{"id":96062,"date":"2021-12-08T11:28:20","date_gmt":"2021-12-08T05:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveltriangle.com\/blog\/?p=96062"},"modified":"2021-12-08T15:32:24","modified_gmt":"2021-12-08T10:02:24","slug":"confession-of-a-solo-female-traveler-from-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveltriangle.com\/blog\/confession-of-a-solo-female-traveler-from-india\/","title":{"rendered":"A Letter To All The First-Time Solo Female Travelers"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was raining in Khalsar on Monday, September 13, 2011. The sky looked murky and the road muddy and slippery enough to lower the frequency of local buses and jeeps. And after a 16.5-hour-long back-breaking journey from Keylong to Khalsar in a jeep crammed with locals, I was standing on the deserted and cold Diskit-Turtok highway at 3:00 PM, waiting for some vehicle to appear and help me reach Turtuk. This is not what I had expected when I first thought of planning a journey to the REMOTE HIMALAYAS, all alone!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Everything went wrong from the beginning. From paying almost double the actual fare for the jeep ride to booking a hotel room with no electricity and terrible food. Poor planning certainly landed me in a mess. And whenever I was out eating in a small restaurant, I thought everyone was watching me or following me. I felt like Winston Smith from George Orwell’s 1984.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m glad I didn\u2019t die on my first solo trip; I came back home only to hit the road again, this time with some planning and experience. With this, all I want to tell you is that we all have bad days and good days when we travel. If the good ones encourage you to explore more, don\u2019t you think the bad ones should fire you up and get you on the road again?<\/p>\n

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Although I deeply love oceans, deserts and other wild landscapes, it is only mountains that beckon me with that sort of painful magnetic pull to walk deeper and deeper into their beauty. They keep me continuously wanting to know more, feel more, see more. <\/a><\/p>\n

A post shared by Kiran Bisht<\/a> (@the.doi.kid) on Oct 1, 2018 at 1:57am PDT<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cBecause the greatest part of a road trip isn\u2019t arriving at your destination. It\u2019s all the wild stuff that happens along the way.\u201d \u2014 Emma Chase<\/p>\n

I became a solo traveler out of necessity, rather than a choice. When I wanted to travel, some of my friends didn\u2019t have money and some of them didn\u2019t have the time. So I told myself if I want to travel it will have to be on my own. And after that, there was no stopping me.<\/p>\n

I understand you\u2019re afraid to take that one step. But aren\u2019t we all a bit scared and confused about starting a solo trip? How am I going to do it all alone? Is the hotel room I booked safe enough for a solo female traveler? What if the locals hate solo travelers? What if something goes wrong? We all have questions that can\u2019t be answered until we hit the road and experience it ourselves. I\u2019m not saying it\u2019ll be easy at first; mine wasn\u2019t, but it was one hell of a journey.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll be anxious and unsure about your plan the night before you leave. But your fears will vanish away like a mass of dust, like they were never there, like you were born to do this. Once you get the hang of it, you\u2019ll realize that solo travel is addictive as hell. And the best part is you\u2019ll have stories to tell, you\u2019ll meet people that\u2019ll teach you to value life, live in the moment, and respect the little joys of life.<\/p>\n

Cliche alert! And it\u2019s going to change you forever and prepare you for a better, happier, and carefree version of yourself. Won\u2019t you love that, my love?<\/p>\n

\"a<\/div>\n

Let me tell you a small story of overcoming one of my fears….<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I remember sitting beside our driver in a shared jeep packed with locals and a few drifters in Srinagar to reach Sonamarg, trying to talk to my Kashmiri driver who only spoke Koshur and broken Hindi. On that two and a half-hour long journey, he & I talked about his home, his mother, and father who died in 2010 Kashmir unrest, and his plan of shifting to Old Delhi to get a fulltime job (sad, I know). And the most beautiful part was, despite the language barrier, we understood each other. And that\u2019s when my fear of \u201clocals being unfriendly to solo travelers and being misunderstood\u201d was gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference\u201d \u2013 Robert Frost<\/p>\n

Mistakes you can avoid while travelling solo<\/h2>\n