7 day itinerary in Tyrol region Austria
08/08/2023
Best 7 places to visit in and around Lisbon
03/10/2023
My solo travel journey in Mexico
Every time I travel solo (alone) in the world, I am surprised to find out how each trip is different from the previous one, even though the conditions are technically quite the same.
For almost all of my solo trips in the world, I went backpacking style, with my backpack on my back, living in nature, learning from the locals and experiencing the world through where I am.
Of course every trip has its difficulties, the experiences unique to the place, and the general feeling of falling in love with a certain area.
However, my trip to Mexico was a completely different experience in every way I can imagine.
Mexico is not just a place I went to travel, but a place where a lot of who I am has changed.
I hope this post I will not only be able to convey, from the technical point of view, what it's like to travel in a place like Mexico as a girl alone, but actually introduce you to the uniquely emotional and spiritual journey that I went through along the way.
This is going to be a revealing post and a bit different from other blog posts. So shall we begin?
My moments alone in Mexico
Why travel solo in Mexico?
For years, Mexico was on the top 10 list of countries I want to visit.
Something about the colors, the buzzing culture, the interesting food (which I quickly discovered I didn't like), always attracted me.
Besides that, in the last few years on every trip I took I always said - "Enough, my next trip won't be tough. I want a beach, with a coconut in my hand and a book to read, so that I'll finally feel like I'm on a pampering vacation."
And so, Mexico seemed like a suitable destination for my dream vacation.
Let's say, what I imagined was about the complete opposite of what actually happened :)
But somehow the universe guided me to arrive in Mexico, even though it wasn't exactly my original plan. In December 2021, after a lot of uncertainty and obstacles from governments and viruses, I landed in Mexico City.
I traveled alone in Mexico for about five months, and when I returned to Mexico City at the end of the trip I felt that I had come full circle.
If I was told, on the day I landed in the taco-scented streets of Mexico City, that this is what I would go through here, I would not have believed it, and more than that - I would think that someone was completely confused with their predictions.
But it was my journey, and I'm happy to tell about it today.
Love how colorful this place is
What is it like to travel solo in Mexico?
On a practical level, I don't see anything different about traveling in a place like Mexico alone compared to other destinations I've been to in the past.
If you've read my posts about my solo trip to Africa, my solo trip to Mongolia and Russia, and even my solo trip to Europe (one of many), you already know that the rules that apply to me when traveling alone, apply everywhere I've been.
Still, I will mention here some of the rules that I always make sure to keep in my solo travels in the world:
Arrival during the day
Wherever I traveled I made sure to plan my arrival to a certain destination, whether it was by flight or driving, for the hours of daylight.
If I landed in the middle of the night I usually stayed in the airport until the morning hours. For overnight trips I always aimed to arrive at the destination around 6 or 7 in the morning (even if it required a higher fare).
In addition, I always left a time interval of a few hours before the sun goes down in the event that there will be a delay in the journey, so that I will still arrive in daylight hours to my destination.
Many times I would also postpone a certain trip to the next day if I saw that I might arrive too late.
Even on my trip in Mexico this law was not very different from any other destination.
Overall, the public transportation in Mexico is quite organized, whether it is for long or short distances, but there were definitely many instances of delays or waiting for the vehicle to fill up.
That's why I would always take a slightly larger travel time interval (Africa style), to avoid an unplanned night time arrival.
In addition, I made sure in 90% of the cases not to walk alone in the hours of darkness (not in any city of Mexico, not even in the very touristic Tulum).
Taxis within the cities are usually very cheap (about 50 pesos per trip), so that in many cases it is simply better to take a taxi at night.
Try arriving places during day light when you travel solo
Taxi rides solo in Mexico
I'm not a big fan of taking taxis in general, and prefer to walk most of the time.
However, in Mexico it is very important to be careful in all major cities to order a taxi only through UBER.
Avoid catching a taxi on the side of the road as much as possible..!!
First of all, there are certainly quite a few cases of robbery inside taxis, but the chance of this is almost zero when it comes to taxi drivers arriving via UBER (maintaining a reputation, for example, that will provide them with more work later, is the main interest of drivers not to commit dirty tricks).
In addition, also in other respects, for example I can tell that I went on a trip in Guadalajara towards San Pancho (a cute town on the Pacific side), and with me on the trip was a tourist who suddenly discovered that one of her bags was missing.
It turns out that she forgot it in the taxi that drove her before, but the driver was already impossible to reach.
Using an app like UBER allows you to contact the driver if you forgot something in the taxi.
Not sure he will answer of course but at least there is a way to try :)
Important note - not everywhere in Mexico, is it problematic to catch taxis on the side of the road.
In San Cristóbal, for example, there is no UBER, and I managed to use several taxis there without a problem.
On the other hand, in cities like Mexico City, Guadalajara and so on - it is advisable to use only UBER.
No taxis? Try bikes :)
Speaking of public transportation..
Most travel in Mexico is considered safe.
The safest way to get to a relatively far away destination (Mexico is huge..!!) is of course by flight.
But if you are like me and flights make you feel bad, especially ecologically, then buses can be a solution.
Most trips between major destinations can take around 10-14 hours or more. These are the kind of trips I prefer to do at night.
Night travel experiences are certainly special, let's define it that way, but in most cases pass safely.
However, there is a tendency to go through mini-robberies on buses by those sitting next to you.
It's not very common but it definitely happened to several people I met that someone sat down next to them and robbed them of some pesos with threats.
If this is something that might disturb your rest, I recommended that you ask to sit next to women. Sorry men, but this is the bitter truth.
In addition, it is highly advisable to be updated specifically about night trips in certain areas.
When I was traveling in Mexico, the road between San Cristóbal and Palanca was considered dangerous, and more than once armed men boarded the night buses and robbed all the passengers - locals and tourists alike.
The way to my house in San Cristobal
What about hitchhiking solo in Mexico?
Hitchhiking can sometimes be such an interesting and enriching experience on the road.
I got to catch rides in many places in the world, however, in Mexico I decided not to adopt this way of arrival.
The only areas where I hitchhiked were either really touristic towns such as San Pancho, or for relatively short distances (when I didn't have all my equipment on me).
The fear of being robbed somewhat outweighed the spontaneity of getting to know locals through hitchhiking, and I preferred to get around in the more standard ways.
In addition, there is another type of transport called Collectivos that easily and quickly pick up passengers, and this is present in almost every town you come to.
There are places where you will even find rickshaws, and for some pesos this can be a safer way to get to your destination.
I manages to hitchhike in this car :)
Avoiding certain areas as a solo traveler
As with everywhere in the world, there are places that are better to avoid.
It can be certain cities, certain neighborhoods in cities and even entire districts.
I don't think there is any particular difference in Mexico, despite the dubious stigma attached to it as dangerous.
For example, I can testify that one of the most repulsive cities I've been in was actually in the USA, a so-called organized first world country. Write a comment if you think you can guess the city :)
However I did make sure to check with the locals or previous travelers, about lodging in certain neighborhoods in the big cities.
In addition, there were also cases where I avoided wandering alone after receiving warnings about certain areas.
For example, when I arrived in the stunning town of San Cristóbal, thinking I would go hiking in the mountains around it, I quickly discovered that the more rural areas around it also contain many drunken Mexicans and that it is not safe to hike there alone, so I avoided it.
There are also entire regions that I chose not to travel alone, for example the Chihuahuan Desert region and most of northern Mexico.
And when I knew that my next destination was the USA, I chose to make a land crossing only through Tijuana - a crossing that is considered the safest, especially after hearing that a month before I crossed from Mexico to the US, 26 women, some of them tourists, disappeared from the border crossing between Mexico and Texas/New Mexico.
I'm not one of those who tend to give warnings to others, but this time I definitely feel confident in telling you - please avoid land transit in these areas..!!
A lot of safe places to reach as a solo traveler
What is it like to travel solo in Mexico as a woman?
It is important for me to address this point for those women who want to travel Mexico alone and are afraid of it.
99% of the time I didn't feel bothered by locals or tourists during my trip.
The locals felt quite friendly to me, and I didn't feel like they were trying to hit on me everywhere I went.
Of course, like anywhere in the world, it's not the most pleasant thing to walk by a group of men alone, and it's no different in Mexico.
There was only one time that I felt disturbed, and actually this was in the morning and on the beach at a really tourisic area.
I found a nice place to do my daily yoga session, but very quickly two elderly drunken locals came my way.
The first thing I thought was that they were coming in order to steal my cell phone.
They sat down too close to my cell phone, and without feeling ashamed I took the cell phone and put it next to me, even if it gave them an unpleasant feeling.
Very quickly I felt that they were bothering me a lot and I did not want their presence so I asked them to go and leave me alone.
It took them a while to do this and I had to be more aggressive in my request to get them to leave.
There was also a part where one of them got too close to me and I immediately told him to get away from me and go. So he did.
On that note - don't be ashamed to stand up for yourself..! Be assertive and don't feel uncomfortable removing from your safe space people who shouldn't be there.
For me, my personal safety is more important than making people feel good.
Even on bus trips - don't be ashamed to ask to be seated next to a woman or to change seats so that you sit next to a woman if you feel uncomfortable.
Hiking solo in the jungles of Mexico
My journey solo in Mexico
I think the most obvious thing about this trip in Mexico, that unlike many other trips I did solo, this time I traveled 98% of the time alone.
Walking around the cities, transitions between places, going on hiking trails in nature, small entertainment such as restaurants and so on - I did everything by myself, and by choice.
But not at first though.
I spent my first month in Mexico at a climbing site located north of the city of Monterrey.
I met there with my American ex-partner (at the time), and we spent several weeks climbing together, and not without a few emotional crises.
A little before our second 'forever' separation, I experienced a very severe emotional breakdown, which was not even really related to him.
I didn't want to be alone. I didn't want to travel alone. I didn't want him to leave me alone.
More than that, I entered a circle of thought where I am afraid that I will live the rest of my life alone, that I will not be able to find a relationship in this world, and more and more limiting thoughts of this kind.
Besides the fact that I really loved him, and loved being with him, it seemed that I didn't love being with me.
Moments together I didn't want to end
All of my biggest fears suddenly began to surface
Among the cliffs of Potrero Chico, a feeling of abysmal loneliness came over me, both while we were together even, and also towards our parting.
At the beginning of my trip, I lost my dog, my last surviving pet, who was the last link between me and my mythical ex, with whom I built a family of two dogs, a cat and a filthy house in Tel Aviv.
In addition, at that time I had been homeless for over a year, living my life on the road, lacking a real place to return to.
In fact, just the thought that on the day of our separation I have to take a night bus to Guadalajara, a place I don't know, that I have no idea what they do there, pretty much crushed me.
This feeling that I couldn't have fun alone, I couldn't have fun without him, accompanied me for at least another month after our breakup.
No matter where I ended up, I felt that if he was here we would drive in his van to take us to cool places, and what fun it would be to sit on the beach here together and play the ukulele, and wander together to find cool restaurants to eat a hamburger at.
And instead of doing all this with him, I am forced to do all this alone. And it's boring. And it's also a little sad.
It was a feeling that was very difficult to break away from.
And on the other hand, I'm quite glad in retrospect that I didn't try to ignore the feeling or suppress it, but simply let the sadness and loneliness overwhelm me.
I also told myself that it's okay that I'm in a crappy mood right now, and that I don't owe anyone an explanation for it, except myself.
So apart from making small talk mostly with people I met in the hostels, the rest of the time I chose to be crap with myself.
And in general, I was already a bit tired of having exactly the same conversations over and over again with new people I meet along the way, so I preferred to just be with myself, willingly but unwillingly.
Playing my Ukulele alone in Mexico
Then came the call I was waiting for
And so my days passed alone in Mexico, with the hard feelings, limiting thoughts and overwhelmed emotions.
Even though I had some big dreams come true (ahem ahem whale watching), and even though quite a few Americans hit on me, which my ego especially loved at this point, in my head everything was still broken.
Until I got to Puerto Escondido.
A cute beach town on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, where in one of the hostels I met a girl who is the most unconnected thing, to the dimensions of this universe. While I was listening cynically to the theories that were going on in her head, she also told me about an Ayahuasca ceremony that is taking place in a few days in the area.
A girls-only ceremony with a local shaman.
At that moment I knew this was what I had to go through.
It was so obvious to me that this was the call you had been waiting for, because it had been floating around in my head for a while, especially here in Mexico.
And suddenly the call came to me. And that's what they say - that the Ayahuasca spirit is the one calling you.
And she called me, so I came.
Beautiful places I discovered only cause I was alone
In the week before the ceremony, I mainly dealt with preparations for it
Not only on the practical level of what can or cannot be eaten and drunk, and what should be avoided, but also in the mental and spiritual aspect.
I was intrigued by what was to come, and more than that, I was ready to accept whatever might come.
I prepared myself for the possibility of facing my greatest fears, the difficult emotions that might overwhelm me, the closed heart, the traumas from the past and the loss of self-control.
Something about surrendering to what was to come, in itself began to release a lot of the weight that had been sitting on me in the last months (and even more so, in the last years).
The preparations challenged me and intrigued me, and with all my being I was committed to this process that I was starting to go through.
In the days leading up to the ceremony, I also chose to disconnect from certain people, from the news (to this day I am disconnected from them), from violent movies/books, and to focus on meditations and books on Buddhism and yoga.
In addition, I shared the experience I was about to go through with a lot of lovely people, and many of them kept in touch with me even some time later to hear how I had been.
Talking about it was absolutely part of the evolution I had to go through - learning to make my voice heard.
Preparations for the ceremony
A personal and empowering experience
I will not go into the stories from the experience of the ceremony, both because it is very personal to me, and also because it is really very difficult to describe what I went through there.
Ever since the ceremony, I feel like a butterfly slowly going through the necessary steps until it comes out of its cocoon and spreads its wings.
After the ceremony, I continued to read books related to Buddhism, liberated and full of confidence in what the universe was going to take me through, and has taken me through so far.
In a combination of daily meditations and yoga I felt how my consciousness changes.
I suddenly opened up to a lot of topics that I was cynical about, I listened to people that before I probably wouldn't have even bothered to understand what they were talking about, and above all I started to love my time with myself and feel whole in it.
Suddenly, from the feelings I had before of being upset about being alone in Mexico, I welcomed the situations in which I was alone.
I started memorizing mantras that help me to this day in difficult and frustrating situations, and believe me, even after everything I went through leading up to the ceremony, during it and after it, I continued to be surprised by the number of obstacles that pop up along the way.
There were also some good moments
Everything was a struggle in Mexico
In Mexico I experienced quite a few moments of frustration and despair, and to be honest, there was not a single thing that went smoothly for me there.
Sometimes, even just going out to withdraw money or buy bread was some ordeal on the way.
3 times in a span of five months I was sick - and I'm not a person who gets sick easily.
I had never been sick before while traveling, and this was the first time I had to deal with being sick alone.
On one of the occasions I was even really sick after getting a parasite in my stomach due to the severe water contamination in the city of San Cristobal.
I also had to deal with the owner of an apartment I rented who repeatedly tried to extort more money from me for the rent, which was definitely tedious and annoying.
And in general, communication with the locals was difficult without the ability to speak Spanish fluently.
Twice, I was left on the side of the road following a hitchhiking ride, and I had to try to find my way to my destination with all my equipment, in 35 degree heat.
There was no trip that went smoothly for me at any stage. Even short trips of an hour/hour and a half somehow spread to five/six hours.
Tired after reaching Puebla
Yet,
Mexico invited me to meet people who opened my mind and helped me open my heart.
She taught me to deal alone with myself and with every difficult situation I encountered, and there were a lot of them..!
In Mexico I learned to speak my words out loud, to say what I feel and what I love, not to be afraid of what strangers think of me, and to clearly mark my boundaries to others.
Mexico made me connect with my heart, nature, animals, tribes, and the land.
I experienced some of the most powerful rituals there, and learned what it really means to breathe in the moment.
In Mexico I learned to take care of myself, in all kinds of tests. I learned about the medicinal plants of the natives, about nutrition as a healing source, about the strength in meditations and connection to the body.
Mexico opened a door for me to the perfect freedom to discover myself, to discover new ideas, to discover different and strange people, and to discover anew and with great power that indeed my roads are curvy and terribly long at times, but always in the end, everything works out.
Me highlining in Mexico
Last Words
The trip to Mexico was definitely a complex trip for me, but for all the things it called into my life, I am thankful.
I also think that if I hadn't traveled there alone, I wouldn't have experienced most of what I got to experience.
In my eyes, Mexico is a wonderful destination to go on a journey alone, and on my travels I met many solo travelers like myself from all over the world.
Feel free to contact me on Instagram about a solo trip to Mexico.
And if you want to follow my travels around the world in real time, you are welcome to follow my Instagram page >>
--
All photos in the post were taken by me or by one of my travel companions and may not be used without permission. Thanks :)
