The Many Benefits of Solo Travel

At first, traveling alone wasn’t really my scene. I was staying in Amsterdam, my first stop on a three-month trip to Europe.

“Maybe I hate this city because of its inherent melancholy, flowing through the pipes of the old houses, lining the underbelly of the dark-watered canals,” I wrote in a very dramatic journal entry.

I basically wandered around the narrow streets in the drizzle, cold, jet-lagged and lonely. Sartre would have been proud.

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How to Eat Cheaply Abroad

Eating is one of my absolute favorite activities while traveling. Some of my best travel memories are through food; whether it’s finishing dinner in France with a plate of oozing, raw-milk cheeses or devouring a fresh, cilantro-flecked ceviche in a Chilean seafood market, food ties you to a place in a way like no other.

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Essential Safety Tips for Backpackers

When I first started traveling at 17, I paid too much attention to backpacker safety. I held back from talking to strangers and used a money belt for the first three days (THANK YOU, Rick Steves).

Needless to say, being overly cautious takes the fun out of travel. But there is also such a thing as being downright irresponsible.

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