Associate Alice Kim on the Gifts of a Solo Traveling Adventure

Pri­or to join­ing the team at Pow­er­Plant, I was lucky enough to have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to solo trav­el. I’ve loved trav­el­ing alone ever since tak­ing my first trip dur­ing col­lege, but like many oth­ers have expe­ri­enced, a com­bi­na­tion of work sched­ules and COVID restric­tions hin­dered most of my plans over the last cou­ple years. With trav­el bans lift­ing and a new job on the hori­zon, I was thrilled to be able to carve out some time out to vis­it Cos­ta Rica this year.

Solo trav­el­ing is par­adise for the extro­vert­ed intro­vert (such as myself). I had numer­ous oppor­tu­ni­ties to con­nect with oth­ers from dif­fer­ent walks of life – oth­er solo trav­el­ers, fam­i­lies, or cou­ples from all around the world, who might be tak­ing a sab­bat­i­cal, a spring break vaca­tion, or cel­e­brat­ing an anniver­sary. And at the same time, I also had unlim­it­ed free­dom to cre­ate my own sched­ule and spend as much (or as lit­tle) time alone as I want­ed. I could plan a day trip to a near­by island with new friends or grab din­ner and drinks with my hos­tel, while also hav­ing plen­ty of space to hit an ear­ly morn­ing surf ses­sion or watch the sun­set with just the com­pa­ny of nature around me.

All that being said, solo trav­el­ing isn’t per­fect – eat­ing alone can be awk­ward, espe­cial­ly at din­ner­time when most oth­ers are in a par­ty greater than one, and my cou­ple years of ele­men­tary Span­ish class­es weren’t always enough to help me nav­i­gate my way (which can be tough when you’re in the mid­dle of a jun­gle with no cell ser­vice). But these incon­ve­niences are nev­er­the­less valu­able expe­ri­ences that are essen­tial to the beau­ty of solo trav­el. Every moment – good, bad, exhil­a­rat­ing, uncom­fort­able – con­tributes to the ful­fill­ment of trav­el­ing alone, always leav­ing me with a desire to come back for more.

The sin­gle great­est thing about going solo is the extent to which I’m able to zone into the envi­ron­ment and real­ly absorb every­thing around me – close­ly observ­ing and align­ing with the peo­ple, the cul­ture, the food, the nature – with­out any dis­trac­tions or reminders of life at home. Solo trav­el­ing has giv­en me the great­est appre­ci­a­tion for the peo­ple and places that are dif­fer­ent from us, and is a much-need­ed reminder of the world that exists beyond my desk and the bub­ble in which I go about my dai­ly life. Dur­ing my lat­est trip, I explored seclud­ed water­falls with­in lush, green forests and spot­ted a range of plants and ani­mals that I could only imag­ine see­ing in books. I also met local peo­ple who were pas­sion­ate about their homes and pre­serv­ing the bio­di­ver­si­ty that makes Cos­ta Rica such a pop­u­lar trav­el des­ti­na­tion and an inte­gral part of the glob­al ecosys­tem.

My expe­ri­ences have giv­en me admi­ra­tion and respect for the cul­tures who wel­come vis­i­tors like me and have pushed me to be a more respon­si­ble and con­sci­en­tious trav­el­er. Now back at home, I’m excit­ed to be a part of an orga­ni­za­tion that puts the envi­ron­ment and cli­mate change at the fore­front of our val­ues and brings me clos­er to mak­ing a pos­i­tive impact on the forests and beach­es that we are priv­i­leged enough to vis­it.

If you’re inter­est­ed in what we’re work­ing on at Pow­er­Plant (or have any sug­ges­tions on where I should go for my next solo trip), I’d love to con­nect with you at alice@powerplantpartners.co.