How to Choose Your Next Solo Travel Destination When You’re Feeling Lo

How to Choose Your Next Solo Travel Destination When You’re Feeling Lost

Jun 04, 2025 | 0 comments

Photo by Krissara Lertnimanorladee on Unsplash

There are moments when the world feels too loud, too demanding. When everything around you is moving and churning and tugging, and all you want is stillness. Or maybe not stillness—maybe just space. That sacred in-between where you can breathe without needing to explain yourself to anyone. That’s usually when I know it’s time to go.

But choosing where to go when your soul is foggy? That’s an art. It’s not about ticking countries off a list or finding the most Instagrammable spots. When I’m feeling lost, my compass doesn’t point north—it points inward.

I’ve developed a kind of ritual for picking my next solo destination. It’s not something I found in a guidebook or read on a blog. It was born from lived experience, from heartbreak, rebirth, burnout, and bliss. And today, I want to share that process with you.

The Soul Questions

When I feel unmoored, these are the questions I ask myself. Not just once, but over and over—sometimes journaling, sometimes crying, sometimes walking through a crowded street in some unfamiliar place, wondering how I even got there.

What does my soul need right now? Not want—need. Do I need rest? Do I need to feel alive? Do I need to disappear and remember who I am? This question alone has rerouted my life more than once.
What kind of energy am I seeking? Stillness or stimulation? Mountains or coast? Solitude or serendipity? I once chose to go to the Serbian countryside because I craved silence, and it held me in ways I didn’t expect.
Am I running from something or toward something? Sometimes the answer is both. And that’s okay. But I ask it anyway, to keep myself honest.
What version of myself do I want to meet there? Each place pulls out a different facet of me. I met my untamed, barefoot, wanderlust self in the jungles of Southeast Asia. In Lisbon, I met my artist self—the one who drinks wine at noon and writes until her fingers ache.
What feels like home, even if I’ve never been there? This is intuition’s playground. You won’t always know why you’re drawn to a place. But you don’t need to know. Trust the tug.

Serbia: Solitude, Soul Retrieval, and Soft Rebirth

I didn’t know much about Serbia before I booked the ticket. All I knew was that something about it felt off-the-grid in a way I needed. I also snatched a great deal on a New Years Eve flight ticket so I knew it was the right next step.

I stayed in a quiet town with winding streets and stone homes. The food was hearty. The air was thick with history. And people let me be. That was the greatest gift. Nobody tried to fix me. Nobody cared that I was alone.

I would take long walks by the river, let the wind slap my face, let the silence do its slow stitching. Serbia reminded me that healing doesn’t always look like therapy and self-help books. Sometimes it looks like feeding ducks and learning how to be gentle with yourself again.

Portugal: Sensuality, Sunlight, and Creative Revival

Portugal, on the other hand, felt like a lover. The kind that pulls you in by the waist and whispers, You’re safe now. I returned to Lisbon more than once, each time feeling like I was reuniting with a long-lost part of myself.

There’s something about Portuguese mornings—the café pingado in a tiny cup, the azulejos glowing in the sunlight, the city waking up with slow seduction. Lisbon taught me how to flirt with life again.

I wrote endlessly there. Sat in cafés for hours. Spoke broken Portuguese to the fruit vendor who always gave me an extra fig. Portugal wasn’t a place I went to escape—it was a place I went to become. That’s the difference.

When I asked myself what version of me I wanted to meet, Portugal offered up a mirror and said: Her. The one you thought you lost.

Southeast Asia: Fire, Freedom, and Fierce Reclamation

There’s a kind of chaos in Southeast Asia that unravels you in the best way. It’s not for everyone. But it was exactly what I needed after a season of feeling trapped and small.

Bali was my first stop. The scooters, the smells, the noise—it was overstimulation turned medicine. I needed to be shocked back into aliveness. And Southeast Asia delivered.

I found pieces of myself in Vietnamese night markets and Thai temples. I watched the sunrise alone in Bali, tears mixing with sweat on my upper lip, because sometimes beauty breaks you open. That’s the magic of this region—it doesn’t coddle you. It initiates you.

In Southeast Asia, I asked myself: What does aliveness feel like in my body? And I chased that feeling like gospel.

Let the Destination Choose You (Sometimes)

Here’s the twist: sometimes the destination finds you. You’re scrolling, or watching a movie, or eavesdropping on someone’s conversation in a café, and suddenly—there it is. The nudge. The whisper. Go there.

Don’t ignore it. Even if it doesn’t make sense. Especially if it doesn’t make sense. The soul speaks in subtle nudges. If you only travel logically, you’ll miss the portals.

Your Map Is Internal

If you’re in that lost place right now—between jobs, between relationships, between versions of yourself—I want you to know that choosing where to go next isn’t about geography. It’s about resonance.

Ask the questions. Let the answers come in dreams, in quiet moments, in the breath between one thought and the next. Don’t rush. You’re not late.

And when the answer finally comes, book the damn ticket. Even if you don’t know why.

You don’t have to know.

You just have to go.

blog tags: adventure travel female solo travel international travel