How Solo Travel Builds Confidence After 50: Reclaim Your Courage One Trip at a Time // 174

What if confidence isn’t something you wait for—but something you build?

In this episode, Cheryl explores how solo travel becomes a practical path to steady, grounded confidence for women over 50. From small starter trips to bigger adventures, each experience becomes a layer of self-trust that carries into everyday life.

Confidence isn’t a personality trait.
 It’s a muscle built through action.

In This Episode:

• Why confidence grows through small, consistent solo outings
• Starter trips that compound into bigger travel goals
• Planning wisely without slipping into overplanning
• Situational awareness and simple rideshare safety habits
• Navigation tips, map pins, and power bank essentials
• Reframing solo dining and showing up confidently in public
• Celebrating wins—and learning from travel missteps
• Handling homesickness, fatigue, and moments of doubt
• Why midlife travel becomes identity reclamation
• Bringing hard-earned confidence back home

Solo travel after 50 isn’t about proving anything.
 It’s about reclaiming independence, courage, and clarity in this season of life.

If you want structured support building confidence and designing a safe, meaningful solo trip aligned with who you’re becoming, Cheryl works with women in 1:1 coaching to create realistic, confidence-building travel plans.

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

Travel bravely. Travel wisely. Travel confidently.

Transcript

Confidence As A Trainable Muscle

Everyday Decisions That Build Grit

Why Women Over 50 Need This

Start Small And Let It Compound

Plan Smart Without Overplanning

Master Situational Awareness

Rideshare Safety And Phone Tips

Navigation, Power, And Calm

Redefine Looking Alone

Celebrate Wins And Missteps

The Austria Train Story

Stretching Comfort Zones

Travel As Midlife Reclamation

Confidence That Follows You Home

Book The Trip And Begin

You Are Not Too Old

Travel Bravely, Wisely, Confidently

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome back to Solo Travel Adventures, the place where women, especially those of us fifty and better, rediscover our courage, our curiosity, and our confidence through travel. Today we're talking about something that stops so many women before they ever book the ticket. Can you guess what it is? Confidence. Not just I can do this confidence, but that deep, grounded confidence that says, I trust myself in the world. If you've ever thought maybe what if something goes wrong? What if I look foolish? What if I get lonely? What if I'm too old to start this? Well, this episode is for you. So, first of all, confidence is not a personality trait. It's actually more like a muscle. And solo travel is one of the fastest ways to build it. And even doing any kind of solo adventure or outing, just like I recommended in last week's episode, I gave you some tips on how to create some solo dates for yourself. And I mentioned that those will help build your confidence to solo travel, maybe later in life. Or later. I should just say later. But every small decision that you make when you're traveling, such as navigating an airport alone, ordering food in another language, that's my biggest challenge. Taking a train in a new city. I always say, if you can navigate in a new city, you are doing great, by the way. Or just sitting at dinner alone without apologizing for your presence and being confident that you don't care what other people think either. And so each one of these decisions that you make actually makes a deposit really in yourself, meaning I can handle this. And you start to build that muscle of confidence. And for women over 50, this is really powerful because many of us lack confidence, mainly because we have put others first. We have cared for others, we have coordinated our family life, and we have forgotten what our needs are and what we are capable of doing, besides maybe being the quote-unquote caretaker. And so solo travel is a way to explain, exclaim, this is my time, my experience, and my choice. And that will build confidence. Now, here's some practical ways to intentionally build confidence as a solo female traveler. As I've often said before, start small because confidence grows in layers. I mean, you want to take that leap and go across the pond and do this epic international trip when you've never traveled alone or internationally, go for it. But most women find that they need to start small and then maybe go to that big solo international travel. One thing you can do is start with just a weekend away alone, maybe a nearby city. You could do a short domestic flight somewhere, especially if you're in the US, just maybe go to the next state or even a solo or road trip. And this will help to build your confidence because confidence compounds. So the more you do it, the more confident you become. So you would want to beforehand prepare your accommodations, of course, prepare your transportation options, make sure you have emergency contacts, and those emergency contacts know your whereabouts as well. So share your itinerary as well. That will make you feel more secure in that, okay, someone does know where I'm at, and that if something did happen, I mean remembered. You might also want to research the local customs of where you're going. Now, if you're just going a short distance to another town in your own country, your own state, that may not be necessary, but that could come into play later on. Preparation is very empowering, but I wouldn't recommend over-preparation because that can actually lead to anxiety. And because we want control, right? So this disguise of control can lead to anxiety. So I would still say leave some space for discovery, but also have your plan in place as well. And you want to number three master the art of situational awareness when you are doing anything solo, when you're building your confidence, even though you might feel like you don't have this boldness, this courage, you just want to be aware so that you're not being naive. And so that just means being aware when you walk with purpose, know where you're going, trust your instincts, don't overshare your personal details with people. That's kind of a big one for a lot of women. They may even act like they are meeting somebody if somebody asks them if they're alone. That kind of gives them a little reassurance. I've also had when you get into a share ride, that the best thing you can do, recommendation here, get on a phone and call somebody and give them, for example, your route, what you're in, maybe you're in a taxi, an Uber, and even if you know the Uber driver's name, right? You would say that, tell them what time you're arriving as though they are waiting for you, right? So that the driver knows that you're not like if they think you're not alone, right? So, and they also know that someone is quote unquote expecting you, and they have details of your actual share ride. So that is a tip that I recently heard, and I think it's great because it also lets the driver know you're not playing, right? Make sure you have your phone charged. Traveling does tend to zap your battery, especially if you're using it maybe for navigation. So carry with you a power bank too, because there might be limited places for you to charge your phone. And make sure you know how to get back to your lodging. I like to use a little pin on my phone as far as on my map, so that especially if I'm unfamiliar and I'm doing like my own walking tour, it you can get turned around. That's happened to us before or me. And having that pinned or remembering the name of it so that you could actually look it up and map it out is very helpful, and that's going to keep you calm in the situations. Another thing you can do is redefine looking alone. Okay, so many women hesitate because they're worried about how they'll look sitting alone at dinner, for example. And I'd like to reframe that, and I'd like you to think of yourself as not alone or lonely, but that you are interesting, you look independent, and that you have a story, an interesting story that maybe other people will want to find out, meaning, oh, you're just like this mysterious person, and that way people will kind of admire you, even and they'll leave you alone. When we stop shrinking ourselves in public spaces and we have that inner confidence, something really does shift inside of us, and you will never really feel or look like you are alone if you reframe that and look walking somewhere as well. And then another thing you can do is I encourage you to celebrate your wins. For example, did you navigate the public transportation well? And you know what? If you didn't, you learned from it, right? I like to look at those and I laugh at those sometimes afterwards. For example, my son and I were on a train, we bought tickets, we were headed, I'm trying to remember where, I think we were in Austria. And we thought we got on the right train. I mean, we did, we were going the correct direction, but that particular train was not going to the end point where we were getting. And so when the conductor came around and was asking to see our tickets, and we showed him, he's like, Oh, you're on the wrong train. Yes, we were headed the right direction. So he said, Next stop, you need to get off and get on the right train. And so it was actually kind of a funny scenario because where it dropped us off, it was pretty desolate, and we had to try to navigate getting from one train like platform or level all the way to some other one that was really, you know, in another language and they didn't speak much English, being more remote, away from the major city, of course. And so, you know, we were running around trying to figure it out and getting on the right train eventually. So, you know, it it can be something very memorable that might happen, even if you didn't win and celebrate your public transportation. You made a mistake. That's okay. You learned. Did you fix that travel mistake? Yes, of course. And you learn from that, you build confidence from that. Did you have a conversation with a stranger? That builds confidence, at least for especially as an introvert. I know that's often for me, it's challenging. You know, I gotta step out of my comfort zone and start to talk to somebody, and that's challenging, especially if you're you got the language barrier going on. However, if you are simply starting small, like I mentioned in the point number one, that you will likely know the language that is within that local area. So starting a conversation could be kind of fun and get to know a stranger. And let's be honest, there will be moments of doubt. You will have moments of being maybe homesick, fatigued. And the big question of why did I think I could do this? I have said that question a lot, meaning a lot of times when I book my travel, I tend to book cheaper flights and which require some layovers and places and maybe more cramped quarters. And usually when I'm in the midst of it, I'm like, why did I do this? I'm too old for this. So we do ask those questions. There have been times when I have been homesick and fatigue. Travel is very fatiguing. So just honor those moments, and it just means you're stretching yourself in those ways and learning from those as well. And sometimes beautiful things happen when you travel alone at this stage of life. You do realize what you're capable of and that you are resilient and you can adapt, and we're all still growing. I think that's so important. I always love to learn something new every day, and so traveling often shows me that, shows me something new about myself, or I learned something new about a certain area or culture, and so that's just how we grow in and using travel to do that. And for us, 50 plus, we're not trying to prove anything. What we're really doing is we're trying to reclaim maybe our independence or freedom. We're trying to claim, reclaim our identity beyond our roles, now that maybe it's shifted as well. Maybe you're empty nester, and so now you're the motherhood identity is no longer there. You might be reclaiming curiosity or even adventure at this point in your life because you've been lacking that maybe because you've just been busy working or taking care of family. So solo travel really becomes less about the destination and more about remembering who you are. And confidence built in a foreign city will follow you home. You will find that you maybe speak up more, maybe you entertain and conversations with strangers more than you would before your travels. You trust your decisions more deeply because travel really is transformative, as you have heard me say, and I can attest to. And if you've had some travel that's been transformative, you know how true that is. So maybe you're feeling today and you're waiting to travel when you feel confident enough. Well, I'm here to tell you that will only happen as you stretch that muscle by doing some solo travel or those small little trips or steps that I mentioned in the beginning. Because confidence will meet you there when you take that step. So I encourage you to book the trip. And don't hold back just because you think the world is unsafe. It's never going to be a hundred percent safe, just being honest, and not everything will go perfectly. But this is where we build our confidence and resilience by experiencing these things that do not maybe go as we planned. We discover things powerful about ourselves, and one of them is mainly that you are capable of more than you thought. And I always love to discover changes about myself on my trips and bring them back home. So that's part of the beauty of when you travel, a lot of what you discover, and even that muscle, that confidence muscle that you build is brought back into your day-to-day life. And so I want to encourage you to remember it's never too late, you are not too old, and you are absolutely capable of exploring this world on your own. And so I'd like to say travel bravely, travel wisely, and travel confidently. Get out there and have those adventures.