. For healing. It’s a shot at freedom and liberation.
But if we’re being real, the notion of traveling solo as a female also comes with a side of fear.
“In life there is fear that you need and fear that you don’t need. Bravery means doing something that feels scary. Fearlessness means not understanding what the word scary even means.”?
—?Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love
As women, we are taught to approach the world with caution. We are warned against walking alone at night, be it in Bali or in our own home neighborhoods. In instances of assault or violence, victim blaming is an all-too-real occurrence. What was she wearing…? Why was she out so late by herself…? Did she provoke the situation…?
These very real fears can be paralyzing. When reinforced in media, movies, and in our communities, these fears make it easier for us to stay for us to stay safe. For us to stay home. For us to stay small.
In life, there is the fear you need and the fear you don’t need. What does this mean? It comes down to choosing a life that is driven by chasing curiosity and passion. Being smart, savvy, and staying safe, while still forging ahead anyway. Because there is so much to see, so much to do, and so much to learn, share, and give back in this life.
At AirTreks, we’ve helped women from all around the world set off on life changing multi-stop adventures and we want to continue with that trend.
Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be sharing stories of female travel pioneers. We’ll be digging into to safety tips for when you make the decision to cast out into the world. We’ll be celebrating women who chose curiosity over fear. And we hope to open a conversation amongst all women who have a spark of interest in traveling the world. We hope you enjoy this series. Check back for more to come!
