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Travelling Solo Helped Ease My Social Anxiety
A dramatic way of being outside the comfort zone
I have always had a fairly high degree of social anxiety. In my late teens and very early 20’s I was under the care of a youth charity here in the UK named Barnado’s. It was extremely helpful in ironically grouping other young people in my area who also struggled so that we realised we weren’t alone.
The struggle was real for me in particular because I have always loved travelling and experiencing different cultures, but until I was 18 I had only ever done that with my family.
In the last few years though I have taken to travelling solo as a way of giving social anxiety the middle finger, and I’ve done so on 3 occasions.
Trip #1 Australia
The first time I decided to travel solo was the result of falling in love with someone on the other side of the planet, Australia to be more specific. I was 18 at the time. I know, young love can be pretty crazy.
While I knew that I wanted to be with this person, I also knew that it involved a lot of interacting with strangers for 3 months. Quite daunting but I was determined to go through with it anyway.
I did, in fact, survive. Even without health insurance (sorry mum — by the way, I do…
