The Real-Life Therapy Test I Never Expected: Solo Travel
As a child, I often dreamt of travelling alone.
I imagined myself sitting quietly on planes, buses and trains with my nose buried in a book, traversing through unfamiliar landscapes, languages and cultures. There was something deeply comforting about the idea of disappearing into the world with nothing but curiosity and a backpack. I wanted to go as far as I could.
At 26, I finally took the leap. In November 2025, I quit my job, packed a 40L Osprey backpack, and booked a one-way flight ticket. Over the next 45 days, I travelled solo through Taiwan and Vietnam.
To this day, thinking about that trip still brings me to tears- tears of joy, gratitude, and a little sadness. Not because I wish I could relive it exactly, but because I know experiences like that change you in ways that can never quite be replicated. What surprised me most wasn't the places I visited. It was how often I found myself relying on the lessons I had learned in therapy.
Before I left, I was emotionally exhausted. I had recently left my job and felt uncertain about almost everything. I didn't know who I wanted to become or what direction I wanted my life to take. My mind was constantly racing, trying to solve problems that didn't yet have answers. Between March 2021 and September 2025, I spent four years in therapy, exploring different approaches including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Psychodynamic therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Internal Family Systems (IFS), Somatic therapy and Art therapy. At the time, I often wondered whether all those sessions were making a difference. Looking back now, I realise therapy wasn't preparing me for a crisis. It was preparing me for life. I expected solo travel to be fun, adventurous and freeing. It certainly was all of those things. But it also became the first time I truly had to use the emotional tools I had spent years learning, not within the safe walls of a therapist's office but in everyday moments.
Navigating New Relationships
The quality of your relationships predicts your wellbeing more than almost anything else. (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2010)
One of the greatest joys of travelling was meeting people from all over the world. I spent three weeks volunteering at a small hostel by Sun Moon Lake through Worldpackers, an app that connects travellers with volunteer hosts around the world. It was surprisingly easy to make friends. Within days, strangers became companions. We'd wake before sunrise to watch the lake together, spend wintry evenings sharing hotpot and talk for hours about our hopes, fears and dreams. Even though we all came from different corners of the world, we shared similar fears about world politics, the rising cost of living and relationships. We also shared aspirations for a more peaceful and sustainable world. Our conversations would go on for hours deep into the night and they made me feel like I truly belonged in a community.
Then, just as quickly, they would leave. The hostel operated like a revolving door. Guests checked out, new ones arrived, and the people who had become part of my daily routine disappeared onto the next chapter of their journey. I hadn't expected how much that would hurt.
In the past, I might have tried to distance myself emotionally to avoid the sadness. Instead, therapy taught me something different: feelings don't need to be avoided, they need to be experienced. Rather than pretending I wasn't sad, I allowed myself to be. When I knew someone was leaving, I would make time for one last meal together. If our schedules aligned, I'd walk them to the bus station or help see them off. We'd exchange social media accounts and promise to keep in touch. Not every friendship lasted, but giving myself permission to grieve those temporary connections made them feel even more meaningful. Sometimes the beauty of a relationship isn't in how long it lasts, but in how fully you allow yourself to experience it while it's there. To this day, I still look through my camera roll and reminisce on all the exciting times we spent together.
Setting Boundaries
Boundaries aren’t an excuse to avoid difficult conversations. Healthy relationships require both boundaries and repair. (Gottman & Silver, 1999)
A few weeks into volunteering, I noticed something wasn't right. I was constantly tired. As both a receptionist and social host, I lived in the same hostel where I worked. Even during my free time, I felt pressure to be cheerful, available and social. There was no real separation between work and rest. For someone who values quiet and solitude, it was emotionally draining. Leaving early wasn't part of the plan and the extra train tickets, accommodation and travel expenses hadn't been budgeted for. Part of me felt guilty about disappointing the owners of the hostel and worried that leaving meant I had somehow failed their expectations. But another part of me, the one therapy had helped me strengthen, recognised that boundaries aren't about quitting when things become difficult.
They're about noticing when something is no longer sustainable. I spent many afternoons alone in my bunk bed, curtains closed on all sides, frantically searching for train tickets and hostels in neighboring cities. After many days of thinking, researching, and planning, I decided to leave a week early and travel to Tainan instead. The moment I boarded the bus to the high-speed rail station, I felt lighter. Nothing about my circumstances had magically changed, but I had listened to myself. That decision reminded me that changing course isn't the same as giving up. Sometimes it's simply an act of self-respect. I spent the following week wandering through art museums, exploring night markets, reading in cafés, and celebrating Christmas with friends I had met along the way. It remains the happiest Christmas I've ever had.
Healing and Moving On
You don’t need closure to move on. Healing comes from making meaning, not waiting for someone else to give you answers. (Neimeyer, 2001)
Although I met incredible people throughout my journey, there were also long stretches where I was completely alone. Despite the fact that I usually enjoy spending time alone, the radio silence that went on for days while I was already exhausted from navigating my way around in unfamiliar terrain made it difficult to bear. Without the usual distractions, my mind wandered toward uncertainty. I worried about my future and questioned whether I had made the right decisions. Some days my thoughts spiralled into familiar patterns, which left me frantic and worrying about whether I should just get on a flight home.
But something slowly shifted. Instead of trying to escape those thoughts, I learned to sit with them. I wandered through quiet streets in Taiwan and Vietnam, spent afternoons browsing empty bookstores, rode on the back of motorbikes weaving through narrow alleyways at night, photographed interesting murals and design features most people would walk past and tried foods I'd never heard of before. There were no schedules or expectations. Somehow, all that solitude didn't make me feel lonely. It made me feel alive. Being alone gave me space to reconnect with myself in a way I hadn't experienced before. I realised that I wasn't trapped inside my thoughts anymore. I could simply observe them, thank them for trying to protect me and gently return my attention to the life unfolding around me. I could have my own identity and personality without any job titles, history or material possessions tied to it. I fell in love with life again because I was finally present enough to notice it.
When it was time to go home, I was a mixed bag of emotions. While I was looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again, I worried that I would no longer fit into my new team at work or that I would hate my mundane life in Singapore after such an adventurous time. I was also worried that I would fall back into old habits and unlearn everything that I had picked up during the trip. Most of all, when I boarded the plane home from Noi Bai International Airport, I was already looking at flights back to Taipei and Hanoi.
Part of me believed that the version of myself I had become only existed while travelling. But I was wrong. It's been almost eight months since I returned home. Life has become ordinary again. There are deadlines, chores, difficult conversations and days where I feel overwhelmed. The novelty of travel has long faded. Yet something fundamental has changed.
When I notice myself struggling now, I don't immediately assume something is wrong. Instead, I ask myself what tools I already have. Sometimes I need to regulate my emotions before reacting. Sometimes I need to set a boundary or sometimes I simply need to let myself feel sad instead of trying to fix it. The toolbox I built over four years of therapy didn't disappear when the sessions ended.
If anything, solo travel showed me that therapy was never just about feeling better within the therapy room. It was about learning skills that could travel with me across countries, various seasons of life and into the ordinary moments where they matter most. I used to think the purpose of therapy was to stop struggling. Now I think it's something else entirely. It's about trusting that when struggles inevitably come, you'll have what you need to meet them.
And sometimes, all it takes is 45 days, one backpack, and the courage to discover that for yourself.
References
Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., & Layton, J. B. (2010). Social relationships and mortality risk: A meta-analytic review. PLoS Medicine, 7(7), e1000316. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316
Gottman, J. M., & Silver, N. (1999). The seven principles for making marriage work. Crown Publishers.
Neimeyer, R. A. (Ed.). (2001). Meaning reconstruction and the experience of loss. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/10397-000
Neimeyer, R. A. (2001). Reauthoring life narratives: Grief therapy as meaning reconstruction. Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related Sciences, 38(3–4), 171–183.