What We Learn About Ourselves When We Travel Solo

Women Who Travel | Condé Nast Traveler

Condé Nast Traveler

Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.4 • 636 Ratings

🗓️ 10 November 2022

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Solo travel is lauded as one of the most exciting ways to see the world—and for good reason. It's adventurous, eye-opening, unpredictable, transformative. But it can also be challenging and, at some points, a little lonely, even for the most experienced of travelers. Lale chats with Jessica Nabongo, who in 2019 became the first documented Black woman to visit every country in the world (89 of which she visited solo), about what she learned about herself during those travels. Plus, we hear from listeners about their own solo travel experiences in Laos, Havana, and more.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Lale Arakoglu, and welcome to women who travel, a podcast for anyone who is curious about the world and excited to explore places both near and far from home. So not everyone needs to travel to every country in the world. It's very expensive. It's very
0:36.4	exhausting. But I do think, like,
0:39.0	if there's places you want to visit, whether you're alone or you're with friends, put it on
0:44.5	your list, book the ticket, and just go.
0:50.3	If you're into the phenomenon of solo travel as much as we are on the show,
0:55.0	then you know that it can be one of the most exciting, rewarding and challenging ways to go travelling.
1:02.0	There's a plethora of statistics all over the internet showing how the popularity of going it alone is continuing to soar,
1:09.0	especially among women who statistically travel alone more than men,
1:13.1	particularly when it comes to finding ways of traveling for self-care.
1:16.8	So I've been to 89 countries solo and on every continent except for Antarctica.
1:23.4	Today, I'm talking to someone who in 2019 achieved her quest to become the first recorded black woman to visit every country in the world, over half of which she saw on her own.
1:34.4	To that end, a lot of people are like, oh my gosh, and you're black, you're a black woman traveling solo. What is that about?
1:41.0	For Jessica Nabongo, what started out as a love of travel and a curiosity to travel more
1:46.6	became an opportunity to quit her 9 to 5 lifestyle and turn herself into a professional
1:52.1	traveler.
1:53.5	I've chatted with her before on this podcast, but I wanted to catch up with her this side
1:58.0	of the pandemic to find out if she was planning more explorative journeys.
2:02.2	I definitely am missing the exploration. Now so much of my travel is domestic in the US and it's for work.
2:10.7	And, you know, I miss that explorative travel. Places I'm longing for are like Japan, Bhutan, you know,
2:20.2	and just going back and getting out on the road for personal travels.
2:24.6	I have really, really been missing that the last few months.
2:28.4	The people who proselytize about traveling alone often make it seem so easy.
	...

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