The Girl Who Goes

independent, intentional travel

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Trip Planning 101: How to Start Planning Your Trip

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My favorite way to start trip planning is with good-old fashioned books.

One day, I was living my life like normal. And then it hit me: my trip to Thailand was suddenly just over a month away. And besides booking my flights, I hadn’t done any trip planning. Considering it was my first time traveling to Asia, I really needed to get things together. Fast.

The good news is that after so many trips, I have the whole trip planning thing down to a science. (Which is great! Because having things officially planned makes it seem so much more real, and super exciting.) So… when you find yourself with a trip sneaking up on you and no plans, here are a few of my favorite trip planning tips. [Read more…]

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What Happened When I Decided to Travel Solo

I wrote before about why I personally made the decision to travel solo for the first time.

I was confident in myself and my abilities to successfully navigate a new country by myself, but apprehensive about other aspects of this endeavor: would I get lonely? Feel isolated? Not branch out and try new things? [Read more…]

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7 Things To Know About Staying in Hostels

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The first time I learned about hostels, I was in middle school, taking a standardized test. It was the Reading section, where you’re supposed to read a short paragraph and answer comprehension questions. The paragraph was about the reasons why the author liked staying in hostels.

“Hostels?” I thought to myself, a kid with an above-average vocabulary and knack for finding typos in everyday life. “Do they mean hotels?” But as I continued reading, I realized that the experience the author described was unlike any hotel I’d ever stayed in, rooms full of people from every walk of life. I conceded to the idea that there were some things that my 12-year-old self did not know. [Read more…]

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Hotel, Hostel, or Airbnb: Pros and Cons

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Traveling can be exhausting! After the end of a long day, where will you finally get that much-needed shut-eye? Hotel, hostel, or Airbnb?

When I was growing up, lots of road trips meant we would usually stay in hotels. It also meant that we didn’t always know where we would end up at the end of the day. Since we didn’t have advance reservations, I remember my parents stopping at different hotels, trying to find one that still had a vacancy — while my sister and I hoped it would have a swimming pool. [Read more…]