383 Anne Malambo ~ How Solo Travel Can Change Our Lives

Transcript

Holly: Hello adventurers! And welcome to the Into the Woods podcast, episode 383. This is your host Holly Worton and I am back with another super-exciting guest.

I am really thrilled to introduce this week’s guest, Anne Malambo. I recently read her first book, #PassportReady: The Ultimate Guide To Solo Female Travel and I loved it. It is a quick read and it is also full of super-useful links and I think it is a great reference for both new and experienced solo travellers. I have been training alone since 1994, I feel really old when I say that, and yet I learned so many great new tips, I learned so many great new websites, places to get information and to research and just all kinds of solo travelling stuff. So I highly recommend this book and I will link to it in the show notes.

Anne Malambo is a London based marketing professional and writer who has been travelling solo since 2016. She has managed to travel to 8 countries in 4 years, while having a full-time job, since she decided to hit the road solo. Hoping to inspire women, she used her free time in the UK’s first corona lockdown to pen her debut title, #PassportReady: The Ultimate Guide To Solo Female Travel, which is the go-to guide for intrepid women who want to go it alone, but may have some reservations.

So what are you going to learn in this week’s episode? Here is what we talk about: things you can learn from solo travel; how solo travel can change your life; the benefits of traveling solo; how to start researching a new trip (or your first trip!). What Anne does to stay safe on her travels – and this answer may surprise you, because I think this is one of the things that women most fear when they think about solo travel and I think Anne will calm your fears for you. We talk about Anne’s top trips for solo female travel and finally how to deal with the naysayers who aren’t supportive of your solo travel?

So without further ado we are going to get into this episode. I think this is a really, really, juicy episode and I hope it inspires you to start planning a trip for 2021, or whenever you get out of lockdown wherever it is that you live, or whenever you are ready.

Holly: Hi Anne! How are you?

Anne: I’m brilliant, thank you. Thank you for having me on.

Holly: Oh, you are welcome. I am really looking forward to our conversation tonight. So how did you get into solo travel?

Anne: Well, we have to go back around about four years ago and I was randomly searching the internet, to be honest I can’t even remember what I was searching for but it must have been something travel related, and I randomly came across a solo female travel blog, it was actually Adventurous Kate, do you know Adventurous Kate?

Holly: It sounds familiar but I am not sure. I have been on so many solo female travel blogs, because it is a topic I love so I might be familiar with her.

Anne: She is like one of the OG solo female travellers, but I just devoured her blog, just one post after the other, and it was kind of through her that I ended up finding this whole community of solo female travel, budget travel and, all of a sudden, travel just became so much more accessible in my mind. And I think for a lot of people they just assume that travel is very expensive, that it is out of their reach, but finding this community made me realise that it is more within my reach than I ever thought that it was. Because I always loved travel but I think travelling solo was never something that crossed my mind, I just always travelled with my family and assumed that as I got older maybe I would travel with my friends or I would find a partner, but I never thought about travelling alone. After I found the solo female travel community, that gave me the confidence to start thinking about travelling by myself and I didn’t actually go too far on my very first trip, I only went to Stonehenge, which s about an hour outside of London. And that is one thing I would say to anyone thinking about solo travelling, you don’t have to go far your first time, you can just make it something very close, start exploring your city or just go an hour or two outside of your city. A nice day trip to just give yourself a feel of, how do I actually feel by myself on a day out, before you take that big leap. I love it! I really enjoyed the day and then I started looking into going a little bit further. I ended up going to Budapest, Hungary, and I didn’t actually know anything about Budapest at the time, it was just simply a matter of I did the ticket search on Skyscanner and that ended up being the most affordable ticket at that time when I was scanning. Then I also took into account that the weather was going to be okay, so that is how I ended up in Budapest, Hungary, and it was that trip that really catapulted me into the whole solo travel thing and I have never looked back from then.

Holly: What was your first trip like? Were you nervous? Were you excited? What was going on in your head before you landed?

Anne: I was nervous the whole time, to be honest I still get nervous, even my most recent trip, but I just think it is normal when you are going out anywhere by yourself, but as soon as I am on that plane and as soon as I have jetted off, then I start to relax.

Holly: Good, good. So what would you say is your travel style? Do you like going to cities, do you like going to nature places? What places do you look for?

Anne: I am definitely not a big city person. When I say city, I mean anything that is comparable to London, so a lot of high rises, a lot of concrete and glass. I generally like to be out in the nature, I like culture, I like food, but mostly I like doing anything adventurous and probably my most enjoyable trip was my recent trip I took to Thailand and Cambodia, because it gave me a little bit of all of those things, but I got to do a lot of adventure stuff as well: hiking, visiting temples and waterfalls and all of that stuff. So I would say my top style of travel is adventure travel.

Holly: Sounds good! So this recent trip that you did, how long did that last? Have your trips gotten longer or how have they changed since your first trip to Budapest?

Anne: They have gotten longer and I think also they have gotten a lot more adventurous. In the early days I did very much stick to Europe, I did quite a few Euro trips so: Barcelona, Rome, Copenhagen, I kept it very close to home, no where that was every longer than an hour or two away by flight. Then I kind of moved up one more step and went to Bali, which was my furthest trip, before Thailand and Cambodia, that was my furthest and longest trip, that was about two weeks. And then on my most recent trip to Thailand and Cambodia, that was one month – I spent three weeks in Thailand and one week in Cambodia. That trip I was actually planning for quite a number of years.

Holly: What is it like for you when you go on a much longer trip, like three or four weeks, how is that different from just taking a short getaway?

Anne: I learned so many things about myself and I think about travel on this trip. I think this was the first time that I would say the rose tinted glasses came off. I think in the travel community sometimes travel gets put on a pedestal a little bit too much and it becomes the end-all and be-all of some people’s existence and I do think that I let it become maybe a little bit…how do I put this? I would say that maybe sometimes travel gets a little bit too romanticised and you forget that there are some downsides as well. And on this trip it was probably the first time that I experienced some of the down sides. So travel burnout, missing home, missing just everyday little normal things started to get really annoying, so not being able to do my laundry the way I wanted to or at a particular time, I kind of had to schedule my whole life, because you don’t have all of your homely comforts necessarily when you want them. I think this was probably the first time that I maybe realised that maybe long-term, forever and always travel, that long-term nomadic life maybe wasn’t for me and I am someone who likes a balance of being able to travel and being able to come back to a home base. Whereas being on the road all the time, because I feel like that narrative has been a bit overplayed in the travel community, that ‘quit the grind, and travel the world forever’ is just the ultimate goal. But having lived a little piece of that, I found that it wasn’t something that I necessarily wanted, it wasn’t my version of the dream.

Holly: Yeah, I think that is a really important thing to learn. I think the whole digital nomad thing has just blown up in the last, I don’t know, at least ten years and it has just, as you said, it is like this ideal thing that so many people strive to and it is not for everybody.

Anne: No it is definitely not and what is most interesting, actually in lockdown, I have seen a lot of travel content creators talking about this and saying, ‘you know what? I was kind of losing my thirst for travel and I am quite glad to be able to slow down and maybe work on some other projects and not be travelling all the time’. And you do see people who have been in the travel community for a very long time, now settling down and maybe being semi-nomadic as opposed to up and about all the time.

Holly: Yeah, I think it is good to find kind of the right balance for you, even if it doesn’t look like what you thought it was. So what else have you learned about yourself through solo travel?

Anne: I have learned that I am capable of doing a lot more than I maybe have given myself credit for in the past. I think going away and having to fend for yourself, having to budget, having to manage bookings, having to plan your trip and coordinate everything, it takes a lot. And it is why I advocate so much for women to solo travel, and even if it is just the one trip that you do for yourself, do it, because it just changes how you look at yourself and it gives you a sense of confidence in how you move in the world.

Holly: Yeah, it absolutely gives you a sense of confidenc,e because you are 100% reliant on yourself. So how have your adventures helped you to grow, as a woman, or as a person?

Anne: How have they helped me to grow? I think pushing myself to do things that maybe in the past I would never have thought about doing. So when I went to Bali, I did a PADI Open wWter, that is the entry level scuba diving and that was never anything I ever thought I would do! It was the most amazing experience of my life! I saw a turtle, I saw all of this amazing marine life. Unfortunately the storm came in when I was due to go to see the manta rays, which are these huge I think they are 3/4/5m kind of stingray looking creatures, they are absolutely massive. So, I will have to go back and do that, but pushing myself to do things like that. I also did my first mountain trek, I did a trek, we started at 2am in the morning, saw a shooting star for the first time in my life, that was incredible! And we were up at the top at about I would say 5/6amish and that has got me more interested in doing more hiking, doing my more mountaineering, and just pushing myself physically to do challenges like that.

Holly: So what you think it is about travel that gets you making different decisions or choosing to do things that you would never have thought you would do.

Anne: Honestly I just think you are in a different headspace when you are away and it is not just necessarily doing little challenges like that, it is just doing little things like talking to strangers and having to put yourself out there. It is not something I generally do when I am at home, I am quite introverted when I am at home, but it does force you to just, I guess, get out of your box and get out of your own way, because if you are going to go all the way across the world why have half of the experience?

Holly: Yeah, absolutely. I remember years and years ago, when I was living in Costa Rica, I was teaching English there, and I had these Americans in this house next door to me and one of them would always eat a Burger King, and McDonalds. And I would always think: there is so much amazing fruit here, and so much great food, but she just couldn’t venture beyond the known. So yeah, it always kind of makes me feel sad for people who aren’t willing to take that risk.

Anne: Yeah and I think it is really important to try and immerse yourself anywhere you go as much as possible, whether it is with the local people, with the food, with the culture, because you can travel but still remain very ignorant if you don’t immerse yourself in local life. I do see that often, people who have travelled quite a lot but they are still very closed minded, because they kind of stuck to the comforts of what is offered to tourists.

Holly: Yeah absolutely, so what would be your tips on how to immerse yourself in local life? Obviously planning the trip yourself, rather than going to an all-inclusive, is the most obvious way, but what are some other ways people can do that?

Anne: So thanks to the Internet this has never been easier. One of the things I usually do when I am planning, one of the first websites I go to is AirBNB – and AirBNB now has a section, separate from accommodation, called AirBNB experiences – and you can book local experiences that are actually run by locals. These will usually be anything from cooking lessons, to dancing lessons, art classes, day tours – all planned and organised by locals. Also, just when you are on the ground, one of the first places I like to go to, I like to go to find a market because local markets are generally more catered towards the local people, not the tourist. So if you are going to find authentic cuisine, authentic artwork and just have an opportunity to actually speak to local people and local vendors. So those are my two  kind of go-to things.

Holly: That’s excellent. It is funny because I used to run an AirBNB experience in my local area, taking people hiking, but I have never actually been on one and they always look so interesting. So I think you have just given me a tip to – once we get out of lockdown that we are going into, tomorrow – look at some AirBNB experiences, because it is a great way to learn so many things that you wouldn’t normally think to do a workshop on (or…). So what are the benefits of travelling alone rather than with someone else?

Anne: I think the main benefit for travelling alone is that you can really make the experience for you. If you show up somewhere and you just feel like, you know what? This isn’t for me. I am bored, I am not interested, you can move on. You can really cater a trip to your interests without having to think about anybody else’s feelings really, it is really about you and going at your own pace and if you want to go very fast one day and slow it down another day, it is totally up to you.

Holly: I think it is also a really great way to get to know yourself, and to know your taste, because a lot of people, especially women, are so used to going: oh what do you want to do? What do you feel like doing? Rather than tuning into themselves and really thinking about what they want to do.

Anne: Yeah, yeah.

Holly: So what about safety, what do you do to stay safe on your travels? Because I think that is the number one fear that women have, before they think about going out somewhere new, whether it is to a new country or a new place.

Anne: I don’t do anything differently to what I would when I am at home, because the reality is that being harassed, and being targeted, it is just a reality for women in general, wherever in the world we are. It is not something that just happens more when you are away or when you are travelling, it is just something that is unfortunately part of our experience as women and, yes, you do have to be a little bit more vigilant when you are away but, unfortunately, I would say that I haven’t experienced any more or less harassment abroad, than when I have been at home in my home city of London.

Holly: That’s both really encouraging and also sad that you have had incidences in your home area, but of course I think that is probably the situation for most women at some point.

Anne: Yeah, in terms of safety the two tips that I would say to women: number one, really tune into your instincts, your instincts are your number one weapon and if you really feel that something isn’t right, something feels weird, maybe you have gone out with someone and they are making you feel uncomfortable, don’t feel afraid to piss someone off! Don’t feel afraid to say ‘no’, to walk away, you are never going to see that person again, you don’t owe them anything. I think is another unfortunate thing that women do, we often feel like we shouldn’t cause a fuss. If you need to cause a fuss, cause a fuss.

Holly: Yeah, that’s the thing, we feel that we need to be polite, we are afraid what is going to happen if we speak up, if we scream and I think that gets a lot of women into bad situations because they haven’t prevented them by opening their mouths and saying something earlier.

Anne: Definitely put yourself in a mindset where you know that you are going to pushback against someone if they try to do anything to you and if you feel like you are in danger, in physical danger, always just try to leave a situation before you fight back.

Holly: Absolutely, flee before fight! {laughing} So what are your top tips for women who have never been away and they are starting to think that maybe solo female travel might be something for them?

Anne: There is that famous saying that ‘Paris is always a good idea’ and what I mean by that in terms of newbie solo female travellers is go with what feels comfortable and familiar. Even if it means going to a place that is very touristy, and probably more expensive, at least you will feel comfortable and you can start getting a feel for what your style of travel is and how you feel about being alone. So don’t be afraid to go somewhere that is very touristy the first couple of times, and if anything try and actually stay away from going anywhere that is not on a very well-beaten path because those are destinations that are definitely more catered to more advanced travellers and a more experienced style of travel.

Holly: So what would those places be like? What places would you say, or types of places, would be catering to the more experienced traveller?

Anne: I would say anywhere where there is a relative risk of any type of danger or where you are more advised to take a tour or have a local tour guide. So one of the places that I would really like to visit is Afghanistan, so I am doing a lot of research on that now, on finding local tour guides and people on the ground, locals that can help me navigate. And I know another couple of female travellers that have actually done Afghanistan solo and are advising me. So yes, places like that.

Holly: That makes sense. So how do you research places, are there any top websites that you go to, or do you just go on Google and just put in the country and see where it takes you?

Anne: So yes, the first place you definitely want to go is Google, Google is your best friend. And the first search I usually put in is, ‘what to do in x location’, and then that is kind of followed by a whole bunch of other queries like, ‘best market in x location, ‘best restaurants’, ‘best sunset views’, ‘best activities’, and then I kind of collect all of that information and start making an itinerary based on those things. Others travellers might do it a bit differently, some people like to wing it. Personally I say to make at least a rough itinerary, you don’t have to stick to it, but at least know roughly so that you can see what you could do when you are there, so you are not wasting time trying to figure out what to do when you are there as well. So I think somewhere in the middle of planning and letting things kind of flow is a good way of planning your trip.

Holly: I think that makes sense and also not everything is open seven days a week, and so if you have waited until the last day to go to a certain museum and it has closed, that would be disappointing. So as we are going into lockdown again in the UK, as we record this, what are your travel plans? Are you going to be spending all your time now researching and planning travel for 2021? Or what do you plan to do in the next month of lockdown?

Anne: So I am actually working on my second book. And yeah this book is going to be a lot shorter and it is going to be a little bit more I think on remaining centred and remaining calm in kind of all this madness we are going through. It is a book that was very much born of this situation and I am just kind of letting the words flow out onto the page as NaNoWriMo at the moment.

Holly: Oh yes!

Anne: So yeah the whole concept of the book and the moment that we are in and the fact that it is NaNoWriMo, it all just came together – maybe it is because it is Scorpio season and I am a Scorpio! All of these things are just kind of coming together at the same time but, yes, I am working on my first book at the moment. To be honest I am not even thinking about travel, I am just going to let things take their course, and I have a couple of countries that are kind of on my to-go list once the borders open, but I don’t realistically see those countries opening any time soon.

Holly: And that’s a really good thing to think about. So my mother keeps asking me, ‘when you are planning your trip out to Arizona to see us?’ And I am like, ‘no, not any time soon’, and she said, ‘but the flights are running’. And I said, ‘that doesn’t mean that I want to be on them’. So, do you feel safe travelling internationally at this time? Obviously once lockdown lifts or when do you think you might begin to feel safe getting back to normal travelling internationally?

Anne: To be honest I do feel safe right now, there are a few countries that are open, I am just choosing not to travel at the moment.

Holly: Yeah that makes sense. So how do you choose countries? Do you have a bucket list of places you want to go or…how do you start planning your next trip?

Anne: So the first two things that I look at are the price of the plane ticket, and I almost actually always book my trip based on that first. So I look at the price of the ticket. And the second thing I always look at is the price of the accommodation and the price of the average hostel bed, and the reason for that is because that will usually give you a good understanding of whether you can afford that destination in general. If you can barely afford the cost of a hostel bed then other things are probably going to be more expensive, like food, activities, transport etc.

Holly: Yeah, that makes sense. So you have recently turned 30, am I correct?

Anne: Yes.

Holly: Happy Birthday! But how do you feel about staying in hostels as someone who is not like an 18 year old teenager.

Anne: Well everybody seems to think that I am 23/24 so…! I got away with it when I was in Thailand and Cambodia but honestly I don’t think that age should really matter too much, the only thing I would say that if you are going to, for example, going to stay at party hostels be prepared for young twenty-somethings to be running around like crazy. Otherwise hostels, nowadays, they cater to a wide range of different ages and travel styles, there are ‘Poshtels’ now that are higher end hostels that I think attract slightly older travellers, so don’t be put off staying in a hostel just because you are older.

Holly: Okay, I think that is a really good message, because I was walking the Ridgeway about four years ago, it was the first time I walked the Ridgeway. I was thinking about hostels, I hadn’t stayed in a hostel since 1996 and I was like: I don’t know if I can do this! But I stayed one night in a hostel, I spent the whole day like stressing about it and thinking: it is going to be overrun with screaming teenagers and I am going to be this old lady! {laughing} And I was so used to the quiet and the peace of being out on the trail alone that I just thought: how can I handle this? And I ended up being, I was one of three people staying in the hostel that night, and so I had my room to myself because the other two people were men [in other rooms] and it was absolutely beautiful. But I was really stressing about the situation, so I think it is something that I am going to have to try again but with an open mind. So how do you know if a hostel is a party hostel?

Anne: It will usually say on the website, and you will see on the pictures. If you go on a hostel’s website and you see lots of pictures of drinking and neon makeup and neon clothes and ‘’happy hour, have five shots before 10pm’,  then you will know it is a party hostel. Most party hostels will advertise themselves as party hostels.

Holly: Oh right, that makes it very clear then! So tell us about your first book, it is called ‘Passport Ready the Ultimate Guide to Solo Female Travel’. I really loved this book because it is a fast read but it is also full of so much information that you have to go back to once you are done and click on all the links. So tell us about that book.

Anne: So that book was actually born from other women asking me about my travels and at a certain point I just realised everybody keeps asking me: how do I travel? How do I travel while I have a full time job? How do I find the confidence to travel? And I just decided: well, why don’t I write a book? And the book really came from other women asking me questions.

Holly: Well that’s really useful because then you know what sort of information to include in the book and what questions people have.

Anne: Yes and then actually, I had almost finished writing the book and then, around early June, was when I got this idea to include these stories of other women. That was never actually the original idea that I had and there are 26 stories of other solo female travellers, and their experiences: young women, older women, women from different backgrounds. And the foreword was actually written by Eva Eva zu Bec, who is an amazing female traveller, and travel filmmaker, she has very much made a name for herself because she goes to slightly more off beaten path. She went to Syria, she travelled through the highlands of Mongolia, she is really pushing the limits of what we see solo female travellers doing.So I was very honoured to have her write the foreword for this book.

Holly: I think it is really very enriching to have so many different stories from so many different women, some of whom have probably been to countries that you haven’t been to, and have had different experiences, it just gives a really beautiful, rounded,, perspective of what solo female travel can be like.

Anne: Yes absolutely.

Holly: So is there anything else about solo female travel that you would like to say, that I haven’t asked you, or that we haven’t covered so far?

Anne: I would say to all the women who are doubting yourself, or maybe you have told people and they have gone, ‘are you insane?’, just to do do it and I can promise you that you won’t regret it, I have never looked back. I hope that one day I do find my Mr Right who loves travel as much as I do, and we can travel together, but until then I won’t be waiting around and I don’t think that any woman should have to wait around either. The world is yours for the taking, go and take it.

Holly: Absolutely, I love that. And even if you do have a partner it is sometimes still nice to travel alone. My husband and I often travel alone, go on a long distance hike alone, I will do one of the national trails here and then he goes off and does his thing. So even if you are in a partnership it is still really nice to go out and travel on your own sometimes.

Anne: It gives you that time to just recharge and maybe be more present when you are with that person again.

Holly: Absolutely and it is always so nice to kind of look forward to coming home to each other because we both work from home so we are kind of joined at the hip anyway, we are together all day every day, so it does give us the nice space that I think normal couples that work in an office – or before Covid worked in an office – have, or have some time apart and then time together. So I think you hit on something really interesting and important that I have seen women talking about online, in terms of, they are sharing their travel plans with people and their friends and their family are going, ‘are you insane, what are you doing, what are you thinking? Horrible things are going to happen to you’. How do you think people should deal with that? Should women keep their travel plans to themselves, or just not talk about it before they go? What is the best way to deal with that?

Anne: I wouldn’t say keep your travel plans to yourself, be prepared that some people might think that you are mad, but a lot of the time it is coming from a place of being misinformed and some of that comes from a lot of what we see in the media, right? Certain countries being painted in a particular way, then you actually go there and you realise that is just a small group of people that are maybe doing something horrible, it doesn’t represent the whole country and all of the people in that country. So understand that pushback comes from a place of misinformation.  And definitely let them know about your plans but don’t be too swayed if their reaction to it is negative, because it is important that when you are away, that you do keep in touch with someone back home and you let them know your general day-to-day whereabouts and you have daily check-ins.

Holly: Yeah, I think that is really important. And I think also the more of us that go out and engage in solo travel, the more we serve as an example and inspiration for other women who might be too scared to do it just yet.

Anne: Absolutely and that is something that I have heard time and time again, just feeling that they have finally got the confidence because they have seen other women do it.

Holly: Yeah, and I think the more examples that are out there, the more women are going to think: oh maybe I can do this.

Anne: Yes.

Holly: Well thank you so much for joining us today, I am super-excited to share this with my audience. Where can people find you online and learn more about your travels and your upcoming book?

Anne: So you can follow me on Instagram @onthegowithAC or on my website onthegowithAC.com – all the details about my upcoming work and projects will be there.

Holly: Excellent! You have also got some YouTube videos of your travels as well right?

Anne: Yes my YouTube channel is also onthegowithAC and you will see videos of my trips from Lisbon and also from Thailand and Cambodia as well.

Holly: Excellent! Once we get back into travel, I really look forward to seeing all the places you go. I have not been to Asia yet, I have lived in a bunch of different countries but there are so many parts of the world I haven’t been to. So I love looking at people’s photos and videos of places that I haven’t been and maybe some day will go to visit.

Anne: Oh you will love South East Asia.

Holly: Yes, the food is calling me! {laughing}. Alright, well thank you again for joining us!

Anne: Thank you so much for having me.

 

Holly: I hope you found that interesting and useful, please drop me a line and let me know what you thought of this week’s episode. You can email me at [email protected] or find me online and get in touch there. Remember to visit hollyworton.com/383 for the show notes on this episode including links to stuff that we discussed and Anne’s book. Thank you.