---
title: 'Advice for Solo Female Travelers: Planning Your First Solo Trip & Safety'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=NIcGAwUHwq8'
video_id: 'NIcGAwUHwq8'
date: 2026-07-10
channel: 'Bailey Dean'
---

# Advice for Solo Female Travelers: Planning Your First Solo Trip & Safety

> Source: [Advice for Solo Female Travelers: Planning Your First Solo Trip & Safety](https://youtube.com/watch?v=NIcGAwUHwq8)

## Summary

Bailey, a travel content creator, shares her comprehensive guide to solo travel based on her four-month backpacking trip across seven European countries. She covers why to solo travel, safety tips, making friends, how to start, what to do, and the downsides, aiming to inspire and prepare first-time solo travelers.

### Key Points

- **Introduction to Solo Travel** [00:00] — Bailey introduces herself as a travel content creator who solo traveled Europe for four months, visiting seven countries. She breaks the video into sections: why solo travel, safety tips, making friends, how to start, what to do, and downsides.
- **Why Solo Travel** [01:07] — Bailey wanted to travel long-term after college but knew friends couldn't join. She emphasizes having a deep desire to travel and not letting the lack of companions stop you. Solo travel helps build a deeper connection with yourself, as you spend 24/7 alone, making decisions solely for yourself.
- **Benefits: Comfort Zone and Confidence** [02:49] — Solo travel pushes introverts out of their comfort zone, especially in hostels where you must make friends. It builds confidence as you solve problems alone, like missed trains or lost items, teaching you that you can handle anything.
- **Safety Tips for Solo Female Travelers** [04:20] — Arrive during daylight to familiarize yourself with the area. Always be aware of surroundings; keep only one earbud in to hear. Never tell strangers you're alone; say you're waiting for someone. Stay in hostels or co-working spaces for added security.
- **How to Make Friends** [06:38] — Stay in hostels or co-working houses that host events. Join tours (e.g., beer tour in Belgium) and be open to talking to strangers. Bailey shares examples of being adopted by a family on a tour and meeting girls in her hostel who invited her to Arabic baths.
- **How to Start Solo Traveling** [09:43] — Start with research: watch videos, read reviews, understand public transport. Then just go—start small with a weekend trip or a English-speaking country. The hardest part is booking the ticket; once done, everything becomes easier.
- **What to Do on Your Trip** [11:14] — Do things outside your comfort zone: tours alone, dining solo, trying new classes (art, cooking). Also allow relaxation time, like beach days. Walking tours are recommended for history, exercise, and socializing.
- **Downsides of Solo Travel** [12:54] — Loneliness comes in waves, but it passes. Bailey shares a low point at Lake Como where she felt like going home, but then met two Belgian girls who turned her trip around. When things go wrong (e.g., train delays), you must solve it alone, which is stressful but builds resilience.

### Conclusion

Solo travel is transformative, teaching self-reliance and confidence. Despite challenges like loneliness and stress, the experience is worth it, and Bailey encourages viewers to book that first trip.

## Transcript

I know solo travel can feel really scary and intimidating, but I'm here to guide you
through it. I went solo traveling around Europe, I was backpacking for four months, and I went to seven different countries, and I'm here to talk about my whole experience. My name is Bailey, and I am a travel content creator talking all about life in your twenties and traveling in your twenties here on YouTube, but also mainly on TikTok.
And I've been traveling almost full time since I graduated college in 2022, and I'm actually flying back out to Europe tomorrow. I'm going to be in Greece for about two and a half weeks, and then in Portugal, which I am so excited about, because I have not been back to Europe since I was solo traveling
a little bit over a year ago. And so if you want to see more of that, I'm going to be vlogging and talking about that whole trip on this channel, but let's get on into the video. So I'm kind of breaking this video down into sections. The first one is why you even do it, and what you can learn from solo travel, the next or some
safety tips that I have, and then we have how to make friends, how to even start, and then what to do on your trip. And then finally, talking about some of the downsides, because as much as I love solo traveling, there are some things that can be really hard with it, and some challenges that
you have to face and be prepared to go through. So why should you even go solo traveling? For me, a lot of the reasons I wanted to go solo traveling was because when I graduated college, I knew that I wanted to go travel for a long extended period of time, and I knew that no one would really be able to come with me.
You can't really expect a lot of your friends just to be able to not get a job and have a ton of money saved up to be able to travel for four months with you. So something I kind of knew going into it that I'd probably have to do mostly alone. I did have people on my trip come and meet me at certain points, but that would be like
for a week or so, but for the majority of the four months, I was alone. And I just always knew that I wanted to travel, like it was something in my gut that I knew that I needed to do, and I knew that I wasn't going to let no one come with me stop me from
living out my dream. And I think that's just a big thing, is that you have to want it, and you have to want to get there by any means. And the things that I learned on this trip that I was not even expecting to learn is having a deeper connection with myself.
Since you're with yourself 24-7, you are the only person that you can talk to some days. And I just spent so much intentional time just sitting with myself, journaling, reading. A lot of times I didn't have signal all the time on my phone, and so when I was just walking
around town, I didn't really listen to any music or podcasts or could even talk on the phone with someone, so I really just was sitting with myself. And this really helped me learn what I even like to do, and who I want to be when there is no one else around.
Because when you have no one else on the trip, you're completely deciding what your day looks like. So every day I got to wake up and ask myself, like, what I wanted to do. Doesn't matter what anyone else wanted to do, it was what I wanted to do, and I can make my schedule exactly what I wanted.
And so if I just wanted to go lay on a beach all day, I could. If I wanted to go check out this museum that maybe other people would have thought it was lame, I could do that, and no one would have any idea. You can go to whatever restaurant you want to go to. Everything is in your control, and so you get to pick and choose exactly what you want,
your trip to look like. And it really helped when I got home, because I felt like I understood what I like to do on my own. And I was a lot more comfortable doing things at home on my own. Another thing for me at least, I am more of an introvert, so it definitely got me out of my comfort zone.
When you are backpacking, you're up, or maybe even solo traveling. You a lot of times stay in hostels, and so if that's sharing a room with, like, eight or nine, ten other strangers. And you really have to put yourself out there to make friends, because if you want to have
friends to go to the museum with, or go to the beach with, or just have someone to talk to a dinner, you have to put yourself out there to do it. So it definitely pushed me outside my comfort zone. Also, maybe have a greater sense of confidence in myself, because there were so many times when
things would go wrong. I mean, you're traveling. Nothing ever goes perfectly right, and you are the only person that can fix that situation for yourself, which, yes, is putting a lot of pressure on yourself, but is also teaching you to problem-solve and to have confidence in yourself that you will figure it out and
that you will get to where you need to go. I used to be such an anxious traveler, and now I just kind of go into it with, like, it goes wrong. I'll figure it out, because I always figure it out. And so now I have that sense of confidence in myself that I can pretty much do anything,
because you will go through some of the hardest situations of your life when you are solo traveling, but you will always get yourself out of them. I also just found a lot of independence, because, like I said, I'm more introverted. A lot of times, I will avoid doing certain things, or asking for help, or asking certain questions,
or even sometimes if I'm traveling to say Spain, and I'm with someone who speaks Spanish, I'm going to let them talk the whole time, and I'm not even going to try and practice my Spanish, because they're with me, and I feel like I can just lean on them. So it really forced me to have to take the initiative and everything that I was doing.
Next are a couple random safety tips that I have, especially if you're a female traveling alone. These are some things that I definitely recommend doing. The first is make sure that you arrive during the day. So whenever I was looking at trains or flights, I would make sure that whenever I was landing,
it was when it was still daylight out. This is just because I don't like arriving in a new place when it's dark. One, you don't know the lay of the land, you don't know what the town is going to look like, or the city is going to look like. And a lot of times, especially if you're going by train, you're probably just going to walk
to your hostel. You don't really need to take public transport, and so it just feels to me a lot safer to be doing that during the daylight. The second is just always be aware of your surroundings. I mean, this is the same as if you're traveling in the US, but you definitely need to make sure
that you always have a sense of awareness. And that comes with playing music too. When I have my AirPods in, I only keep one in at a time. I don't ever put both in, especially when I'm about myself, because that makes me very nervous because there are noise canceling.
And then you have no awareness of anything. You don't even just for like a car might hit you, but also just other people, if someone's following you, if someone's harassing you, you need to be aware and be able to get yourself out of situations, and you can't do that if you can't hear anything.
The next is to also never say that you're alone or traveling alone. This is different if you're in your hostel, of course you can talk to people and say that you're traveling alone because most people in hospitals are also traveling alone. But sometimes I would be at a park or I'd be out to dinner, and someone would come up to
me and just start talking about conversation, and they would ask if I was alone or if I was waiting for someone, and I always said that I was waiting for someone. No matter how nice they seemed, I always said, oh, my boyfriend's coming or oh, I'm meeting a friend here, or oh yes, I'm meeting my mom tomorrow, like there was always a reason
that another person wasn't there and that they were coming soon. So definitely have that backstory kind of writing in your head because it does come in handy. And they truly could be the nicest people ever, and definitely use your discretion if you think they're okay to share that information with.
I just think for me that I just feel so much safer and not putting myself in danger in that way, just in case. And with safety, I also recommend maybe staying in hostels or co-working houses. My favorite co-working houses are by the brand outside, I'll leave a link in the bio that
will get you to their website, their amazing spaces where you can meet other digital nomads. But I usually feel safer in one of those two options because there are other people around. And when there are other people around that know you exist, or are there to say something
or help you in any way, it just makes me feel a lot safer because if I was in a hotel or an Airbnb, you just don't have that same security. And it really is all on you if anything was to happen. This is how to make friends while you're solely traveling.
And so this one might seem really hard. And you might be going, I'm going on this trip alone, how would I ever make friends? That just seems impossible, but I promise you, it is one of the easiest things ever. Especially when you're alone, you're so much more likely to just go up to people and start
talking to them and really putting yourself out there. At least for me, when I travel with a group, I'm really only going to then stay confined in that group, but I'm not really going to try and branch out and talk to other people because I have all the friends that I need that I came with.
And you really start to see how most people are just open to starting a conversation and seeing where it goes. So the first is something that I mentioned before, but that's either staying in hospitals or co-working houses. Both of these are going to be places that you're staying that are filled with other people
who are probably also solo traveling, but then a lot of times they also host events like they'll host dinners or excursions or anything that you can join up on, and then you're put in a situation where you're going to meet other people. There were so many times in my solo trip where I would literally just like step butt into
my hostel and the girls in my room or the people that are in my room would just be so quick to invite me to go do anything that they were doing. When I was in Granada, Spain, I literally set my stuff down in my hostel room, and there were three girls in there, and we just started talking.
They did have inviting me to these Arabic baths, and they were meeting up with some guy friends that they had because they were all on study abroad. And we ended up having the best time, and then I ended up spending the rest of the weekend with them, and they just dragged me along to all of their plans because we all just headed
off. So you just never know when these things are going to happen. And then later that night when they left, I met a new girl who was also in my room, and we ended up hanging out in the living room with a hostel until 1am, learning to draw by this Italian artist who was just in there, and we just had so much fun laughing and eating
dinner together. And you really just never know what's going to happen as long as you make sure that you're open to letting the situation happen. If you're sitting in the corner or super closed off down with your head in your phone, you're just never going to meet people. The next would be meeting people on tours, and so when I was in Belgium, I ended up doing
this Belgian beer tour, which was so fun. I completely recommend it's on Get Your Guide, I'll also link it down below. So this is also another tour where I was super out of my comfort zone because I had to go to this thing alone, so I showed up, I was sitting there, I ended up getting adopted
by this family, and we all just had so much fun talking and hanging out. And then I saw there was another group on the tour who were more people my age. And after the tour was over, I worked up the courage to go up to them and ask them if they were going out after, and they said yes, and we ended up going out after, and so we all ended
up going to another bar together, getting more drinks, hanging out, and then we ended up in McDonald's to like 2am, and then they ended up also being in my hostel. And then we all hung out the next day too. And the last one that I've kind of touched on is just being open to talk to new people.
Sometimes I just go up to random people and ask them if they can take a picture of me, and then I usually take one of them, and then maybe that could strike up a conversation, or if you're just walking along the streets and you see someone, there was one time when I was just journaling in the park and these two girls came up to me, and we all just started talking
because we were on the same age. And then we ended up going to watch the sun set together in Florence, and then we went out to dinner together. So you just never know what could come of these experiences where you're just talking to new people. And honestly, because of the way that I was traveling in hospitals, I was with other
people, probably 50% of the time. Yes, the other 50% I was completely alone because you're never guaranteed that you're going to make friends every single day of your trip. But there was a good majority of the time where I had a group to hang out with. Our next section is how to start solo traveling.
And I think for me, this started with a lot of research. I researched videos like this, talking about safety, and just how to travel as a woman solo. I researched the places that I was going and how safe they would be. I just knew everything.
I made sure I understood the public transport system. I was reading reviews on everywhere that I was staying. It just, I feel a lot more comfortable and confident in a situation when I feel prepared. And especially for your first trip. For me now, I can pretty much just send it anywhere, and I know that I'll be fine and
I'll figure it out. And I'll do a little bit of research beforehand, but not to the extent that I did before my first trip. But then once you do all that research, you just have to go. And it doesn't have to be something crazy like I did where I went to Europe for four months and did not come home. You could literally just go on a weekend trip somewhere in your own state or somewhere else
within the country. If you're more comfortable doing that, or even if you just went to the UK or Australia somewhere where they also speak English, which makes things a lot easier, you have so many options about where you can start and you can start a lot smaller than going to some crazy foreign
country in the middle of nowhere where you don't speak the language. But I will say that doing it that way kind of just like really sending it and going for it helps me a lot. Yes, the first week was really scary and really hectic, but I also hit the ground running,
especially being in Europe or being in a more backpacker circuit compared to the US helps a lot when it comes to meeting people. But like I said, you really just have to go for it. The hardest part for me when I was going on this trip was literally booking the plane ticket.
I put it off for months because I was so scared and I'm like, am I actually going to do this? And then once I booked that ticket, everything after that became so much easier because you start by making that promise to yourself, but then you actually have to follow through
with it, which is the scary part. So now what should you do on this trip? For me, I think some of my favorite experiences that I had when I was solo traveling or when I was doing things outside my comfort zone and I was doing things that I can never do at home
or I'd be too scared to do at home. So that's going on tours alone, that's going to restaurants by myself, that's going to certain museums. I don't know about you guys when I'm home, I get stuck in such a routine that when I'm traveling I want to completely do the opposite.
And so maybe that's trying in art class or a cooking class or going to meet up with random people you meet on bubble BFF or going on a hinge date or maybe going to like a poetry reading, you could really do anything that's going to put you outside your comfort zone
that you've always wanted to do, but never felt ready for or were too scared to do. But also make sure you give yourself time to relax and just to be and to sit there. And for me, a lot of that time since I was in hostels, that wasn't necessarily relaxing.
So I would be in a lot of coastal destinations and I would just go to the beach all day. And then I just get to sit there, I was so tan, that summer I was the tanest I think I've ever been in my life because I was just sitting on the beach every single day and just being
with myself. I also really loved walking tours which I know is so touristy, but honestly they're kind of fun. I love learning about history. They also gave me people to talk to. I got some exercises. We were walking around the whole city and it was just a really fun way to be outside, learn
new history and then also be other people. And they're usually very cheap. Like a lot of them you can look up free walking tours and all you have to do is like tip them after. So you don't actually have to pay for the tour. But please tip your guides. I know a lot of people walk out without tipping them but they're putting their time in to get
tips from you guys and it's really just like an ethical thing. These just tip your guides. Now for some of the downsides of solo traveling, I say all this with the disclaimer of I love solo traveling. I want to do at least one solo travel trip a year because it really just brings me back
into myself. But there definitely are some downsides especially on your first solo travel trip because it is very overwhelming. First one, you will get lonely. That's just a part of it. You are traveling alone. You will get lonely.
But I can promise you you will not be lonely the whole entire time. A lot of times for me it would come in waves. And I would get to a place that would feel super, super nostalgic and I just want to share it with my family or I'd want to share it with a certain person like when things come up
that remind you of a person back home or if it had been a long time since I had made friends like maybe it'd been a couple days. But I promise you in all those hard moments where you're super lonely. In the next day or two someone will come into your life at the perfect time right when you
need them and it will just make that trip so much better. I know when I first got to Lake Como I was feeling really not like myself and really lonely and sad and I was just having a moment. And it lasted for about three days that I was there and I just could not get out of this
funk and I was like do I just need to book a flight home? I was doubting everything and then these two girls from Belgium ended up coming and they were staying in my room and we ended up hanging out for like the next three days and they were amazing and we got to watch a meteor shower on like co-host sitting on the beach drinking wine
and eating our pizza and it was just such a magical time and they really pulled me back out of myself and reminded me how great this situation is. And then I'm learning so much and learning how to get through these really hard things. And so you just have to hold on and you have to push through that loneliness because on
the other side of all that loneliness is you actually learning to love yourself and become this person that you want to be. Another downside is that when things do go wrong it is all in you to figure them out. Yes that does the confidence like I said before but it is also so so so stressful at the
moment. There are times when my trains would get delayed and then I would miss the next train and there wasn't another seat reservation that I could get until a train at like midnight and then you're stranded in this random town in France all day and then you're getting into your new location when it's dark out and it just becomes a mess and you feel like you're
never going to get through it but then you do because it always works out but it is so stressful in the moment. That is all I have for this video all about solo travel. Please leave any questions below because I'm sure that I missed a ton and I know I can make a part two to this because there is so much under the realm of solo travel that you
can do and we can get into so please leave any questions below. But I hope this was a good overview and maybe got you a little bit motivated to maybe plan your first solo trip. Like I said before, I talk all about traveling in your 20s in life in your 20s so please
subscribe if that's something that interests you or follow me at BADN on TikTok. And so I will see you guys in my next video and please book that trip as solo travel has been on your mind and something you're thinking about it because I promise you it will change your life and you just need to go for it.