How travel helped me gain confidence & made me an extrovert

Solo travel is for me the ultimate exercise in self-growth. It has sharpened my instincts, built my confidence, and taught me how to cultivate my independence. Each trip is an opportunity to step out of my comfort zone and face challenges. 

With every new place, I gain a little more courage. Over time, the small victories – like navigating unfamiliar cities or negotiating with confidence – add up to something life-changing. Travel shows me the world, and reshapes how I see myself within it.

Here are nine ways travel has helped me build confidence – lessons I’ve carried with me long after the trips ended.

Facing new situations

I have always been a firm believer in exposure therapy. It doesn’t work for everyone, but it always has for me. Fear of the unknown thrives on avoidance, while facing things head-on takes its power away.

Traveling has forced me into different kinds of situations, each one more exciting than the next. In Sorrento, I went parasailing. In Barcelona, I partied till sun came up with strangers and hiked in flip flops. In Florence, I learned to appreciate art and contemplate it for hours, and I had my first ever summer fling. In Naples, I hiked a dead volcano and then someone stole my wallet for the first (and only) time.

That day, I lost my credit card, my social security card, some cash, and my residency card (the very one that allows my immigrant self to live in Europe!). I had to cross the border back to France without any form of authentication. “Scary!”, you must be thinking. And yet! I grew as much from this experience as I did from the others.   

I tried experiences when traveling I never would have tried otherwise. I couldn’t hide from the unfamiliar. From navigating airport terminals in a language I didn’t understand to figuring out public transportation in busy cities, I had to rely on myself. And you know what? I survived just fine. Every success added a piece of self-confidence. Every trip became a tool for growth. 

Negotiating

Negotiating with confidence is my favorite skill to have learned while traveling. It is an activity I used to avoid in daily life because it felt awkward or uncomfortable. I felt cheap, and ridiculous. I learned how to negotiate from all the people I met along my journey, who were much more experienced travelers than I was, or simply came from a culture where haggling is common and expected. 

Over time, and because I wanted to monitor tightly my budget to keep traveling, I picked up the skill myself and tried it. At first, I still felt ridiculous and gauche, but like with everything, with enough practice – you end up getting the hang of it. I just had to get over that initial uncomfortable phase. As usual, exposure therapy is key. 

Through practice, I learned the key principles that made negotiation not just effective but enjoyable: confidence, patience, and humor. Smiling while negotiating creates mutual respect, which turns a transaction into a friendly conversation. Sometimes, you can’t negotiate the price down, but you can get an extra, or better service like free delivery or an upgrade.  

My best advice: don’t ever be too interested in whatever you want to acquire. Be ready to leave it if you don’t get your deal. It’s the ultimate secret to negotiating.  

Navigating alone

Traveling meant I was alone in a new place – but most importantly, it also meant that I was alone with my thoughts. No one was there to keep me company, talk to me, be there for me lean on them. That was the beauty of it. I had to do it all on my own. 

I would land in an unfamiliar city, armed with nothing but a map I grabbed at the tourist office (yes I still do it old school). And then I had to figure out where to go and what to do. While it was not the most efficient use of my time – I only recommend doing it if you have weeks or months of travel ahead of you -, these moments of getting lost in new cities were the most fun I ever had traveling. 

It also taught me to stop second-guessing every move and just handle every turn when it comes. Very often, I forced myself to get lost in the city and then make my way back to my hostel with no tool but my own memory. This way, I could improve my sense of direction.  

There was no one to blame if something went wrong, just like there was no one to share the credit when I got things right. That ownership felt incredible.

Meeting new people

While I was never an excessively shy person, I was, just like everyone else, apprehensive at the idea of taking the first step toward anyone. Scared of judgment, rejection, or simply saying the wrong thing. In all the hostels I stayed at, I learned the power of just saying ‘hi’.

‘Hi, how are you? My name is Anya, what about you? Where are you from?’ 

Turns out, that’s all you need to start bonding.  

Holding a conversation

From a simple ‘hi’, the conversation can take any turn. I have very fond memories of spending mornings lazing around in hostels’ common rooms to discuss dinner recommendations, planning tomorrow’s day trip together, what life is like back home… endless possibilities. And very often, I ended up spending a few days with these new people.

I realized I didn’t need to have the perfect words. Authenticity mattered more than polished sentences, or witty jokes, or interesting stories. I would blurt out what was on my mind, and you know what – not overthinking did make my sentences cleaner, and jokes wittier, and my stories more interesting. Over time, striking up a conversation and most importantly, maintaining it, felt less overwhelming.

To this day, I can still strike up a conversation with a complete stranger in a bar, or a metro, or the opera – anywhere really. It’s become a pleasure to have small chit-chat.

On the other hand, I also became a better listener. I learned to focus on curiosity and my desire to connect – very often asking myself: “What can I learn from this person? What stories do they have to share?” – and then just asking them these questions directly. 

The more I practiced, the better I became. Conversations that once felt draining started to energize me. Each interaction was a reminder that people are far more welcoming than not.

It really is as simple as saying ‘hi’. 

Finding my tribe

From there on, it has become easier to talk to people. And travel introduced me to an incredible variety of people – some I clicked with instantly, others I parted ways with after a brief chat. Early in my travels, I found myself trying to connect with everyone, thinking that every interaction needed to lead to something meaningful. But I soon learned that finding my tribe – the people who align with my values and spirit, the people with whom conversation flows the easiest – makes all the difference.

I can’t count how many times I’ve met someone in a hostel, on a group tour, or even on a bus, and we just got each other. These relationships weren’t driven by surface-level commonalities but by a shared openness to new experiences and meaningful conversations. We bonded over our love for adventure, our curiosity about the world, and our willingness to embrace discomfort. I’ve had the deepest and most intimate conversations of my life with these people. 

Travel taught me how to recognize these connections quickly, and how to find these kinds of people that energize me and inspire me, people worth holding onto. I took that knowledge back home and created my own tribe here, in Paris. 

Jaigarh Fort, Jaipur, India. Photos by Anya Rahmoune from Stop Going to Paris.

Not taking anything personally

Travel humbles you quickly. You might get laughed at for mispronouncing a word, struggle to ask a simple question in a different language or feel out of place in a culture you don’t fully understand. At first, these moments stung. I’d overanalyze every awkward interaction, wondering if I’d offended someone or looked foolish.

But over time, I stopped taking these encounters personally. I realized they weren’t judgments on me – they were just part of the reality of navigating a world that doesn’t revolve around me. Not everyone will understand what I’m trying to say. Not every stranger will smile back at me. And that’s okay.

This shift in perspective brought in a world of confidence. I stopped placing my self-worth in how others saw me and started focusing on my own intentions. If I was trying my best, being respectful, and staying open to learning, what others thought became irrelevant.

Now, I carry this confidence everywhere. Criticism rolls off me more easily, and I don’t waste energy worrying over things I can’t control. Travel taught me the value of owning my actions without being weighed down by others’ reactions. It freed me to focus on what truly matters: growth, connection, and showing up authentically in every moment.

Taking risks

I knew staying within my comfort zone, where I felt safe but stagnant, was a problem. Thankful, travel taught me to be bold, and to embrace risk – not recklessly, but with intention.

Some risks were small but terrifying at the time, like taking a solo trip to a country I knew nothing about. Others were bigger, like saying yes to a volunteer experience abroad that forced me to leave everything familiar behind. These moments felt overwhelming at first, but every risk I took led to an outcome I wouldn’t trade for anything.

One of the most memorable risks I ever took was skiing in Zakopane, in Poland. I had never skied in my life, I was quite honestly terrified of it. Taking that leap gave me a sense of freedom I’d never felt before. The adrenaline, the joy, the pride in doing something I thought I couldn’t…it was all worth it.

Through these experiences, I learned that the most significant growth happens when you take a leap of faith. Risks taught me that failure isn’t the enemy – staying stuck is. 

Conquering the fear of being known

I could have never started a blog before traveling so extensively – not just because I wouldn’t have the content to write my articles, but also because the massive confidence boost I gained from my trips was absolutely essential. 

Conquering the fear of being known – of putting myself out there with a public blog – requires stepping into a level of vulnerability that most people avoid. It was definitely my case up to a year ago, too. It was intimidating to imagine my name, my face, and my personal stories in plain view for anyone to see, from friends and family to colleagues, to complete strangers. I felt too exposed. The fear of judgment or criticism used to paralyze me. The idea that my thoughts and pictures online would never be fully erased was stressful. 

But here’s the truth: no one does that. No one is reading my blog to make fun of it. As a matter of fact, people tend to find it cool that I have a blog. Embracing my authentic self, owning my stories and perspectives required a lot of confidence in the beginning. It took me a long time to get it, but once I did – I never looked back. And now, the more I share, the more I grow comfortable with being seen, and the less external opinions can harm me. 

And while the whole process can be nerve-wracking, it is also liberating. There’s an incredible freedom that comes with me deciding to stand fully behind my own voice. Addressing that fear of being seen isn’t just about creating a public blog. It’s about recognizing that my opinions and perspectives matter regardless of how people perceive my work. It’s about being fully comfortable and self-assured about who I am and what I do. 

What it all comes down to

The lessons travel offers are for certain transformative. From negotiating with confidence to embracing risks and building meaningful connections, every trip has shaped me into a braver, more positive and self-possessed version of myself. These lessons extend far beyond the adventure – they guide how I live, work, and connect with myself and with others every day. 

In many ways, travel has completely rewired me.