In this post I will tell you a little about my personal story and how I got into this world of solo travel… I think it can be very inspiring!
The story is a bit long, but I will try to summarize it.
My first solo trip was in a country you wouldn’t imagine… Venezuela (I don’t recommend going to that country at all if you’re not Venezuelan, you’ll see why).
In 2019, my partner at the time had to go visit his father there.
We decided to go together and stay for a couple of months and a half. To save costs, the idea was to cross over land from a Colombian city called Cúcuta, to Venezuela.
But on the border with Venezuela they were not letting anyone pass who was not Venezuelan or Colombian.
She could pass, but I couldn’t. We tried for days without success.
It got to the point where they started searching my bags for no reason, and one person was even talking about putting me in jail (!).
In the end, they offered to let me cross the border… if I bribed them. I didn’t want to do something illegal, so I had to book a flight, with money I didn’t have, to go directly to Caracas. It was possible they would let me in this way.
I finally arrived in Caracas, but after many frustrations and scares at the border. Not to mention the time and money wasted…
Some time later, I learned that the land bridge between Colombia and Venezuela and its surroundings was one of the most dangerous places on the PLANET.
The Colombian and Venezuelan armies regularly skirmished and killed each other (in horrible ways) on that very bridge I wanted to cross.
All of that could have been easily avoided just by looking at a little web page that I’ll tell you about some another time.
Finally, we arrived at my ex-father-in-law’s house. Things were going well…for a while. We’d had a lot of relationship problems over the past few months, and finally…
We broke up… in the middle of the trip.
I moved to live alone for a few weeks in Caracas.
In my next post I will tell you how the story of my first solo trip continues and the unexpected twist it has. In addition, I will tell you the first KEY element that will allow you to start or improve on your solo trips.
All the best,
Juan Pablo
P.S.: I love hearing from my readers and how I can help them. So if you have any specific questions about the process of traveling solo, don’t hesitate to reply to this post or send me a DM on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/juanpablocangas/)!