Last Updated on October 11, 2025 by Christine Kaaloa
It means a lot to me that you made the effort to join me. One woman doing it all alone is a challenge but having like-minded solo travel friends make a difference! I hope that I can help inspire your solo travel goals.
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GRRRLTRAVELER is a female solo travel survival and solo adventure site and YouTube channel inspiring others to find their GRRR for solo travel. It’s about finding empowerment as a solo traveler by navigating cultural diversity while experiencing the bizarre, foreign, frightening and often times, funny. I may not always start out with the GRRR of confidence, but I film it for YouTube and have it at the end.
[ That video up there? My first YouTube trailer from 2012, back when I was still figuring out how to explain what the hell I was doing.]
Sure, I film trip and food guides. But I’m not just another tourist checking boxes. What actually makes me feel alive is cultural curiosity and diving into different ways of living. I’m all about exploring on foot and public transit, supporting sustainable community projects, and traveling as respectfully and ethically as possible.
When I started solo travel blogging in 2008, we were pioneers and not in a cute Instagram way. There were no travel apps to save my ass, no robust search engines and many of my favorite destinations barely had tourist infrastructure. I was figuring it all out in real-time.
OG travel meant walking into pitch-dark situations with outdated guidebooks, then quickly decoding how to navigate safely. It meant being flexible, adaptable, and okay with a whole lot of unknown.
Here’s the truth: I’m a nervous traveler. I’m a woman traveling alone so I’m not immune to fear and anxiety. My confidence starts from 10%-40% before each trip. But I’m also weirdly drawn to places that are raw, off-the-beaten-path and slightly uncomfortable. That tension? That’s where the magic happens and my super heroine grows from its tiny seed.
My YouTube channel exists to pull back the curtain on solo female travel fears. I film the real stuff – the uncertainties, the “wait, am I actually doing this?… Yes, I am and here’s how!” moments and I shed light on them so you don’t have to stumble through in the dark.
I’m one of the first authentically solo female travel YouTubers. While plenty of “solo travelers” were actually traveling with friends or other creators, I was out there mostly alone, figuring it out and filming it. (Yes, I do occasional influencer press trips these days, but I always carve out solo time because that’s where the real learning happens and the training wheels come off.)
Bottom line: I enjoy cracking the code of solo travel, and I want to help you do the same, minus the guesswork and with way less panic.
7. 10 Shocking Facts about Korean Schools
8. Top 16 things to Do on Jeju Island
Starting out on your first female solo adventure might not feel easy, especially if you’re new to travel. One should always expect the unexpected in travel, but even seemingly negative occurrences can be turned into a positive opportunity with the right perspective and redirection. That is where female solo adventures begin… They do not need to be epic daredevil challenges. Often they just test the inner obstacles you have about you and your independence.
How to Outsmart Pickpockets & Thieves
10 Things that Ruin Any Vacation & how to recover it.
46 Ways : How to Travel for Cheap
How to Plan your first solo trip
What you should know about Layovers & Connecting Flights
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I’ve been doing female solo travel for over six years and I don’t know if I’ll ever get over that initial reluctance of travel jumping alone. It’s all weirdly mental and for me, the trick is getting myself to leap. As a women, I’m often prone to second guessing or doubting my abilities, even if experience has proven otherwise. But the more I travel alone , the more comfortable I become with it once I’m on the road. Situations become familiar and my instincts kick in. An adventure is what I call it when you challenge your inner wall of who you think you are not… with who you discover you are.
How to Plan your FIRST Solo Trip
How to Make Friends when you travel Alone (Part 1) (Part 2)
14 Ways to Spend your Nights Alone .
The Toughest Challenges of Solo Travel .
Eating Alone
recommended trip resources for solo travelers
Is it Safe for Women to Travel Alone?
8 Safety Tips for Solo Travel (*Watch this before you travel!)
31 Street Smart Safety tips for Solo Travel
How to Eat Street Foods without getting sick
Common Scams for Female Solo Travelers to Avoid
How to Deal with Touts, Scammers and Beggars
Is it easy being a female solo traveler?.. Not!
The Good, Bad & Inevitable of Becoming a Solo Traveler (my first planned solo trip)
Is a backpack just another word for “female mid-life crisis”?
Finding my Travel G-Spot & Me-Gasms
The vacation part of each trip, only starts after you survive it. So here’s how to survive it…
How to Deal with Travel Scams
21 Ways to Outsmart Pickpockets and Thieves
Survival Tips for Vegetarian Travelers
How to Avoid Taking Airport Taxis
Toilet Guide: How to Use a Squat Toilet
SteriPen Review: When you need clean water
16 Tips for Traveling Alone by Night Bus
How to Catch the Bus in a Foreign Country (when you don’t know the language)
10 Must-Haves to pack in your backpack
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Winging solo travel adventures depends upon your comfort level with travel and self-trust.
Change is like redirecting the flow of a stream. When a running stream meets an obstacle, it doesn’t stop; instead, it redirects its course and flows around the wall.When I go with the flow, remain flexible and trust my abilities, it becomes like surfing waves. Like anything, the more you do it, the more experienced and confident you become in it.
How to survive last-minute trips | Things I did well (Part 2 )
How to survive a last-minute trip!… Things I SUCKED at (Part 3)
Tips on how to survive a last-minute trip! (Part 4)
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Quite simply, I work and save for them. No magic wand. Sorry.But seeing as I require activity and movement on a constant basis, there’s other tricks I use also. I steer my job search towards jobs/careers that allow or pay me to travel. For instance, teaching English in Korea was an all-expense paid move and my work paid me enough to travel during vacation breaks. I also base my travels on affordability, choosing the countries based on low flight costs and which are inexpensive to travel.
Art of Hobo-ing: How to Budget for long-term travel
Long-term solo travel and three mistakes I wish I avoided
7 Brutal Truths of Solo Travel & Tips for Surviving them
Download my Free Trip Budget Tracker Template
Interested in teaching in Korea? Click on the photo below for my ESL resource page, where I have links to my YouTube videos and posts on how you can teach in Korea.
Download my free Korea travel cheatsheet eguide
Yes. You can. But it’s not as easy as some travel bloggers paint it. In essence, it’s the equivalent to starting your own freelance company. Be prepared to do a lot of work and to find other ways to diversify your blog services. What’s helped me significantly is Travel Blog Success. You can read more about it here. It taught me in one month, what it took over six years to learn on my own. Still, if quick money is your aim, it’s definitely easier to get a job and get paid by the hour. The joy of travel blogging has to be your number one incentive before all else.
How to Grow a Successful Blog
How to Make Money Traveling and Living Abroad ( Travel Jobs)
How to Make Money Traveling and Living Abroad (Part 2: Location Independent)
How to Grow a YouTube Channel
Travel Vlogging Tips from a Solo Female Travel Vlogger
My Travel Vlogging Gear
How to Grow a Creator Income with Patreon
YouTube Creator e-courses
YouTube Channel & Branding Audit
37 Comments. Leave new
Love your site and ALL your videos.
Any plans to visit the Philippines in 2018?! 🙂
great forum, I liked it.
I would like to travel in s korea after I retire next year. How can I find korean pen pals now?
Just found your blog and am thankful for your insights! I’m also from Hawaii and am looking for an adventure that will (hopefully) include teaching in South Korea!
Glad I came across your site. It’s nice to find a travel blog that isn’t so “stale”. I enjoy reading about your adventures. I’m going to be visiting Japan soon, and am now very inclined to fly over to Seoul for a few days while I’m there. Keep the adventures coming!
Hey there. Love the blog. Would you like to meet up and have a cup of something and a chat? Thanks, Ben
Sorry I forgot to say the most important things: that I’m in Daegu, and English, and a 32 year old man (with his head screwed-on backwards judging by the absent-mindedness of my last post!)
Is there a specific agency you went through to get the teaching job in Korea?
@Rosa: There are many agencies depending on whether you want to teach in a government funded school or hagwon. Here’s an article: https://grrrltraveler.com/countries/asia/korea/teaching-english/teach-english-in-korea/