Solo travel & self-love (going to 80+ countries on a budget!)

Welcome back to another episode of small steps to self-love, the podcast! Today I'm interviewing  Sahara Rose De Vore who is a travel coach and has been to 84 countries traveling solo!

Join us for a conversation about traveling on a budget, money mindset, how solo travel can help you find more self-love and improve your mental health, and more.

Each episode covers a different mental health-related topic and has a "small step" or action for you to take on your self-love journey. Tune in for today's small step and let me know in the comments what your answer is to today's question, if you feel comfortable sharing!

Like this episode? Subscribe to the channel for more just like this, or listen to shelby's podcast here: https://smallstepstoselflove.buzzsprout.com/ 

ABOUT SAHARA, Guest:
Sahara Rose De Vore is a Wellness Travel Coach and the Founder of The Travel Coach Network, a global community of travel coaches. Sahara went from broke college student to traveling to 84 countries solo to becoming the CEO of her travel businesses. She believes that there is more to a travel career than just blogging and booking trips which led her to creating the world's first and only ICF accredited certification program for travel coaches. Sahara is a published author, global speaker, TEDx speaker, and has been in over 130 media outlets for her travel and business expertise including Forbes, Travel Weekly, Conde Nast Traveller, and USA Today.

Website: https://thetravelcoachnetwork.com/
Website: https://sahararosetravels.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sahararosethetravelcoach/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetravelcoachnetwork/
Podcast: https://anchor.fm/thetravelcoachnetwork
Free Beginner's Guide to Travel Coaching: https://thetravelcoachnetwork.mykajabi.com/main-email-series-and-workbook

About Shelby:

Shelby is a mental health author, who has grown an audience of more than 500,000 on social media who resonate with her work. Her bestselling book, changing with the tides, is a poetry collection about self-love, doubt, insecurities, and more. Her new collection, girl made of glass, was recently released and is a collection about self-love, isolation, and fear. Shelby also edits poetry, runs an online poetry community, and helps authors market themselves and their books for more sales.

resources from shelby:

·        check out Shelby’s mental health poetry books

·        Free self-love poetry print

·        Join the poetry club

·        Get help with marketing as a writer

connect with shelby:

·        Instagram: @shelbyleighpoetry

·        YouTube: Shelby Leigh Poetry

·        TikTok: @shelbyleighpoetry

·        Twitter: @shelbyleighpoet

Transcript

Shelby Leigh

Hi everyone and welcome back to Small Steps to Self-Love. My name is Shelby Leigh. I'm a mental health writer. And today I am joined by Sahara Rose De Vore, who is a wellness travel coach and the founder of the Travel Coach Network, a global community of travel coaches. Sahara went from broke college student to traveling to 84 countries solo to becoming the CEO of her travel businesses. I adore travel and I am so excited to chat with you today about all things travel self-love and how travel can be great for yourself, love and your mental health. So thank you for being here. I would love to pass it over to you just to introduce yourself a little bit more and tell us what you do. 

Sahara

Thank you. Thanks Shelby so much for having me. Um, I'm really excited to be here today because I think a lot of us love travel and it's so gilling in so many different ways. But yeah, like you said, I, I started traveling. Well, I traveled a different countries, but that started right after university. Um, I was someone who. knew my career path in life. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I wasn't like my friends who in high school knew what they wanted to study in university. And then when I was in university, I hopped between different majors. I just really didn't know what direction I wanted my life to go in. And I was changing schools my third year of university. And I was moving back across country to the Midwest in the States. And I was moving to Chicago. very small window of time to find a school to get into. And I came across a tourism and hospitality program. And I was like, hey, travel, that sounds cool. Like who doesn't like to travel? Not thinking that I would ever really get to travel because I was just a struggling, broke college student. And I was really inspired in my program by the different Florida exchange students and stuff. And so I decided to change my money mindset. And when I graduated, I could have obviously taken any job in the tourism and hospitality industry. Travel is very well known for tourism and hotels and everything, but none of that really satisfied me. Even though I never knew what I wanted to do in life, I'm very good at knowing and making decisions on what I don't want to do and what doesn't make me happy. And so I was like, you know what, I'm going to just book a one-way ticket to Ireland. I'm going to do what this thing called backpacking Europe is. and I thought I was gonna go for a month and a half because I was also in a place where, despite not knowing what my career path was, I was also in a place mentally where I have always struggled with anxiety. I started having bouts of depression in university as I was finishing school and all these other pressures. And I just wasn't in a good headspace. And so I was like, your fight or flight? I was like, I'm a flight person. So I literally got out of flight this time a list to my adventures around the world. That's amazing. How do you been to other countries before growing up? Or was this really just a first time thing for you? I had not. So my family, I didn't come from a family that traveled at all or didn't really talk about travel. Our extent of traveling was my grandmother's from Mexico. And so when I was little, we would drive from Wisconsin all the way across to Southern Texas, and across the border to Mexico to visit her family. And her family in Southern Texas. And then my grandfather's family's from the French region of Canada, and we would do a road trip across the border to Canada. But I was so young, I only remember bits and pieces of that. And then I did one international trip with my mom and her ex-husband at the time, and that was Dominican Republic. But that was when I was 15 or 16, but it was an all-inclusive resort. So it was very gated and very secluded from the remainder of the country. So it was very, you know, you didn't get the full experience of the people or the country itself. So that's really all I had done. I'd never been anywhere by myself before though. 

Shelby

Wow. So what were those first moments, like those first days, weeks of traveling solo? Like, did you feel like increased anxiety? Were you nervous or were you like having the time of your life? What was that like? 

Sahara

My initial reaction was I was very excited. I booked my trip and I packed my bag. I got on the flight. Like I was just really excited. when I landed in Ireland, when I got off the plane, I remember feeling like, oh my god, I can't believe I'm doing this. And I'm somewhere by myself and I'm in another country. Like, it was hard for me to wrap my mind around. But I ended up staying with a family or a friend of like one of my mom's friends for the first four or five days in Ireland. So I had a little bit of a cushion to be with someone who, you know, was in from this place. And could kind of show me around a little bit. But after those four or five days, I then ventured off on my own. But I do remember those first couple days though, I was like, what am I doing? How am I going to be able to do this? Like, can I actually do this? And then money's always been an issue for me when I was younger. I just had to do a lot of work on money mindset. And, you know, even though I saved up quite a bit to travel, I was like, in the back of my mind, I'm like, can I afford this? Like all of that stuff that eats at you every day. Definitely. And how do you feel like all of that travel affected your mental health and self love long term? I'm hoping it had a positive effect. But can you tell us about that? Yeah, I mean, obviously, I didn't know how beneficial travel is going to be for me. I literally was just trying to escape my internal problems and and stresses and anxieties. And, you know, this was far before I started my businesses. And before I did research on actually the wellness benefits of travel. So alongside the Travel Coach Network, I'm a wellness travel coach myself. So I've done a lot of research in all this. But before I actually knew all of this research and evidence, I was just realizing how beneficial travel was on me. I was helping me manage my anxiety and learn more about my anxiety. I learned how I could manage it better, what triggered me in different ways. And I, was also becoming more fulfilled in life. I was excited about what I was doing and the people I was meeting and I was just the places I would go and the sceneries and the nature that I would spend time in were really healing to me. I had a lot of time for self-reflection and to really identify who I was, I was building my compassion and empathy. I learned what mattered to me in life, what didn't matter to me in life. gratitude for what I have, what my home country has, and also what we don't have, and being grateful for that too. And, you know, travel really shaped me into who I was, and of course, inspired me to start my businesses. So I always say travel is my greatest professor, and it has also been my greatest doctor as well, because of how beneficial it has been for me. 

Shelby

Yeah, that's amazing. I haven't done a full solo trip. I studied abroad for a semester in England when I was in college. And even though I was around other students, the days that I would go off exploring on my own were some of the most like best memories that I have, because it was just so like freeing, you feel really empowered. And it's just even like something as small as that can really be beneficial. So I can't even imagine the long term benefits of how much you traveled solo. I love to learn more about like the money mindset that you've brought up a couple times. What tips do you have for people who don’t have the budget to travel as much as they would like to? What tips do you have for people getting started with that, either overcoming those money blocks or traveling on a budget, things like that? 

Sahara

Yeah, I mean, I was like a lot of people when I was younger, think who think that traveling is extremely expensive, that you can only do it once or twice a year because it takes a big bite out of your budget and all of that stuff. So I just never thought it would be But when I was in university, I grew up as a only child to a single mom and we didn't have very much. There were times where we couldn't even afford food if we didn't get it from. If we didn't eat at my grandparents house, then I wasn't having dinner for the night. And so in my head, since I was young, I'm very empathetic or I'm an empath. So like, even though my mom never put this on me, always remember building this idea that like I have to hold on to money and so I carried that throughout my years so I bust my butt working in university when I had when I was inspired to start traveling or wanting to travel I was still two years I still had a year and a half left of university but I said when I'm grad when I graduate my I'm gonna go to Europe and again I could barely by myself. And so I was like, well, I have to figure this out. And what I've always been really good at is figuring things out. Like if I say I'm going to do something, I've always been very dependent on myself. And so I decided to take a look at, you know, my jobs, or my schedule and see where I can fill time with jobs. So I really just took on different roles and got different jobs. I had flexible jobs. nanny and babysit. I started working in the restaurants in Chicago, which were lucrative. I signed up for different staffing agencies. So a lot of flexibility where like I would get the opportunities coming to me and then I could say yes or no to them. So that's what I did with like babysitting offers, nanny offers, working in trade shows and conventions for the staffing, working different events. I would be able to say yes, I can work that or not. So because I was also so busy and I was also full-time in school I didn't have time to spend money other than my regular expenses, but I would also take a look at where it was, what my expenses were. So I would, I remember getting rid of my TV and my cable at the time. And this is before like streaming and Netflix and all this stuff, which was legal. So I just didn't have TV for a long time because I had a goal in mind. My goal was to save money and that's what I was prioritizing. So I just really worked a lot. Even though that, you know, working. lot in the restaurant industry. So it was adding to my anxiety issues as well at the time. But I reached my goal, which was to save enough money so I could afford to go traveling. And I traveled on a budget. And not saying that I had to compromise my safety or my comfort, because not necessarily I didn't necessarily do that. And of course, I didn't compromise my safety. But I was very mindful of how I spent my money. And I got I would be really creative. I would post on Facebook at the time and say, hey, I'm going this region. I'd have a friend be like, oh, my sister lives over there. Do you want to stay with her? So I would find different ways to save some money here and there. And I just got really, really good at these budget travel hats. And that sustained my travels. I, contrary to popular, I think I was a little bit more popular belief, I never ran out of money. I wasn't going to allow myself to do that. They also had a mom who depended on me for finances over the years too. And I never wanted to put that stress on myself. But I'm a firm believer that like if you set a goal, and you have, you know, there's no such thing as compromises, because we all make decisions in life. But if you prioritize where your decisions go, you can really achieve And my goal was I wanted to see the world. I wanted to go any, I literally would print out a map, a printer map and I would take it to, I would fly to a region of the world. No idea where I wanted to go. And I'd look at this map and be like, where should I go today? You know, I'd talk to people and be like, where did you go? Where did you come from? Like, what did you see? Oh, I'll go there. How did you get there? So, you know, it's, there's different ways to go about it, but I sculpted my life. How I wanted it to be. you. 

Shelby

Yeah, I love that. That's amazing. So if someone listening wants to do their first solo trip, like they're ready to go, what is like maybe your top tip or your first step that you would recommend that they take for planning the trip or for finding those budget hacks you were talking about? Like what does that first step look like? 

Sahara

Well, my inner travel coaching comes out. And I always say, first, you have to identify why do you want to travel? Because there's many different places in this world to travel to. There's so many different things to do and see, but setting intentions for your trip is a really important step. I knew for me, for example, when I started traveling, I wanted places that would help me heal internally. I knew that I needed places that I actually loved. Like I'm not a big city person. I knew that was going to cause me more anxiety. I wanted to be in nature. I wanted to be immersed in other cultures and other ways living. I wanted to be among the locals and not with the tourists. So, sending intentions for where you want to go and what you're actually looking to get out of a trip and how do you want to feel from this trip during the trip and also when you return home. Because not everyone can travel for long term. So, because as we know, travel is a really powerful tool for us to help us in so many different aspects of our life. And we return to it to heal, to learn, to connect with people, but we often don't identify and recognize that in the beginning, because if you do that, then you can be like, well, I want to go to somewhere where, you know, it's more peaceful and serene, or I need to go somewhere where I can meet people. I want to have conversations and hear stories and create my own stories, or I want to go somewhere where people haven't really been before because I want to see amazing nature and waterfalls and be all stricken. There's so much research behind all of this. Right. intentions. So when you do do that, I mean, honestly, some of my favorite budget tips and hacks, I do have I did end up putting them all in a book. Well, hey, you just go because I had a lot of people asking me how I was able to do it. Hey, you just go but some of my favorite tips are honestly, like, simple websites like I use sky scanner.com the majority of the time like 90% of the time. I use booking.com often nowadays when I started traveling, there was no such thing as like apps and phones, these smartphones and all this stuff. Like I had nothing, I had paper maps that had to knock on accommodation doors. So we have so many resources nowadays. But changing that mindset also that you can't afford it because there really are, it's a give and take with your budget. Maybe a place costs more to get to. But once you're there like Southeast Asia or South America, it's more affordable to live. You live off of a couple dollars a day. So it's finding, you know, what works best for you. 

Shelby:

That makes sense. And I'll definitely link the book in the description and check it out myself because that sounds very helpful. 

Sahara

I forget that I have the book because it's the very first thing that I did, but I used to blog. I wasn't a blogger. I never made money blogging, but I used to blog have any other tools to tell my mom where I was located in the world. And so I would just wonder now I was okay by writing in a blog and I realized that my two most popular blog posts, and this was years and years ago, were very similar. And one was how to travel the world when you can't afford it. And the other one was like the top budget trap tips to like travel the world. And so I was like, I'm just going to turn this into a book because clearly people are looking for it. Right. 

Shelby:

Yeah, that's smart. That makes sense. I was going to ask you what your favorite place you've traveled is, which you probably get asked all the time, but you made me want to ask instead, if you have one, what place do you feel like you found the most healing since you talked about that being one of your goals? 

Sahara:

Yeah, that's a really great question. Um, place that really stands out to me is always my time in the Philippines. And I choose that because I was, I lived in the Philippines on an island that was hit by a super typhoon and I had nothing with me. I had nothing and I was living with people who had nothing and they're nothing got taken away from them and they were the happiest people. So my time there really put into perspective how little material things matter and happiness doesn't rely on material things and really all that really matters is your health and your loved you know, in their health and safety. And so just speeding off of the energy of people that I was surrounded by there really transformed my perspective on life and who I am and what matters to me. And, you know, and then also it is a place where it has nature, it has water, I'm an aquarius, the water is healing and I spent a lot of time at bodies of water and self-reflection. It's not a very touristy place, which I absolutely love. I literally was just living like a local and I loved it. 

Shelby

Yeah, that sounds beautiful. Wow, that's awesome. So I usually close out episodes by giving my, it's called Small Steps to Self-Love. So I give my listeners a small step. But whenever I have a guest, I like to ask them. So whether it's travel related or not, that's okay. But what is a small step that you would recommend our listeners take with us this week on self-love, ways to improve their self-love? 

Sahara

I think the most important step yourself and to find what makes you happy. And that's always important because we have only one life to live. And if you're not, if you're not living it by doing what makes you truly happy, what's the point, right? Like, it's, we have decisions that the decisions that we have in life, we can make. And so it's surrounding yourself with people that make you happy. day in a way that makes you happy, even if I mean, I know everyone has like busy jobs and stuff, but like taking a little bit of time to sit in the sunshine or something that makes you happy. It's those small steps that really makes a big, bigger picture overall that is really important. 

Shelby:

I love that. Totally agree. This week, everyone prioritize yourself a little bit and do something that makes you happy. Perfect. Thank you. This has been wonderful. Just to close out with where people can find you. interested in travel coaching and learning more about you and what you do, where should they go? 

Sahara:

Yeah, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, at the Travel Coach Network and the Travel Coach Network.com. We have our Facebook groups. If you just search Travel Coaching, most likely to be anything Travel Coach Network. But then myself personally, I'm Sahara Rose, the Travel Coach on Instagram and Facebook. 

Shelby

Perfect. and I'll have those linked in the description of the episode as well. Thank you so much for being here and sharing your travel tips with us, your mental health and self-love experience with us. I really appreciate it. 

Sahara

Thank you so much Shelby for having me. It was a joy. 

Shelby

And thank you everyone for listening. Have a wonderful week filled with self-compassion and love. Talk to you next week.