This fall, I finally got a chance to travel solo. I spent a few days in Bangkok, Thailand for my first trip. My second destination for solo travel: Bali.

I’ve touched on this before, but lesson #1 of the expat experience (at least for me) is that you need to figure out how to become comfortable with being uncomfortable.

When you learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, you can do anything.

Some days, this looks like me trying to ask a stranger a question while butchering the Japanese language.

Other days, it looks like getting lost and then finally finding my way back home.

Lately, it looks like me going ever farther outside my comfort zone and traveling internationally…solo.

I finally realized that waiting until someone has the time/money/inclination to travel with me is actually holding me back from exploring some of the many countries I can easily access from Japan.

Don’t get me wrong, traveling with my family is one of my favorite things to do. In fact, we have had some pretty epic adventures so far (with many more to come)!

But I can’t sit around and wait for them to have time off work and school to join me. I mean, I could….but life is way too short and there are simply too many places I need to see in this world. Thankfully I have a partner who agrees and is happy to see me go off on an adventure without him now and then. And as for the teenager? I’m pretty sure she barely notices when I’m gone — unless she’s out of clean laundry or needs some lunch money. Ha.

There was a time when I would have been too afraid to travel to an unfamiliar country by myself, but that is precisely why I needed to do it.

So his has been my new mission.

I want to go places…so I’m going.

I wanted to go to Bali this fall.

So I did.

I will write about this trip in more detail later, but for now I want to share this recap with you. I hope you enjoy it!

-L