I’m a travel lover – this is how I got over the fear of solo backpacking

Backpacking alone is becoming more popular, especially among young people
A travel influencer has revealed how he used to be ‘terrified’ of travelling solo
He revealed how he overcame the fear and has now been to almost 80 countries

Whether it’s taking a gap year interrailing through Europe or jetting off to ‘find yourself’ in Thailand, solo travel is becoming more and more popular, especially among young people.

However, it doesn’t come without it’s challenges – it can be anxiety-inducing to book that one way ticket and head to a country where you don’t know anyone.

A travel influencer has revealed how he overcame his fear of solo backpacking after being ‘terrified’ to begin with, with the hopes to encourage others.

YouTuber ‘@BackpackerBen’ posted a video titled ‘Life as a Travel YouTuber (brutal truth)’ where he answered his viewers burning questions about the solo travel lifestyle.

The influencer has visited almost 80 countries and has been travelling alone for years, so was keen to pass on some words of wisdom to the upcoming generation of backpackers.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=DP-nT83rKhM%3Frel%3D0

A travel influencer has revealed how he overcame his fear of solo backpacking after being ‘terrified’ to begin with, with the hopes to encourage others

One query he answered was ‘How do you overcome your fear of travelling?’

He told his 244,000 followers, ‘Good question, there’s a lot of people that message me that are scared to travel and I completely understand, especially if you’re young because I was exactly the same.

‘My first solo travel experience was Australia and I left my friends in Thailand and I flew to Sydney.

‘Let me tell you, I was petrified. I’d booked a hostel and that was the first ever hostel I stayed in.

‘Basically I walked into that hostel and there was four girls in there, they were friendly they were talking to me like ‘where are you from?’

‘I explained to them I’m from Plymouth, I’m here travelling and that’s it, they went on a night out and I was just like oh my god, I didn’t want to ask to join them, I was hoping they would.’

Claiming it was ‘really awkward’ to begin with, he continued ‘You’ve got to go downstairs into the common area and speak to people and obviously I’m quite confident as it is but it’s hard.

‘It’s tricky, you go into a hostel and there’s a lot of foreign people, you’re a foreigner yourself and it’s really hard honestly.

YouTuber ‘@BackpackerBen’ posted a video titled ‘Life as a Travel YouTuber (brutal truth)’ where he answered his viewers burning questions about the solo travel lifestyle

The influencer has visited almost 80 countries and has been travelling alone for years, so was keen to pass on some words of wisdom to the upcoming generation of backpackers

‘But once you overcome that fear and you speak to people and you realise you’re all the same, you’re all doing the same thing, you’ll meet some incredible people and you’ll overcome that fear.’

He concluded the video by talking about the progress he’s made, explaining ‘I got to the point where I was going to a new hostel and I was looking forward to it – you meet some incredible people and each hostel you go to, it will continue.

‘I was terrified at first but you overcome that fear the more you do it and the more you get involved and speak to people.’

Comments praised the YouTuber’s honesty, writing ‘It’s hard to believe that Ben was ever scared’ and ‘It is people like yourself which makes this a lovely planet, honesty is always the best policy’.

Others added ‘Ben’s videos are less of sugar coating and more of raw traveling, it’s rare to see such content nowadays’ and ‘I like videos like this more than the actual travel videos. Interesting to know about the difficulties of travelling etc’.

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