45+

50+ years

1972, when I flew from Chicago to New York alone and stayed there for several weeks. That was my second time ever on a plane. My first time on a plane was when I moved from New York to Chicago three months before this.

I could estimate in miles, but I’m not focused on how many miles but how many things I learned. I believe in quality over quantity. I believe my book's readers and podcast listeners have traveled over a billion (1,000,000,000) miles in these past 30 years.

If you ask me how many mistakes I’ve made traveling solo, I’d say that I’ve made thousands of mistakes and try not to make the same ones twice. I share a lot of my mishaps and lessons learned. I hope you don’t make the same mistakes that I made.

I enjoy solo travel because I get to go places around the world for 90 days. I also travel with other people on many trips, too. I enjoy solo travel because sometimes there’s just nobody to go with. Sometimes, you make plans with a friend, and they can’t go, so you have to figure out if you want to go by yourself. Almost always, I’m glad I went. I also travel independently quite often. I defined that as not on a tour. I will usually be with my daughter or a friend, basically alone with somebody else.

The advantages of solo travel are that you can do the things you want to do when you want to, and it is transformative because it builds confidence for future life circumstances. When you are solo, sometimes you get bumped up to first class. That happened to me from Tokyo to San Diego.

Being solo allows people the comfort of speaking to you in a foreign city or a distant town. You are approachable. That is how I’ve gotten to meet many people worldwide. I was invited to lunch at a home in Chile, South America, and they had never seen a Caucasian person in their home before. An 11-year-old boy asked me to go to his house for lunch, which was delightful for all parties.

The motivation is that you can discover new places and people, go at the pace you feel comfortable with, and set your expectations for what’s realistic.

My family encourages me to travel. My husband is happy to see me explore other places, some that he doesn’t want to go to. We also take family trips. We have traveled a lot in our minivans over the years. My children all live outside of the home now, and they are avid travelers. My eldest daughter lives in Taiwan, where she teaches English and does work for a Christian ministry. My other three children live in Tennessee, Colorado, and California.

My bucket list is very long. Let’s say there’s a lot of travel left in me. The shortlist includes return trips to Australia and New Zealand, Antarctica, South America (Peru, Columbia, Ecuador), and Portugal

#1. Overnight stay close to home.

#2. Visit a nearby state.

#3. Travel to multiple states.

#4. Overseas to English-speaking countries.

#5. Overseas in non-native countries, learn about their culture.