My learnings as a solo female bikepacker

Of course, I can only tell you from my own experience and honestly, I've never had a really dangerous encounter. But nevertheless, I don't want to encourage you to be reckless or naive. Maybe this article will help you to gain a little more faith in people.

On my first solo trip, I went to Thailand when I was 18 years old. I did not bring my smartphone, so nobody could steal it, I did not drink any alcohol, so I could be at my senses 24/7, and I always had my belongings hidden in a small bag under my shirt. This behaviour changed completely during the last 10 years of traveling. By now, I mostly say yes if I get invited for any kind of adventure. This mindset has already led to me attending a Turkish wedding, an invitation to a free helicopter ride in Patagonia, and a five-day camping trip with locals in the desert of Oman. On my current bikepacking tour from Germany to Kazakhstan, I benefit a lot from all these experiences. They made me the traveler that I am right now, trusting but not naive, adventurous but always with a Plan B, and excited about everything that is yet to come.

As a woman, you learn early to be careful about strangers, especially men. So does every other woman. That's why, in my experience, others trust you more because you're a woman. For me, that's safe to say for all countries that I've travelled to so far.

What is different, though, is the way they treat you. In countries like Germany, where I started my trip, people are helpful but still don't care too much. You're a grown woman, so you are fine and can deal with your own problems. If you need help, you have to ask for it. Otherwise, people leave you alone. I still did have nice encounters and got invited, but that's not the norm. This changed the further east I cycled. Starting in the Balkans, people started to get curious about what I was doing and offered me help wherever I went. The invitations already started in Hungary, where I slept on family couches or people even let me stay in their house while they were gone. This continued in Serbia and all of eastern Europe until Turkey, where I am currently cycling. But while the hospitality grew, so did the unwanted advice. People started questioning the way I travel and my capability to deal with upcoming problems. But honestly, in this case, I just told them that I was fine and shut them down.

But on the upside - because you're a woman, I feel like you get invited even more, not just because people want to help you more, but also because they trust you more. Most of the time, I was allowed to camp in gardens or even got invited to sleep inside. People don't want me to freeze, even if my sleeping bag is super warm, they don't want me to be outside alone, and they are also super interested in how I manage to travel alone as a woman. What was super interesting for me is that especially women in all countries encouraged me to do this trip, while men told me that I shouldn't do this alone. Of course, there were exceptions in both cases, but I feel like that was the norm.

Anyway, if I have the chance to not pitch my tent and have a warm place indoors, I'll take it.

So just know that if you're traveling alone as a woman, you get offered a lot of help for a lot of different reasons. And maybe you even get the chance to encourage women along the way or show people some new perspectives.

While we are on the topic of invitations, there are also some thoughts I want to add regarding the learnings I had on my trips.

During my current bikepacking trip, I started to ask people for help quite frequently. Honestly, I feel safer if I camp in a garden, I also have access to a toilet in the morning and a nice talk over a cup of coffee. These are just some of the many reasons why I like to stay with people. But I learned not to ask anyone for help. I mostly ask women or families and I have countless amazing, heartwarming stories to tell because of these encounters. So I definitely learned that people are happy to meet you and hear about your stories. Even if from the outside it seems like they are just helping you, I feel like if you share some talks over a meal, maybe play with their children or help with some small task in the house, I'm pretty sure it's an amazing experience for both sides.

I also want to add that all the men that I did meet were really respectful, kind and helpful. So let's not avoid them at all. I just advise you to be more careful if you're traveling solo - but you know that already.

Another completely different topic is what I expect of myself. If something needs to be fixed at home, I honestly call my dad. Same thing if there's a spider in my flat or some issue with my computer. But especially when you travel alone, there's no one you can call. You need to solve your own problems and you learn that you're capable of doing so. If there's a situation that seems complicated, stressful or needs to be solved, you have no choice but to get your crap together and solve it. That seems pretty obvious for some things. For example, if you have a flat tire while solo bikepacking, of course you will fix it yourself. But for other things, it's more subtle. I once got attacked by a pack of really big dogs in Turkey. Luckily, they didn't bite me, but I was super afraid anyway. Right after this experience, I was quite shocked and honestly not really in the mood to continue. I just wanted to cry for a while. But crying would not have helped me and neither would anyone else. So I could either cry about it and continue or just pull myself together, take a deep breath and cycle on. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you're not allowed to cry - I'm just saying that you are the only person who can deal with the problems that you're facing while traveling alone and that traveling will teach you how to do that.

This brings me to the last big learning I had, which is that I can trust myself and that I can rely on myself. Because I had many smaller and bigger issues on my trips that I needed to solve on my own, I learned that I'm capable of doing so. I don't need anyone else, there's always a solution and I can do it. I learned to think three steps ahead. If I take this muddy road with my bike and my bike gets stuck, what am I doing? I have option A, B and C and in the worst case, I can do D. If plan A has to change, I am flexible because there is always a Plan B and if there's none, I'll find a Plan C. If something goes wrong, I can fix it. If I have a bad feeling about something, I'll change the situation and when something needs to be done, I'll do it.

To know that you can deal with everything that might come up is a damn good feeling, honestly.

But to learn that, at some point you have to leave your comfort zone and face some problems.

So I will tell you again - take a deep breath, trust yourself and go out there. You are totally capable of doing this alone and the world will reward you with the most beautiful experiences!