A Reflection on a Spontaneous Solo-Travel Trip: Purpose and Loneliness

After graduating college in May of 2025, I decided to take a solo trip through Europe. Why? Well, my foremost reason was my lack of plans following graduation. Unlike many of my peers, I did not secure a job to stave off the dark, looming, quickly growing, and soon-to-be enveloping shadow of post-grad, unemployment life. As a fairly privileged individual, life has left me without the kinds of worries that would pressure me to mass-submit job applications. I took a break from looking toward the ever-approaching future and decided to live as presently as I thought possible. I don’t know a better way to do that other than sort of spontaneously exploring different European cities and countries.

My trip took me from Copenhagen to Berlin, Heidelberg, Freiburg, Geneva, Lyon, Barcelona, Paris, and Amsterdam (subtracting the quick stops at German relatives’ residences). In total, I visited six different countries and nine cities in one month’s time. Not the most impressive total, but an amount that worked for my preferences of time spent in each city. The Eurail pass proved to be my best friend throughout the trip, letting me schedule train trips with ease, and even same-day bookings if I randomly decided to travel somewhere new.

Throughout the trip, I did the normal touristy things. I visited each of the cities’ famous sites, ate the local food, and walked—a lot. I also stayed at hostels in every city except for Amsterdam. The hostel experience is certainly, to say the least, interesting. At my first hostel in Copenhagen, I shared a room with a 50-year-old recently divorced British father and a 30-year-old guy from the Netherlands who were in the city to enjoy the nightlife. I also shared a bunk with someone I accidentally dropped a book on in the middle of the night. He was nice about it, though.

I never met people in my hostel rooms who ended up as friends, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t a great resource for meeting fellow travelers. Anyone planning to stay in hostels should download the Hostelworld app and use the chat function to make plans with other tourists in the city. Sometimes in smaller cities, such as Heidelberg and Freiburg, there weren’t as many chats to choose from or people to meet. But in each of the big cities I visited alone (Barcelona and Paris), I met great people in the hostel bars or through the app’s chat functions.

My favorite cities were the ones where I put myself in situations to meet strangers. In Barcelona, I enjoyed lovely tapas and a night at a very touristy club with people from the USA, New Zealand, Australia, Italy, and Brazil. Many of them had just left their jobs to travel Europe or were recent college graduates. The following day, I met again with one of them to explore Gaudí’s Park Güell, drink two overpriced Aperol Spritzes, and hike up to a bunker for a great view of Barcelona. In Paris, I didn’t even have to use the Hostelworld chat function and was approached by a stranger in the local hostel bar. We ended up having a few beers, meeting another solo traveler, and sharing a great Italian dinner and a bottle of wine on a quaint and picturesque street.

Needless to say, my Europe trip reinforced something I learned during my time on a rural college campus: people make a place special, not the place itself. Of course, the beach, delicious tapas, club, and Mediterranean climate of Barcelona created the basis for the social exchanges, but the people made the shared experiences all the more memorable. Human connection, and opening yourself up to the opportunity for it, is one of the most valuable skills someone can learn. It’s a bit nerve-racking to text in some random hostel group chat, “Hey, could I join you guys for tapas tonight?” However, the imagined and sometimes realized risk of social embarrassment and awkwardness is worth it, at least from my perspective. As a side note, I would also recommend having an Instagram account to scope out the other people you may be meeting with, and to provide a somewhat authentic idea of yourself for similar snooping from your potential, hopefully soon-to-be, friends.

Solo traveling is both great and, at times, a bit sad. Well, maybe not sad, but definitely lonely. I felt this loneliness during my stints in Heidelberg and Freiburg, as well as in Geneva and even Copenhagen. I think that as human beings, who can only ever experience our own lone perspective of the world, we might be doomed to experience some extent of loneliness. The release from this loneliness is, of course, the other people in our lives. Friends, family members, even strangers and acquaintances help relieve some of this loneliness. In the same way, love, and a lover, does this to the ultimate degree. Someone we are supposed to rely on, who’s your best friend, who you share the most intimate moments and experiences with, cures the loneliness innate to the human experience.

During my solo trip, sitting for hours on trains with my own thoughts, walking around cities all alone, I had a lot of time with myself. Maybe too much time. The experience of traveling alone made the occasional phone calls with friends and family, and the interactions with strangers and newfound friends, all the more meaningful. Everybody just wants some companionship in life. This doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy my time, but visiting the Eiffel Tower alone definitely made me wish someone was there to enjoy it alongside me. However, traveling alone also meant I could visit, eat, and explore wherever I wanted. There was no one to check my decisions or opt for a restaurant I didn’t want. So, with loneliness comes ultimate freedom, in a sense. But personally, I am totally okay with another contributing voice. I actually prefer it. Traveling with someone else often opens up suggestions for experiences unbeknownst to you.

While solo travel can be lonely, it was absolutely worthwhile. Like everything else in life, along with the challenges came amazing, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities and experiences. You always have to take the good with the bad. In this case, the good far outweighed any of the bad. I love Europe. I love the people in Europe. I love the public transport, international train lines, social safety nets, the culture of work-life balance, and the opportunity for international, cross-cultural experiences and exchange just a few hours away from any given country.

I struggle to find a “purpose” in life, and I don’t think there actually is one to be found. As I recall reading in John Green’s The Anthropocene Reviewed, in one of the many fantastic chapters, the “purpose” of life may simply be to experience life and the world we inhabit. Solo travel, a somewhat unique opportunity that not everyone in life decides to or can embark upon, allowed me to really live a life of “purpose,” if purpose is defined as experience. Of course, we experience every day, but experiences vary in their memorability and contribute variably to what I would view as experiences that create “purpose.” The monotony of everyday life reduces our capacity for making memories and, as I would define them, experiences with purpose.

Of course, there are remedies to monotony that someone can implement at home. You don’t need to go to Europe. Maybe a simple shift in mindset and positivity can help, a gratitude journal, a change in routine. These methods work, sure, but solo traveling Europe is also a solution that squeezes a lot of really fun and astounding experiences into a short time period, allowing someone to feel as if they are living with purpose. New people, cultures, friends, even potential love interests give my life meaning, experiencing what the world has to offer, instead of getting bogged down in the everyday. I think establishing some sense of the everyday is important, but being informed about and enjoying what the world has to offer creates balance. I envision a sort of global citizen, who opens themselves up to experience, if they have the means to do it.

Of course, traveling for longer would extend the effect, I’d assume. But people also get burned out from living out of a backpack. I’m not sure if infinite travel is really the answer, either. To wrap this somewhat convoluted train of thought up, solo travel is fantastic, also difficult, but mostly fantastic. You do things alone, for so long, that your capacity for tolerating your own company, your sense of independence, and your ability to navigate problems and new environments alone increases dramatically. Exciting and new places make for experiences that overshadow the loneliness of being, well, alone. The people you meet stave it off for even longer and compound the experience of traveling to make it even more memorable.

In short, if your “purpose” in life is to have unique, impactful, even person-altering, once-in-a-lifetime experiences, solo travel may be your answer. It certainly was mine.