My Solo Trip to Spain: Best Decision I’ve Ever Made
The trip almost didn’t happen because I kept waiting for someone to come with me.
I spent months trying to coordinate Spain with a friend and months watching it fall apart. Scheduling conflicts, budget concerns, the specific kind of collective indecision that happens when you’re trying to align multiple adults who all want to travel but none of whom can commit to the same two weeks. At some point I had to make a decision: keep waiting or go alone.
I went alone. And I’m going to spend the rest of my life grateful that I did.
The part where I had to talk myself into it
Solo female travel sounds empowering in theory and genuinely terrifying in practice, especially when you’ve never done it and you’re staring at a map of a country where you don’t speak the language, planning to navigate airports and hostels and foreign transit systems entirely by yourself.
I did what I always do when I’m scared of something: I researched it like crazy. Solo travel blogs, Reddit threads, YouTube videos of women solo tripping through Europe. What I found, almost universally, was that the fear before the trip was significantly worse than anything that actually happened on it. That’s true of most things, but it’s especially true of solo travel. The version of it you imagine in your worst-case-scenario brain and the version that actually exists are almost nothing alike.
What finally convinced me was realizing how many people had been in exactly the same position (wanting to travel, unable to find a travel partner, choosing to go anyway) and how consistently they described it as one of the best things they’d ever done. I decided to add myself to that statistic.
At the same time, I must also communicate here that I’m a product of my family, where “keep your head on a swivel” and “be smart, be alert, and be safe” were interchangeable with hello and goodbye. I’m grateful for that and still carry those reminders with me everywhere I go in every situation (especially across foreign lands).
Why Spain, why ten days, why this specific trip
I found a group travel package covering Barcelona, Ibiza, and Valencia over ten days with lodging, transportation between cities, and several excursions included. The price point was reasonable, the itinerary was exactly what I wanted, and the structure of it (organized enough to provide a framework, loose enough to give me real freedom) felt like the right entry point for someone doing this for the first time.
Ten days felt long enough to actually experience three cities without just doing a rushed highlight reel of each one. Barcelona for culture and architecture and the best nightlife I’ve ever experienced. Ibiza for the obvious reasons. Valencia for something slower, more local, a beach day and a proper farewell to the whole thing.
The hostel decision
This deserves its own section because it was the thing I was most anxious about and the thing I’m most glad I didn’t overthink.
I had the option to upgrade to private hotel rooms and I almost did it. I am someone who values privacy, sleep, and the ability to decompress alone, which are also all things that hostels are not exactly designed to protect. But post after post I read said the same thing: the hostel is where the trip actually happens. The connections, the spontaneous plans, the people you end up exploring cities with at midnight. The hotel room is where you sleep. The hostel is where you live.
I booked the hostel. And within the first two days I had people to explore with, people to eat with, people to go out with. Some of them I’m still in contact with. We’ve talked about future trips. And that doesn’t happen from a private hotel room.
If you’re someone who’s considering solo travel and the hostel question is holding you up, I understand that hesitation completely and I’m telling you from the other side of it: the discomfort is temporary and the upside is real. Always do your research to do your due diligence on the establishment and confirm it’s a good one. Then pack a good sleep mask and go.
What the ten days actually looked like
Barcelona was three and a half days and it wasn’t enough. The city has a specific energy. It’s loud and warm and chaotic and beautiful. I loved everything about it and didn’t want to leave. I did the Sagrada Familia, which is one of those things that photographs don’t fully prepare you for. I spent a free day just walking, which is genuinely one of the best ways to understand a city. The nightlife was some of the best I’ve experienced anywhere, which is saying something considering I also went to Ibiza.
Ibiza was three days and every cliché about it exists for a reason. I did the catamaran cruise, which was an easy yes, and I danced in clubs until 5am in a way that most 20-something year olds would on such an island. It was everything it’s supposed to be and more.
Valencia was the landing. A beach day, a proper dinner, a slower pace that let everything settle. By the time I flew home I felt like a different person than the one who’d been afraid to book the flight in the first place.
The confidence that comes from navigating a foreign country alone through handling the things that go wrong, figuring out systems you’ve never encountered, and making connections entirely on your own terms doesn’t even translate. It has to be experienced. I can tell you it’s real. I can tell you it lasts. I can tell you that my threshold for what feels possible when it comes to solo travel, and honestly just life in general, shifted permanently on that trip.
So, book the trip. Go alone if you have to. You won’t regret it.
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