What I learned solo travelling in South America
Some reflections and what I would do differently next time
I just returned home from a month-long solo trip to South America. I visited three countries - Colombia, Bolivia and Brazil - all with their own charm and culture.
I had been thinking of doing this trip for a long time, so it was great to finally get over there while I had some time off from work.
This was also my first solo trip, which put me out of my comfort zone but ended up being very rewarding.
A few highlights:
USA: Before kicking off the solo trip, I stopped over for a couple of days in San Francisco where I enjoyed the hospitality of my brother Pratik and sister-in-law Hannah. It was a lovely weekend of museum visits, hikes, classic Golden Gate Bridge photos, Superbowl watching and tasty food.
A weekend in SF Colombia - the first stop of the South America trip was Cartagena. I loved the Old Town here, with Instagrammable spots around every corner. I also learned to salsa dance, had some amazing coffee and chocolate and enjoyed relaxing in the hostel rooftop pool. The bustling metropolis of Medellin was up next, which was quite a shock after the more laid-back beachy vibes of Cartagena. I enjoyed the buzzing nightlife, as well as the pockets of nature dotted around the urban sprawl. It is also a city still grappling with recent history, as it was the site of brutal violence in the 1990s and early 2000s due to infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar.
The beautiful architecture in Cartagena 
A mix of nature and urban sprawl in Medellin Bolivia - The highlight here was the Salt Flats (Salar de Uyuni), with landscapes unlike anything I had seen before. I also really liked the city of La Paz (the highest capital city in the world), where I spent a day floating above the city in cable cars and found extremely cheap fleeces in the ‘Witches Markets'.
The amazing Salt Flats - including the famous ‘mirror effect’ Brazil - I started in the megacity of Sao Paulo where I caught up with an old colleague, before heading to the jaw-dropping Iguassu Falls (crossing over briefly into Argentina). I then headed to Rio, which was the highlight of the trip. It was Carnaval, the annual festival famous for its parades, street parties and samba music, so the whole city was full of festive energy. Rio in general is an extremely unique city, framed by mountains but also home to gorgeous beaches, beautiful sunsets and the friendliest people.
Some reflections:
I was quite nervous in the days leading up to my trip. As I boarded the flight from San Francisco to Cartagena, I had a pit in my stomach and many nagging thoughts swirling in my head.
“Will I be able to make friends?”
“How am I going to deal with the language barrier?”
“What will happen if I get sick or lose my phone/passport and don't have anyone to help me?”
If I had to pick my main worry, it was that I would be lonely for a whole month.
But after my first few days in Cartagena, these fears were largely eased. Here are a few of my reflections:
Staying in hostels makes it easy to meet people.
Most hostels are set up for socialising, with group activities and lively shared spaces. All it takes is a bit of initiative to strike up a conversation and ask questions. Most hostels are also full of other solo travellers who are hungry for connection, so a well-meaning “How was your day?” or “Where are you off to tomorrow?” rarely goes wrong.
However, I did find that this anxiety about loneliness would return whenever I would leave a group of new friends and travel somewhere else. But over time, this feeling subsided as I generally was able to find people I got along with in every location.
Sharing experiences with others can elevate them.
It is a lot of fun to travel with new friends, particularly those from very different cultures. Over many a cheap dinner, I learned about the Swiss civil service, the Spanish tendency to use milk-related proverbs, Dutch directness and how varied the accents and food can be in different parts of Brazil alone. It’s always fun to belly laugh with others, or engage in a group ‘Salud!’
It was particularly helpful to meet locals / other travellers who could speak Spanish or Portuguese to help navigate a new city. There is also safety in numbers, particularly if you are walking around big cities at night time.
While making friends is great, I also enjoy my own company.
Some of my fondest memories of the trip are solo excursions I took, like walking through the Botanical Gardens in Rio, having an acai bowl as the sun rose over Copacabana beach or spending an afternoon riding the teleferico (cable cars) over La Paz.
In these moments alone, I enjoyed letting my thoughts wander, taking photos or just people-watching. I also found these solo trips to be a great way to recharge my social battery.
On a related note, I learned that I do not get along with everyone, and that is OK. I found myself drawn towards people who were open to trying new things, laughed easily and asked genuine questions. Conversely, I tried to avoid people who (only) talked about how much they had partied, constantly complained about how things were different back home or always found the negatives in a situation.
Be comfortable with a range of outcomes.
I learned that if there is one meta-skill that makes solo travel fun, it is to be comfortable with a range of outcomes.
Things can change very quickly. You can meet an interesting person or stumble upon a cool bar and the whole shape of your night changes.
On my first day in Rio, I was taking an Uber back to my accommodation when two guys from New York asked if they could jump in. Perhaps a bit rashly, I said “Sure, why not?”. They ended up inviting me to their dinner, and we had a great evening at a picturesque restaurant up in the hills of Santa Teresa.
Conversely, there were a few nights when I got to my hostel and discovered there was no one there to chat to. So, I happily spent the evening having a meal by myself and then curling up with a book in bed.
The trick is to find some joy in whatever scenario you end up in.
Being solo is liberating.
For me, the best part of solo travel was being in complete control of what I wanted to do. While travelling with others can be a lot of fun, there are also definite drawbacks.
We've all been in big groups where no one can agree on what to eat or where to spend the afternoon. I found it extremely liberating to decide what I wanted to do and just do it.
The flip side of this is that I always had to be switched on, particularly in cities that weren't the safest. Sometimes it's nice to just let someone else decide and go with the flow - but this is not always an option when you are solo.
Roll with the punches (and there will be punches).
Naturally, not everything went smoothly on the trip. Some examples:
I missed a connecting flight between Medellin and La Paz. While the airline put me up in a nice hotel for the night in Bogota, it meant that I had one less day to acclimatise to the high altitude of Bolivia, and ended up spending a good part of the week with altitude sickness.
While I was in Bogota, I embarrassingly looked the wrong way before crossing the road and got hit by a bicycle. I was lucky to walk away with just a couple of skinned knees and a bruised elbow - but safe to say I looked several times in each direction any time I crossed the road after this!
I also got some relatively long-lasting food poisoning in Bolivia. Combined with my attitude sickness, I was a shell of a man over the last two days of my Salt Flats tour. This also bled into my first few days in Brazil, sapping me of my energy (and good mood) while I was in Sao Paulo. During this time, I just wanted to be in the comfort of my home in Sydney.
I was excited to watch a football game while I was in Brazil - but getting tickets was a nightmare. I couldn’t buy tickets online as a foreigner and had to go through a buggy facial recognition process in-store. And then after 3 hours of waiting in line in the blazing sun, I ended up not being let into the store because my facial recognition hadn’t worked. The frustration and mild heat stroke left me on the verge of tears. But I did some retail therapy to get over it and successfully tried again the next day. The game ended up being one of the highlights of the trip!
In these challenging moments, it was lovely to see the kindness of others. When I was frustrated after missing my flight, a fellow traveller shared an empanada with me at the airport because he knew I was hungry. When I was in the pits of altitude sickness in the Salt Flats, the others in my tour group offered me medication and constantly checked up on me. And a fellow football fan in line for tickets tried over and over again to buy tickets under his name for me.
I luckily didn't have any major issues occur, but these smaller ones taught me the importance of keeping a positive attitude in the face of challenges.
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
There are many ways to lead a fulfilling life.
It was eye-opening to see the range of careers and passions that people have.
Throughout my travels, I met an astrophysics PhD student developing algorithms to find exoplanets, a marine researcher studying the evolution of freshwater fish in Trinidad, a nurse, a union rep, a civil engineer working remotely, a primary school teacher, a trained chef and more.
I even met someone who quit his job and ran a pizza food truck for a few years, before quitting and travelling for a year (and who hadn't yet decided where he was going to live in a few weeks!)
So many people have also changed what they do for work / where they live and everything has worked out for them.
Phones make solo travel easier…to an extent.
Even the basics of Google Translate and Maps make it much easier to figure things out if you don't speak the language. And there is a wealth of tips and tricks on places like Reddit and online blogs to figure out what to do in a city.
As great as phones are, they can also be a crutch. It is much easier to spend an evening rotting on Instagram and avoid the harder but ultimately more rewarding experience of going out and meeting fellow travellers or locals.
Travel isn't always a net positive.
When I was in Medellin, I went on a walking tour and learned about the ‘Medellin Miracle’ - how the city transformed its reputation as the narco and murder capital of the world in the 1990s to a clean, safe city with a bustling tourism industry.
However, the guide dropped a few tidbits about how gentrification is now becoming a big issue. I wanted to dig into this a bit further and listened to this podcast where I learned how the ‘digital nomad’ boom is hurting Medellin locals.
Remote workers, generally from the US and Western Europe have flooded Medellin and snapped up long-term rentals in upscale neighbourhoods like El Poblado. They then encourage others to follow suit because of how wonderful it is to earn USD remotely and then live like a king in Colombia.
What they are less aware of is how things are not as cheap for locals and they end up driving up rent and the cost of living, pushing these locals out of the communities they have lived in for decades.
It is an uncomfortable truth that raises questions about the ethics of travel in general.
What I would do differently next time:
Do less, more deeply.
While I enjoyed each of the countries I went to, by the end of the trip I was quite tired. The sheer amount of flying and hopping around countries took its toll.
It's hard to say which places I would have cut out, but I probably would have benefitted from longer stays in fewer places.
Pre-book less.
Going into the trip, I had all my flights already booked as well as my accommodation for every night. Given this was my first solo travel trip, I do not blame myself for having a more rigid structure. But I learned that it is not always necessary.
I talked to many people who just landed in a country, talked to fellow travellers and spontaneously made plans.
While I think completely winging it would stress me out, I think a little more flexibility would allow me to be more spontaneous.
Accept a bit more luxury.
I think this might be the last hurrah for a 12-bed hostel dorm. While they are very cheap, the cramped bathrooms and teetering bunk beds got old quickly.
And some people have no respect for shared spaces. There is a special place in hell for people who come to a shared dorm in the middle of the night and start yapping/singing/turning every single light on in the room. It is more common than you would think.
Overall I loved my trip and I'm very glad I went, despite some apprehension about solo travel. I would recommend any of you who are thinking about it to just take the plunge.
Even if you find out you don't like it, at least you will know for sure.
Nice Travelogue, Saurav. Glad you had a great time, could see some wonderful places and make new friends.
Nice Travelogue Saurav. Travel and especially solo travel is definitely worth exploring and you learn so many new things!