By Sipho Alphi Mkhwanazi
There’s something beautifully unhinged about booking flights to Asia for your birthday when the most adventurous thing you’ve done recently is ordering from a new restaurant on Uber Eats.
But here I am, having traded birthday cake and predictable celebrations for temples, street food, and the kind of adventure that makes my mother nervously check her phone. I gifted myself the most terrifying, exhilarating present imaginable: my own company across two countries that couldn’t be more different. No safety net. No familiar faces. Just me, my overpacked suitcase, and a gnawing anxiety that whispers, “What if you’ve made a terrible mistake?”
Spoiler alert: It wasn’t a mistake. It was a masterclass in remembering who I am.
Okes, let’s be honest, the buildup to solo international travel is essentially an Olympic-level mental gymnastics routine. Your brain becomes the wildest saboteur, offering up catastrophic scenarios that try to throw you off: What if I get lost and can’t read the signs? What if I get food poisoning in a country where I don’t know the word for “bathroom”? What if everyone stares at me eating alone and I become that sad movie montage? Everyone feels anxious, its normal.
Of course there are logistics of leaping (without getting scammed), bravery is significantly easier when you’re not also trying to decode Chinese visa requirements at 2am, figure out whether Bali needs a visa on arrival, and determine if that suspiciously cheap online travel agency is legitimate or an elaborate scam.
Let’s talk about that for a moment, because if you’re in South Africa right now, you’ve probably seen the headlines. Fake travel agencies are having their moment, and not in a good way. People are losing their life savings to polished websites, convincing WhatsApp conversations, and booking confirmations that look real until you arrive at the airport and discover… nothing. Dololo tickets. Dololo hotel. Just a deleted phone number and a very expensive lesson in trust.
This is where I got lucky, and strategic. Flight Centre became my accidental fairy godmother in this whole operation. Real offices. Real people. The kind you can actually walk in and yell at if something goes wrong. They handled the terrifying logistics, the multi-country itinerary, the visa documentation for China, the flight connections, the accommodation, while I handled the emotional logistics of convincing myself this was a good idea. The peace of mind alone was worth it. Because the fear of traveling solo is enough to manage without also wondering if your tickets are going to evaporate into the digital void.
Here’s what actually happens when you travel alone across China and Bali: You become resourceful in ways that would make a Joburg Phara nod approvingly. That language barrier in Guangzhou? You’ll navigate it with a bizarre combination of Google Translate, hand gestures, and what can only be described as interpretive dance. In Bali, you’ll discover that smiling is a universal language and that “pointing at the menu and hoping” is a legitimate ordering strategy. You’ll feel like an idiot approximately 40% of the time, but you’ll also feel like a genius when you successfully navigate the Shanghai metro or find that hidden beach everyone said was impossible to reach.
Don’t mind the odd feeling of eating alone. Its expected, people won’t look at you and laugh. Also, quickly come to terms with the fact that excitement and fear somewhat share the same characteristics. But more importantly, you’ll meet yourself again. Somewhere between the structured chaos of Chinese cities and the laid-back rhythm of Balinese beaches, between the airport anxiety and the late-night market wandering, you’ll stumble into a version of yourself you forgot existed, the one who’s curious, brave, slightly reckless, and absolutely capable. The one who deserves to celebrate their existence with more than just cake and candles.
Let me offer some actual tips for first-time solo international travellers, from someone currently living it:
- Download offline maps. Your sense of direction is probably terrible. Don’t make it worse by also having no internet. A travel sim comes in very handy.
- Take a photo of your important documents. Store them in the cloud. You’re welcome for when you inevitably panic about losing your passport.
- Book most of you itinerary and accommodation in advance. Arriving in a foreign country at midnight trying to find a place to sleep is character- building in the worst way. Also, it helps you manage your budget.
- Learn five phrases. Hello, thank you, where is the bathroom, how much, and help. You’ll use four of them constantly and one hopefully never.
- Trust your gut. If something feels sketchy, it probably is. If someone feels safe, they probably are. Your instincts are surprisingly good at their job. Manage that anxiety as well though, you’re going to be fine.
- Bring a power bank, duh! Your phone is your map, translator, camera, and lifeline. Keep it charged or prepare for a very vintage travel experience.
- Remember: everyone is just winging it. That confident-looking traveller? Also terrified. That local who seems annoyed by tourists? Probably just having a bad day. That perfectly curated Instagram post? Took 47 takes. We’re all just humans bumbling through.
Look, there is so much freedom on the other side of fear. Here’s what they don’t tell you about doing things alone: it’s not actually about being alone. It’s about proving to yourself that you “can” be. That your happiness isn’t contingent on having someone else there to validate it. That you’re interesting enough company for yourself. That the world won’t end if you have to navigate it solo.
And here’s what they really don’t tell you about birthday trips: they’re not just about celebrating another year survived. They’re about declaring what you want your next year to look like. Mine apparently looks like saying yes to things that scare me, like trusting myself to figure things out, like choosing growth over comfort.
Most birthday presents fade or break or get forgotten in a drawer. This one, this becomes part of who you are. Every birthday after this, I’ll remember I’m the person who did this. Who can do this. Taking this trip alone wasn’t just about seeing China and Bali. It was about seeing myself; my capabilities, my resilience, my capacity for joy even when I’m uncomfortable and jet-lagged and not entirely sure where I am. It was about claiming my birthday for myself and declaring that I’m worth celebrating, by myself, for myself.
The freedom isn’t just about traveling solo. It’s about the knowledge that whatever comes next in life; breakups, career changes, cross-country moves; you’ve already proven you can do hard things alone. You can research visa requirements. You can avoid the scams and find the legitimate help. You can buy the plane ticket. You can board the plane. You can land in places where everything is unfamiliar, twice ok, and figure it out, one awkward interaction at a time.
So if you’re reading this while hovering over a booking page, paralyzed by all the what-ifs, let me tell you something: Do it anyway. Do it scared. Do it anxious. Do it with a butterfly tornado in your stomach and a voice in your head listing every possible disaster. Do it with someone trustworthy helping you plan, someone with a real office and reviews and credentials, not “Dave” with his too-good-to-be-true prices and Gmail address. Do it despite the fear, not without it.
And if it’s your birthday? Even better. Give yourself the gift of knowing you’re capable of more than you think. That you’re brave enough to celebrate yourself in a way that actually matters. Because on the other side of that fear is a version of you who knows they can survive anything. Who orders mystery food and survives. Who gets lost in Uluwatu and finds their way back. Who sits alone at a beach bar in Canggu and realizes they’re not lonely, they’re“free”. That version of you is pretty damn cool. You should meet them. The plane ticket is just the introduction.
Sana! Currently writing this somewhere between China and Bali, slightly lost but mostly found, definitely changed. Happy birthday to me.
