Stage 1: Bubbling Excitement

This stage labeled as 'Bubbling Excitement' is truly defined as bubbling over with excitement since often you truly feel like you are about to bubble over or explode from the excitement from the fact that you are about to embark on a journey, but even more cool that you are doing this on your own! This stage usually has me physically bouncing up and down because I don't know what to do with myself. This stage starts truly when the countdown to your trip begins and grows and grows until the day of your trip when it feels like it bursts all of a sudden you start to enter the next stages of emotions.

Stage 2: Fear and Panic

After a while the bubbling excitement feeling just pops and suddenly you are overwhelmed with the feeling of fear and panic that something is going to happen to you while you are traveling or that something might go wrong. After this, you feel panic overwhelming you and you may even start to have a mini panic attack. The most important thing to do in this situation is to take a moment to yourself to calm down and remind yourself that as long as you are aware of your surroundings you will be just fine. Traveling alone is something that can often be stressful at any age especially if you do not do it very often. Just remember to breathe.

Stage 3: Boredom

This is by far the worst emotion experienced while traveling alone, in my opinion. This is mainly because you aren't traveling with anyone so you do not have anyone built in to talk to. Then after a while whether it be you waiting at the gate for your flight to board, or just on the plane or any mode of transportation that you are on, it sets in. Everything you brought to entertain yourself with, suddenly doesn't do the trick anymore and you are just left staring out into the oblivion. Ideally, this would last for a short amount of time, but one of my favorite ways to fix this is by striking up a conversation with a stranger.

Obviously, this can be uncomfortable and not always the best idea but if a conversation is organically started it can be so interesting to have. Some of my best experiences while traveling alone are from having conversations with people that are traveling along with me.

Stage 4: Relief, Excitement, and Enjoyment

After one of these emotions have passed, comes the best feeling, relief, and pure excitement. Once you are relieved you can truly be excited and enjoy the journey that you are on. You feel like a confident person, someone that is achieving traveling alone with no problems and are bound for a trip full of endless opportunities. It is the best feeling that you can have one that has so much potential and future and all you can do is be excited about it and ready to tackle everything that comes your way.