Heading off alone — no worries
If there’s one piece of advice Regan Schoultz would give a would-be young traveller, it’s “just go”.
The intrepid 24-year-old has been travelling the world alone since May last year and has no plans to return any time soon.
“Honestly, you just have to go and get out there and not worry about it,” she says. “As long as you don’t do anything drastically stupid, it will be absolutely fine.”
Starting her journey in Singapore, Schoultz travelled to India, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam — where she stayed for three and a half months teaching English.
Now living and working as an au pair in Italy, she’s taken on odd jobs and freelance work along the way — including writing descriptions of food for a Sri Lankan website — while writing about her travels on her blog Bird of Passage.
Schoultz says she never finds herself wanting for company, especially because she usually stays in hostels.
However, this means her itinerary is constantly expanding.
“I just meet so many people who have been to so many amazing places and I’m like okay, that’s on my list now — and the list is just growing.”
Highlights have included hiking to the “stunning” Machu Picchu ruins in Peru and experiencing Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival with a friend, and meeting new ones along the way.
“I was really lucky because I met a local in a supermarket, while waiting in a 40-minute queue. We spent the whole week with this group of people, going to all the local block parties — we didn’t see any other foreigners.”
Initially nervous about travelling to South America alone, Schoultz’s granny sewed pockets into her bras before she left, so she could keep her money close to her.
The young traveller also stresses the need to keep track of spending.
“That’s been a good learning curve, to always have a budget and always write down how much I spend.”
While millennials are often criticised for prioritising travel over saving for a house deposit, that’s something she says she’ll get to later.
“I kind of figure that I’ll get to that at some stage, but right now this is more important to me. This is the one chance in my life I have to travel by myself, to be entirely non-reliant and completely free.”