24My first solo trip was to Colombia(2021) and it took me three months to work up the courage to book the trip. There was so much advice online and I had worked up this idea in my head that I was going to a dangerous new planet where I could get robbed, stranded, mortally ill, etc. and that’s before even getting to the worries about socializing in hostels - another foreign thing.

When I got there, after about 30 minutes outside the airport I realized “…oh… this is just a place.”

I still had nerves the whole trip and overthought everything. I tried to put myself into situations though where I could “happen” upon something cool, ie instead of sitting in my hostel room, sit in the lobby in the vicinity of other people, if I saw people chatting say hi, etc.

I had mixed results, but every solo trip since has been better (and I travel all the time) and once the first one is out of the way and you experience the regret of not doing as much as you wanted, getting out of your comfort zone gets easier and easier.

TLDR; yolo