I Went to Laos Alone and Was Rarely Alone.
What two weeks in Laos and Cambodia taught me about how I actually like to travel.
by Lindsay Eldridge · Sat 19 Sep 2026
In my early 20s, after spending a summer working in Thailand, I traveled through Laos and Cambodia by myself for about two weeks. It was the first time I had ever really traveled alone and my parents really did not like this.
I remember trying to explain something to them that I was also just beginning to understand myself: I'm going alone, but I'm not necessarily going to BE alone. Yes, I was getting my own room, and calling all the shots, or wandered through a market. Sometimes I went to a restaurant by myself, which, frankly, made me pretty uncomfortable at first.
There’s a strange vulnerability in showing up somewhere alone. Even if you’re perfectly capable of doing it, there’s still that moment when you look around and wonder if everyone else has someone and you’re going to be the one person standing there by yourself. I definitely had those moments. But then I started noticing something: there were other people sitting alone too.
All I had to do was say hi to them!
Sometimes I didn't want to. Sometimes I wanted to sit there and read my book, and that was actually part of what I was trying to learn...to enjoy my own company without immediately trying to fill the space. If I really didn't feel like having dinner alone, I could talk to someone else who was having dinner alone, and sometimes that one little decision completely changed what happened next.
At one point in Laos, I signed up for a tour to visit these incredible turquoise waterfalls. It was one of those trips where you climb into a small van with a handful of other travelers who happened to sign up for the same thing that day. I arrived by myself, but I started talking to the other people in the van, and soon we were exploring the waterfalls together.
Afterward, one of the women said, “Hey, I'm meeting a bunch of girls for wine later. Do you want to come?” Sure. Suddenly I was having a ladies' night in Luang Prabang, Laos, sitting outside on cushions, drinking wine with women from all over the world. One of those women, Karla, told me she was planning to float down the Mekong River.
“Do you want to come with me?” Sure, again! Just like that, I'd gone from signing up for a waterfall tour by myself to having someone to travel with for the next few days. That's how a lot of those two weeks went.
I traveled through Laos and Cambodia meeting people along the way. I could join them when I wanted company and keep to myself when I didn't. But here's the other thing I learned:
I still got lonely. REALLY lonely.
I don't want to romanticize solo travel and pretend I discovered that traveling completely on my own was my favorite thing in the world. For me, it wasn't. I think I had confused being independent with being someone who should enjoy doing everything alone, but those aren't the same thing. I can be perfectly capable of getting myself halfway around the world, figuring out where I'm going, ordering dinner by myself, and making my own decisions...and still prefer having people to experience things with.
Wanting company doesn't make you less independent. Realizing that helped me understand something else about those two weeks. My favorite days were the ones when I had something planned. I loved knowing: This is where I'm going today, and this is what I'm doing (mostly because I knew there'd be other people there). I had created a framework for myself.
Traveling alone vs. arriving alone
I've thought about that experience a lot while building Away. A lot of women, specifically, come to Away Retreats without knowing anyone else on the trip. And I think there's a BIG difference between traveling alone and arriving alone.
When you arrive at an Away retreat by yourself, you don't have to figure out what you're doing tomorrow. You don't have to find someone to eat dinner with. You don't have to wonder how you're getting to the waterfall, whether you should book the tour, or who else might be there. There's already a framework, and there are other people who chose to be there too.
You already have something in common: you're in the same place at the same time, with the same company!
People start talking. Where are you from? Have you ever been here before? What made you sign up for this? What book are you reading? Little by little, you're no longer a person who “came alone.” You're simply part of the group.
You might make a friend you spend the next three days with or you might meet someone you keep in touch with for years. You might decide that this afternoon you'd really rather take your book somewhere beautiful and have a few hours completely to yourself, which is part of it too. There's comfort in knowing you have people to come back to without having to spend every moment with them.
Of course you can arrive with a friend. Bring your sister, bring your partner, or come with someone you already love traveling with! We just ask that you stay open to everyone else there, too. Because you never know who is going to be sitting next to you in the van. Maybe there’s somewhere you've been wanting to go, but the person you thought would go with you doesn't want to.
Maybe your friends keep saying, “Someday.” Maybe you've been waiting because you don't have the person you imagined standing beside you when you finally went. You don't necessarily need to find that person before you go.
Sometimes you meet them when you get there.
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