12 Solo Date Ideas to Build Confidence Before Your First Solo Trip // 173

What if confidence for solo travel doesn’t start at the airport—but in your own town?

In this episode, Cheryl shares 12 simple solo date ideas designed to build self-trust, independence, and ease in public spaces—so future solo travel feels natural instead of intimidating.

These aren’t consolation outings.
They’re confidence reps.

From cozy café visits to museum afternoons, from farmers markets to nature trails, each idea strengthens your ability to listen to yourself, choose your pace, and enjoy your own company without apology.

In This Episode:

• Why solo dates build the confidence muscle
• Café and bookstore outings that increase comfort in public spaces
• Museums and galleries for curiosity without compromise
• Playful “inner child” activities that restore lightness
• Nature walks and new parks that build resilience
• Classes and workshops that stretch your comfort zone
• Being a tourist in your own town to practice travel logistics
• Vision board nights that turn travel dreams into action

Solo travel confidence doesn’t appear overnight.
 t grows in layers.

When you practice choosing yourself locally, booking that future trip becomes far less intimidating.

If you want structured support building confidence and designing your first (or next) solo trip safely and intentionally, Cheryl works with women in 1:1 coaching to create realistic, meaningful travel plans aligned with this season of life.

Apply for 1:1 coaching at:
https://cherylbeckesch.com

Transcript

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Setting The Scene: Solo Love

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello, my sister travelers. Welcome to Solo Travel Adventures. I'm Cheryl Esh, your host. Well, it is February, and here in the US, we got a holiday coming up. It's called Valentine's Day. And for all my single ladies out there, this message is for you.

Why Solo Dates Build Confidence

SPEAKER_00 0:28

But please note, even if you are married, the tips that I'm giving you today still could be used. I'm gonna give you some ideas for some solo dates. These can also be used to help you get into feeling more confident and comfortable doing things solo. This will prepare you for any future travels where you will be doing some of these activities by yourself. So why not practice them and enjoy them and look at them as an opportunity to get to know yourself better because who do you spend all of your life with? Yourself. So we need to love ourselves, get to know ourselves. And when you travel solo, it is really just you. So utilizing these practice opportunities, these solo dates, are gonna really also prepare you for any kind of solo travel. And for myself and anybody else that is single and they're in the US, we know that Valentine's Day might not be our favorite holiday. And we are often feeling left behind.

Embracing Singlehood Around Valentine’s

SPEAKER_00 1:45

And so I want to offer 12 ideas of some solo dates that you don't have to just do on Valentine's Day, but you can do them anytime. And even for those that are married, as I mentioned, or have a partner, that you can use these just as a time to get away and to explore the idea of being by yourself. I love being by myself. I am an introvert, so finding these solo date ideas are actually right up my alley. I love it, and so I'm hoping that you will love these ideas and try them out yourself. So one of the first places

Ideas 1–2: Cafe And Museum

SPEAKER_00 2:27

that you could do, take a solo date. Take yourself on a date. Isn't that exciting? That means you get to go and do what you want, and you don't have to have somebody else try to figure out where to take you, and then you're trying to, you know, decide where you're going to dinner. You know how that goes. So when you're planning a solo date, you get to pick. And so the first one that I absolutely love is a cozy cafe or bookstore where you would have an opportunity to have maybe some coffee in a bookstore. I love this. Of course, I do love books, but you give me a cozy cafe where I can sit and sip some Joe, watch people, maybe read, maybe even work on my computer, or browse the books that might be in this cozy bookstore. And I just have to resist sometimes to not buy a whole stack of books for myself. So, number one is that idea of finding a cozy cafe. Every town has one. You just have to go look for it. Number two, if you like museums, go and visit a museum by yourself. Again, most cities have more than one museum. Different types of museums, right? They have different exhibits that might be coming into town. If you don't have a museum, maybe you look for an art gallery. There's other types of museums besides art museums, there's science museums. So there's even space museums, depending on where you live. Great opportunity to walk around at your leisure rather than being with somebody else and spending time maybe looking at some artwork or some history that maybe if you went with somebody, it would not they would not be interested in it. So you get to browse at your own pace in a museum. And maybe even that museum might be having some sort of event that you could join. Maybe there's a night at the museum kind of an event happening in your town.

Ideas 3–5: Thrift, Market, Inner Child

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Number three, thrift shop. This is, if this is your cup of tea. I actually do like to thrift shop. It gives me ideas, kind of makes me think creatively. I don't always buy things when I thrift shop, but I do love to just go look and browse, see what's out there, give me again ideas or remind me of things that I might need in my closet or don't need in my closet, right? Or home accessories that you can get secondhand that are much cheaper than if you bought them new. Number four, a farmers market. Well, these typically happen on the weekends, and we have a weekend coming up. Our weather here in Texas has gotten unseasonably warm, so I am pretty sure our farmers markets are probably going to be open. But it's a great way just to walk around, mingle, and see the vendors that are coming to your local farmers market. And a great way to get some fresh food, maybe even inspire you to make a meal for yourself at home based off those ingredients that you find at the farmer's market. Number five, your inner child playdate. Oh, so what does that mean? Well, we were all children at some point, and maybe some of us experience or remember doing some really fun childhood activities, and you maybe missed that. Was it that you liked to finger paint or that you liked to doodle or write poetry, some sort of childhood activity, maybe it's roller skating or just riding a bike. These are activities we all did as kids, hopefully, maybe, and we kind of gotten away from them as adults. I don't know that I see many adults just leisurely riding a bike, unless they're intentionally riding it. Maybe they're training for a triathlon or something like along those lines, but just to go out and do that just as a fun, leisure activity, and maybe it's just some sort of arts and crafts thing that you would do to find your inner child again and learn to play. I love

Ideas 6–8: Nature And Spa And Classes

SPEAKER_00 7:11

that. Number six, go for a hike or walk somewhere new, just basically get out in nature. And when I say somewhere new, don't just walk around your neighborhood that you if that's something you do regularly, but find a new place to walk. A new park to walk through, maybe a new trail to hike, and explore some new places. That's a great way to do a solo date for yourself. Take yourself for a walk. The next one is one of my favorites is spa day. Take yourself on a spa date. Give yourself that massage or facial that you have been putting off for so long, and your body and mind will thank you. I just love a spa day. It just reminds me, I think I need to schedule a massage. Number eight, take a creative workshop or class. So this could be an art class, a pottery class, a painting class, jewelry making class, and all those things that you could possibly just take a workshop or class in. And it gets that creative flow going, and you will meet other people. Other people are going to be taking the class by themselves as well. So you're going to meet other

Ideas 9–10: Cooking And Local Tourism

SPEAKER_00 8:32

folks. And then speaking of classes, my next one, number nine, is attend a cooking class. Those are a lot of fun. And again, you get to meet other people, you learn a new skill, maybe, or you learn a new recipe of something that you have not done. And number 10, be a tourist in your own town. So I find that many people don't actually do what is often categorized as the touristy things to do in their towns. For example, I live in Dallas and we have this in downtown Dallas. We have this almost like it's like Seattle's Space Needle kind of thing. And or the JFK Museum. These are things that Dallas is known for. But as a someone that's lived in Dallas, I had not gone to it in my probably my first 10 years or so of living here. It it required someone to come into town and visit me for in order for me to actually be a tourist in my own town. Now you can do this on your own. You don't have to wait for somebody to come visit you and then suddenly start to show them around to all these touristy places. You can do some research and see what do people come to your city or town to explore as tourists. And then if you haven't done it, go do it. For example, there may be some cities that are actually known for their zoos. Cincinnati Zoo, pretty popular, pretty well known. And so maybe if you live in Cincinnati, you go to that zoo. It's something that a lot of tourists actually come to your town for.

Ideas 11–12: Gardens And Vision Boards

SPEAKER_00 10:22

And if you know what your touristy attraction is for your city, go do it and be able to speak on that to about your city. And next is go to a botanical garden. And so there might or might not be some in your town. Maybe you have to drive a little bit, and that's okay. Take yourself on that road trip, that date to go to some botanical gardens. And certain times of the year they're gonna have different themes. For example, spring's coming up, so it's gonna be the spring flowers, maybe the tulips, and that would be just a great way to give yourself a beautiful, relaxing date. And then finally, my last suggestion, number 12, is just spend some time at home creating a vision board. Make it a vision board night for yourself. So it's a stay-at-home solo date and don't watch movies or Netflix. Spend some time really looking at what your vision is for your life and create it. Sit down and actually create a visual of those things. And you may be able to write these down, but a visual is often really what connects us and we remember better through visuals. And if we see it displayed on a daily basis in front of us, we are going to be more likely to remember to work on those goals and you know fulfill those visions that we have for our lives. I

Confidence As A Muscle

SPEAKER_00 12:01

encourage my single women out there to not sit at home and have a pity party, especially not this weekend for Valentine's Day, but instead to get out there and take yourself on one of these solo dates and just cherish yourself and get to know yourself better. These are also, as I mentioned before, great activities to even do to get more comfortable doing things solo. We often are scared about traveling solo because we don't want to be alone. But if you've already worked on this solo idea and you have started to increase the muscle of practicing being solo in activities or going places by yourself, then that

Final Nudge To Go Solo

SPEAKER_00 12:56

you gain that confidence. You feel just like a muscle is strengthened through cardiovascular exercise. So is taking yourself on these solo dates is gonna be like a muscle-building exercise to become more confident and prepared to do solo travel. Well, sisters, get out there and have that adventure and go solo.