As I've been trawling through the internet, and finding some excellent sites and blogs I might add, I notice some postings and comments about women travelling solo - plucking up the nerve to do so etc.
Until the last 10 years or so, and I met BF I have always travelled solo pretty much. Not through choice though it is a hell of a lot easier. But there never seemed to be a travel companion waiting and ready in the wings when I was planning to head off somewhere, and rather than not go at all, I just went by myself. If I had waited I would have lost 15 years of travel!!
When I returned from 2 and a half years away on a working holiday visa in my mid-twenties about 1995 (through Scotland, Europe, Canada and USA), so may people commented "how brave you are". I was always puzzled by this comment - I didn't feel like I had done anything 'brave'. But later I now know the bit they thought was 'brave' was actually leaving my comfort zone and heading off into the unknown. Mum often said "you're like a bull at a gate". But I'm glad I was (and hope still am) 'like a bull at a gate' otherwise if I had thought about all the things that could go wrong (IRA bombing on the tube in London for example), maybe I just wouldn't have gone at all.
So my advice to any girls / women thinking about it - just do it!! Sure it plans to research (a lot easier now than in the '90's) but don't overthink it - to quote Richard Branson - "Screw It! Just Do It!". Things that can go wrong overseas can happen in your home country too - muggings and the rest. So that shouldn't be a reason or an excuse not to go. And I always figure that the people that already live in those areas - New York, London, Rome, etc -(places that we might consider high risk), are fine and going about their everyday life. Staying in a hostel will always guarantee you have someone to hang with. I often met other solo travellers or even people already with a travel buddy who wanted to hang out and have a drink/meal with me. Its so much easier to meet other people when you are by yourself.
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