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Tenía 25 años, una mochila de cabina demasiado pesada, y una mezcla de terror y euforia que no sabía cómo describir. My first solo trip was to Buenos Aires — five nights, a boutique hotel in Palermo that cost me about $110 a night, and absolutely nobody to consult when I made a wrong turn at 11 p.m. on a Tuesday. Nadie. Just me, the cobblestones, and a Google Maps pin that kept spinning. ¡Ay, qué momento!
I'd been traveling my whole life, pero siempre con someone — my family moving between San Miguel de Allende and wherever the next chapter was, friends on college trips, a group tour through Southeast Asia at 22. Solo travel felt like a completely different idioma. The decisions, the silences at dinner, the freedom that somehow felt heavier than I expected — all of it landed differently when there was no one to split it with. De verdad, nothing prepares you for that first night alone in a foreign city where you chose everything and answer to no one.
Now, several years and many solo trips later, I look back on that Buenos Aires adventure with so much cariño — and also a very specific list of things I did wrong, things I accidentally got right, and lessons that have shaped every trip I've taken since. This is that list, amiga. The real one, sin filtros.
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The flight landed at Ezeiza around 9 p.m., and by the time I cleared customs and got into the remis I'd pre-booked through the hotel, it was past 10:30. The driver didn't speak English, my Spanish was functional pero nerviosa, and the highway into the city was dark and unfamiliar. I remember pressing my back against the seat and thinking: ¿Qué hice? Not in a panicked way — more in the way you feel when you've jumped off a cliff into water and you're mid-air, wondering if the landing will hurt.
What I learned that first night: the fear is not a sign you made a mistake. It's a sign you did something real. By the time I checked into my room at the Hotel Magnolia — a gorgeous little property on Julián Álvarez with exposed brick and a rooftop terrace I'd found after two hours of obsessive research — the fear had already started softening into something closer to orgullo. Pride, amiga. Quiet and warm, like the first sip of Malbec after a long journey.
What I wish I'd known: book your first night somewhere that feels genuinely bonito, not just functional. I spent about $115/night at Magnolia and it was worth every peso. When you arrive alone in a new city, your hotel room is your anchor — it needs to feel like a reward, not a crash pad. If you're planning your own first Buenos Aires adventure, my full guide to Buenos Aires for the first-time traveler has the neighborhood breakdown and hotel recs I wish I'd had. The other thing? Tell someone your exact itinerary before you leave. Not because something will go wrong — sino porque it gives you confidence to move freely when you know someone has the map.
¡Increíble! how much lighter I felt once I stopped treating the solo part as a problem to manage and started treating it as the whole point of the trip.
Okay, la verdad — I was not financially prepared for solo travel in the way I thought I was. I had a debit card, a credit card with no travel perks whatsoever, and a vague plan to "figure out the exchange rate when I got there." ¡Ay, qué ingenua! I paid foreign transaction fees on nearly every purchase for five days. By the time I got home and added it up, I'd lost somewhere around $47 in fees alone — not a fortune, pero enough to have paid for a very good dinner at a parrilla in San Telmo.
The lesson that trip burned into me: your financial tools matter as much as your packing list. After Buenos Aires, I spent real time understanding which travel credit cards actually work for international trips — no foreign transaction fees, solid travel insurance, and points that accumulate fast enough to be useful. The difference on my next solo trip was immediate and tangible. I saved over $200 in fees on a two-week journey and earned enough points to upgrade one flight. Chica, the math is not complicated once you see it.
The other money mistake I made in Buenos Aires: I didn't budget for spontaneity. I had a tight daily spending plan that left zero room for the gorgeous leather bag I found at a market in San Telmo for about $80, or the impromptu tango lesson I said yes to on a Thursday afternoon ($35 for an hour, and worth every centavo). Solo travel rewards impulsive sí moments — build a small "capricho fund" into your budget, maybe 15-20% extra, specifically for the unplanned. Those are always the stories you tell later.
And please, por favor, sort out your travel insurance before you go. I didn't on that first trip, and I spent three days quietly anxious about what would happen if I got sick. It's not glamorous to talk about, but a solid policy is what lets you actually relax — and relaxing is the whole point, ¿no?
Here is the part nobody warns you about: solo travel is the most efficient mirror you will ever hold up to yourself. Sin distracciones, without someone else's preferences shaping the day, you find out very quickly what you actually want. Not what you think you should want, not what the Instagram algorithm has convinced you is beautiful — lo que tú, de verdad, desire from a day in a foreign city.
In Buenos Aires, I discovered I am a morning person in a way I'd never noticed before. Left to my own ritmo, I was up at 7 a.m. every single day, walking to a café on Avenida Santa Fe before the city fully woke up, ordering a cortado and a medialunas, and just sitting. Quieta. No itinerary for the first hour. I'd never done that on a group trip — there's always someone who wants to sleep in, someone who wants to rush. Alone, I found my own pace, and it was slower and more sensory than I'd expected. ¡Qué lindo!, honestly, to meet yourself like that.
I also learned I'm braver than I gave myself credit for. I got lost twice — genuinely, map-spinningly lost — and both times I found my way back using a combination of broken Spanish, strangers' generosity, and sheer stubbornness. Those moments of mild chaos became the memories I cherish most. There's something about navigating a city completely on your own terms that rewires something in your confidence permanently. You carry it home with you, invisible in your luggage but heavier than anything else you packed.
If you're on the edge of booking your first solo trip, mi amor — do it. Book the hotel that feels like a reward. Get the right credit card. Build in a capricho fund. Tell someone your itinerary. And then go be gloriously, nervously, completely sola for a few days. The version of you that comes back will be someone you're very glad to meet.
Viaja bien, vive al máximo, y repite.
— Sofía
Viaja bien, vive al máximo, y repite.
— Sofía