i also have social anxiety and smoked weed for the most of my life to cope with stress and unpleasent inner conflicts. before my flight to thailand i smoked 1 month straight just sitting in my room and playing overwatch all day. i went to thailand for a year and i still remember how i felt at the airport alone with my backpack. i felt like a weirdo without friends. like everyone is staring at me. afew hrs later i met a girl at the airport who was a backpacker travelling alone. it eased my mind. when i arrived at bkk airport i met a german couple and shared a taxi with them. it eased my mind. everyday i met new people and i saw how they carry themselves and learned from them. i realized that im allowed to express myself to be free and not give a fuck about the future. already after a few weeks i was thinking back how i felt in germany. i felt like im living in a box, every thought and action i took in germany was fear driven. when you go backpacking you meet people who dont live in fear and you realize how heavy carrying your social armor actually is…its just sad. i encourage you to go there.

First time: 1978. I was 18. By 1982 I’d lived in five US cities and two other countries. Not everything went perfectly but I’ve had a good life and continue to travel. I get paid to travel. Heading out again in two weeks.

Awful lot of discussion of mental health disorders instead of “suck it up, buttercup.” Do or do not.

I went alone when I was 19 for the first time and it exceeded my expectations, everyone I met was so down to do anything and so friendly! Still friends with a few of the people I met and it’s been 4 years since. The good thing is, if u don’t want to talk to people or just wanna hang by urself it’s so easy to do that and then if u want to talk to people and meet people. Just stay at a hostel. People will introduce themselves in the dorms, invite you to hand and chat, you just sometimes have to go up first which is abit scary but basically everyone is on the same boat, travelling alone and wanting to meet people. I loved that I had the freedom to do anything I wanted whenever I wanted. It’s scary in the beginning but as you meet people and hear their experiences it gets easy! Like I was scared to eat alone at restaurants in the beginning but hearing how the other solo travellers were so comfortable doing it, it made it so much easier and I realised there’s nothing to be scared of really. And also something that helped me ease into it was I volunteered to be a English mentor for 2 weeks in Europe in the beginning where I was travelling and I made a lot of friends there which was great cause after the program we would hang out and some people will meet u in other cities if they are also travelling around. It’s soooo worth it!

I did a lot of little trips on my own but my first big one was backpacking Southeast Asia for 3 months on my own. I did it after college so kind of just jumped right into the big-time solo travel world.

As someone with social anxiety myself, here are my thoughts:

• You don’t have to start big. I tell my friends who are nervous about solo travel to start small - go on a day trip near your hometown by yourself, then maybe a weekend trip, and then maybe a domestic trip before diving into an international backpacking trip if that would make you feel better.
• You don’t have to be social! I alternate between hostels and airbnbs. I usually avoid party hostels because that’s just too much. Even at hostels, sometimes I’ll pull the curtain and just not talk to anyone. I’m not saying hostels aren’t tough for us socially anxious people but there’s ways around it.
• One of the best “cures” for my social anxiety was traveling solo. Building the confidence to interact with different types of people and travel on my own has helped me to fight my social anxiety at home. I am so so so thankful that I discovered it. And I did it just by doing it. That first trip I had some REALLY hard days, and I still have them, but the impact on my overall improved quality of life is tremendous.

I was really nervous and lonely for the first 2 weeks or so, but then with a little more time I started to get more comfortable and meet more people. I did it for 3 years and am so glad I had the experience.

Definitely exceeded my expectations. It’s my favorite way to travel.

Before you go full DN, why not just try backpacking and learning the hostel thing for a while?

I had traveled so much in my younger years that by the time I could go full time DN the last thing I was worried about was social anxiety/making friends in a new country.

Making fast friends in hostels is much easier, but being a DN means you tend to stick around longer/travel slower which I think is far more sustainable.

It’s a path of no return, after I did the first one I didn’t stop. You will always meet people along the way and you will be much more open to communicating.

Becoming a digital nomad was basically my first solo trip. I started in Central/South America and then went to Southeast Asia. I really struggled with being lonely but at the same time I learned to appreciate the peace of my own company. I also spent a lot of time on the phone with people back home. I sort of regret not living in the moment more, but having a solid support system cheering you on from afar really helps.

I have only ever done solo trips, unless you count jumping trains with my friends as a teen. I was in the foster system and mostly raised myself on the streets, so I was all over the place(California). My first trip out of the country was to Mexico at the age of 16 or 17. I felt fine. My first major trip wasn’t until I was in my 30s because 1. I didn’t have the funds and 2. I was tied down. I missed the plane the first two times, so that was a bummer and a lot of wasted money, but 3rd times a charm. I’ve been all over Europe since then.

I started traveling all over the USA by myself in my 20s. Before that, I had been traveling all over California by myself.

You get to see exactly what you want to see for exactly as long as you want to see it.

One thing that helped me a lot when I first started traveling alone was writing a comforting letter to myself in my journal—it sounds silly, but reading “you’re going to be nervous and feel like this is the wrong choice when you get on the plane, but you’ll feel better when you get there and you’ll have a good time” actually helped a lot.