Lessons from Solo Traveling with Adele Wang

• How solo travel helps you go deeper with people you meet (4:55)
• Rethinking compromise in relationships (8:13)
• The transformative power of solo travel for personal growth (19:48)
• Quieting the noise of societal conditioning around women and solo travel (25:28)
• How solo travel elevates your self-worth journey (34:24)
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I travel for myself, for work, away from my husband. But just a trip to indulge for yourself completely alone is, I think, really undervalued.

I think there’s something about solo travel that there’s no substitute for … it takes a good three or four days for your brain to just switch into a different mode. There’s nothing like being physically put into an unfamiliar surroundings to turn on the rest of you that’s sort of atrophied.

Go do something and find these parts of you that have fossilized. That’s when you come alive.

It was nourishing to me in a spiritual way, more so than if I was just talking about my sadness.

Be adventurous and see what parts of you will come alive when you’re in a place you’ve never been before on your own; thinking on your feet and asking, “what do I want to eat today?” When you’re traveling, every meal is an adventure.

I had to see different kinds of sunlight. I needed to eat different food, I needed to see the ocean, I needed to hear different kinds of language around me. I needed to be fed in a way that was not so cognitive.

NICOLE

Hello, friends. Welcome back to the School of Self-Worth. I’m your host, Nicole Tsong, and today is such a fun topic. It’s all about solo travel. And I brought back one of your favorite guests for this conversation, Adele Wang. She and I got to talking during our last podcast episode where she was talking about the addiction to fixing yourself. So if you haven’t listened to that, which was Episode 32, make sure to check it out!

She and I started to chat about the topic of traveling solo. So Adele lost her husband recently and she took a solo trip, where she had such profound insights and learnings for herself during that trip, and I wanted to bring her on to talk about it, because I did the same thing. I had a very epic solo trip a couple of years ago, post-divorce, and I learned so much about my own self-worth, where I was missing it, and how to really reclaim it for myself during that time. So for those of you who are new to Adele, she mentors professionals struggling with stress and craving a life of purpose, meaning, and connection. And she’s the host of the All Things Human podcast, and a frequent speaker on consciousness, business, psychology, and personal development. So we had such a rich, fun conversation about this particular topic of traveling solo as a woman.

So get ready and dig in with us as we have such an awesome, enlightening conversation. Also, if you’re an Asian American woman leader who wants the exact step-by-step to understand the secret language of intuition, I’ve got a private podcast that gives you the complete behind the scenes on how to master intuitive communication patterns. Dm me secret at Nicole on Instagram, to get all of the details.

Okay, friends, let’s do this. Let’s dig in. Welcome to the School of Self-Worth, a podcast for ambitious women who know they are worthy of an astoundingly great life. Join us weekly as we get on the right side of your intuition, redefine success, and reclaim your self-worth. I’m your host, Nicole Tsong, an award-winning journalist who left it all behind to become a best-selling author of three books and work/life balance expert, helping ambitious women unlock their intuition and step into a life of fulfilment and radical joy. Every single week, I will bring you diverse and meaningful conversations with successful women from all walks of life who share insight about what it takes to be brave, joyful and authentic every day. Every episode is thoughtfully designed to leave you feeling empowered with tangible tips and advice that will lead you to your next breakthrough.

Well, Adele, I’m so happy to have you back on the School of Self-Worth, thank you for being here, and if you didn’t catch up on part one with Adele, we really talked a lot about this constant need to improve yourself all the time, at the very end of our conversation, so go back and listen to that. If you’re wondering whether you’re a self-improvement, self-help junkie, that last episode is definitely for you. And then, at the very end, Adele mentioned that she had traveled alone, and it just prompted this thought, it’s such a good topic, because I feel like that’s something where, especially if you’re married or you have a partner, you start to get used to traveling with other people and having those experiences together. And then when you brought it up, Adele, I actually also had a solo trip a couple of years ago to Hawaii, and it brought up a lot of things for me. So I just thought it’s such an interesting conversation, because I think as women, and, again, in partnerships, you tend to travel with other people. So I’m curious, if you wouldn’t mind sharing with us how this came about and what your experience was like going through this?

ADELE WANG

Oh, I love this topic. And I think it’s useful to ping into why we travel, because I think there are different reasons. I think at least when my husband was around, when I was married, before he passed away, there was always the idea of going away to experience something, like, “Let’s go to Paris. Let’s go to a city. Ooh, I want to experience something objective”. Sometimes there would be the, “Oh, I want to get away to, like, a beach, which is, I don’t want stimuli. I just want peace and quiet”. So in terms of traveling, there was always a little bit of a joint discussion. Let’s say he wants to go to Greece, and I want to go to Rome. So there’s a little bit of negotiating there. And if we wanted to get away, I was more of a mountain person, he’s more of a beach person, so there was some negotiation there.

I think it’s useful when you’re considering traveling by yourself, first of all, to know what you would like? Are you looking to immerse yourself in a culture? It’s nice when you finally get to decide where you would like to go, and not so much where we would like to go. It was very disorienting for me, actually, to not know what I wanted. It was always this ongoing discussion, and for this past trip, my motivation was really, I need to get the ‘heck out of Dodge’. I had lost my husband very suddenly. I was completely disoriented, so I wasn’t really going away to see the Louvre or anything that stimulating, but I did want to go. When I pinged on what I want, it was different than what Bill would have wanted. I wanted something more soulful, but not quite by myself either. So Bill would be like, “Okay, if we’re going to be quiet, let’s go to the beach or the mountains”.

This time I noticed I wanted something that’s a little bit more intentional, around maybe a small community. Basically, I went for a retreat, and that is something Bill just had no concept of. I don’t think men do retreats as much as women. And when I was married, I always sort of wrote those off, because unless you have a co-ed retreat, Bill would sort of have to be waiting around. But now that he’s not here, I thought I really want to do this, so on the spur of the moment, with not a whole lot of notice, I booked a trip to Malaga, Spain. Although Malaga is an amazing tourist place, a beautiful city on the coast of Spain, I really went for a retreat that was in the mountains. It’s a beautiful retreat center. A group of women, who were not back and forth into town every day, more in the mountains, more secluded, and for me, that is exactly what I needed.

It was a different kind of travel. It reminds me a little bit of the book that came out a while ago. Eat, Pray, Love. When people just have to get away to find themselves. That was kind of where it was at. So I think there are different kinds of travel, and when you’re by yourself, you get to think more about what you would like and how you would like to do it. Bill had a different traveling style than me, so it brings up a lot about how you would like to move in the world.

NICOLE

Totally. Thank you for sharing all of that Adele, and I feel like that talk, we’re talking about the container of travel, but this is something I actually work a lot on with the women that I’m working with, like, what are your preferences? What do you really want in life? And often people who are partnered, they struggle with deferring a little sometimes. Especially women, we’re really trained into that societally, to always defer to “What do you want?” And then all of a sudden, your needs aren’t really brought into the equation sometimes.

ADELE WANG

Absolutely. And one thing that I’ve discovered for myself and with my clients, is that I think we’ve been sold this idea that’s not always very useful, for example, I want a grey wall color and Bill wants blue wall color, so we compromise and get beige, where neither of us are happy!  I think that’s what we’ve been trained to do. You want this. I want that. Let’s sort of meet in the middle, but it ends up being something that neither person was really excited about. And so I think in partnership, it’s useful to go for something that we both like, instead of a watered-down kind of compromise, like, what’s possible? I think that stretches our negotiation skills, taking a stand for what we want instead of just automatically deferring. And when you’re traveling by yourself, all of a sudden, you don’t have to defer to anybody, then it’s like, oh, well, I don’t know, so there’s a lot of self-exploration in that.

NICOLE

Well, that’s what I was thinking about when you were speaking, because when I went on a trip by myself to Hawaii for nine days, at first it felt weird because it’s taking this tropical, beautiful trip that usually I would take with a partner or family. My divorce was almost complete at that time, and I didn’t plan it that way. The universe kind of aligned where I planned the trip, and the divorce literally was completed, signed and sealed, while I was gone. I treated it as a divorce trip. But it was really interesting because I learned so much about myself by going alone. This wasn’t a trip like a retreat or with my girlfriends. It was literally me surrounded mostly by couples in this beautiful place and just exploring on my own. I had to really check in a lot because I had nobody else to ask. I was like, well, what do you want to Nicole, you get to decide? What do you want for dinner? Do you want to go on this adventure? And I’m curious how that experience was for you, when you had to literally make all the decisions?

ADELE WANG

I love this because what I should mention is that the first portion of my trip to Spain was an intentional retreat. So when you show up, pretty much everything is already decided in terms of the food, which was wonderful. There was an itinerary because I just wanted to be taken care of. I was such a wreck. But then after the retreat, I actually stayed in Spain on my own, kind of like what you might have done in Hawaii – to travel by myself for three days, four days. And that is a different experience, because from moment to moment, I had a few ideas. I want to see this and that, but for me, I learned so much about myself just sitting my butt down in a cafe on a sidewalk in Malaga, and sitting there watching people and just feeling the sights of the city, noticing things, and also not the constant chatter when you’re talking with someone, you can be so involved with the conversation, you don’t notice as much. I’ve noticed this, like hiking by yourself versus hiking with a partner or a group. It’s not better or worse. It’s just different, and at first, I was a little disoriented, like, I’m sitting there kind of lost in the experience. I think I was a little self-conscious at first. I’m by myself at a table for one, and I was caught up with that. I think it took a couple of days, and that went away. And it was very freeing because no one else noticed. I’m just like, bombing around.

I learned quite a bit about myself in terms of just, I feel like this, and I’m going, we don’t need to plan, we don’t need to negotiate. Bill was not as much into museums as I was, so he would tire after a little bit. So there was a sense of, well, okay, so I don’t get to see everything I want. There was a little bit of that instead of, well, I’m going to go for as long as I want or as short as I want. Very freeing.

NICOLE

Well, and you realize when you’re traveling alone and doing things like that, and retreat or not, like sometimes I found myself setting time limits, or trying to create a plan or a structure, even though there was no structure in the day, because I was so used to structure. And then I really had to let myself be like, hey, you can just do whatever you feel like. You don’t have to follow and adhere to any artificial idea of how to structure the day.

ADELE WANG

Absolutely. And I don’t know about you, but in my situation with Bill, neither of us were very strong planners, so there was always a kind of hoping the other person would set the tone or take the lead, because it’s easier to take someone else’s suggestions, and this was a theme in our relationship, that we were so hoping someone else would just do the heavy lifting, it was a growth edge for our relationship of how to negotiate so that people aren’t just waiting to be led. And I think in Bill’s situation, he worked so hard in a leadership position high up in Microsoft, that the last thing he wanted on vacation was more leadership, and he was married to someone like me who hates planning. I can’t stand the logistics. So we found a way, a travel agent, a good old-fashioned travel agent, to give us an itinerary.

We would pick it apart and add this, take away that. And that was how we found our way. Instead of just bickering too much about it, we found someone whose job is to plan something lovely, and that was something we learned: If there’s something that neither of us likes to do, if you can outsource it, so much the better. And then when I was traveling by myself, I also had a travel agent suggest a few things. But I told her I needed at least two afternoons of nothing, just wandering around the streets of Malaga, where I discovered this, I discovered that.

So how do you like to travel? And I tend to be very intuitive in the moment. I don’t want too much planned, I just want to go with the flow.

NICOLE

Yeah, and I feel like what you’re sharing too, and I love how you’re talking about both. I feel I consider both the practical components of it, and then that intuitive self-worth place of it, which are different. You have to kind of dance between the two. It’s like the physical, like you had a travel agent who supported you, you had to retreat, and then some structure and then there’s that intuitive worthiness of like, how can you know? Because that was actually what I was struggling with on my trip. Feeling worthy of this. It felt very indulgent. Like I’d stayed at a really nice resort for a couple of days. I took myself out to dinner and I was just like, wow, am I worthy of just being able to splurge on myself? Because I had actually never really splurged completely on a travel trip like that. And I’m curious if that came up for you?

ADELE WANG

It did. And I don’t know, somewhere in my brain programming, my brain is just programmed to be frugal all the time. I don’t know why. I don’t need to be. But sitting down at a restaurant, my eyeball would naturally gravitate towards things that were less expensive, then I thought, well, why not? So, yeah, I did feel a little weird ordering something just for me and something that I wanted to try. A little exotic there, or, I never heard of this dish, and just going for it.

And I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. There’s something about travel that will force you out of your comfort zone, or it’s going to show you exactly where your comfort zone is, and especially if you’re partnered, because we’re both a little disoriented, a little bit prickly sometimes. How does the metro work? Or we got to get here on time. Who’s reading the map? It’s not always as easy as people think, unless you’re on a cruise ship or something where you’re just taken care of. But I like to be on my feet and figuring things out. So when you’re traveling with someone, there’s a little bit more static in the air. He’s trying to figure it out, I’m trying to figure it out. Then being by myself, I didn’t have anyone to bicker with. I had to sort of figure it out by myself, and I was quite proud of myself.

NICOLE

Yeah. How did that feel then for you? Were you challenged by that, or did you enjoy it more than you thought you did, or did stuff come up for you because you’re like, oh, am I not supposed to enjoy this?

ADELE WANG

I actually alternated. There were moments where I felt a little bit vulnerable, I’ll be honest. I had a mishap on the last two days where my wallet disappeared. It disappeared with my credit cards and cash. Here I am in a foreign country with no ID, not a good feeling. I remember feeling, gosh, I’m by myself. Some of the people there didn’t speak English, so I was just like, oh my God, then I’m like, oh, my gosh, where’s Bill? If someone were there, blah, blah, blah. Then I realized, well, you call the police. The police speak English. There’s someone around who speaks English. You learn to get more resourceful instead of, where’s someone to back me up? But I was a little bit more careful. There were times that I didn’t divulge too much. I was just using a little bit of common sense. And I was considering going to Morocco because I realised, wow, I’ve come this far around the world, then some people would say not by yourself, maybe it’s better to join a group, you know nothing about Morocco. I’m like, heard of it? Let’s go. And people said, well, for that you might want a little bit more guidance. So I could feel where my edge of comfort was. Like some women, no problem, they go to Tunisia all by themselves. I haven’t mastered that level of adventurous risk yet. So maybe the next trip.

But I was around some women who are very savvy. They have traveled the world, and they know how to travel. They’ve been single a long time. Sometimes they’re joining single women’s travel groups, sometimes they’re backpacking. I’m like, oh my God, that would be new for me, to backpack around Europe. Was that something you ever considered?

NICOLE

Well, I mean, I actually did that in college, but I say backpacking, we were really in hostels and using backpacks versus to me, real backpacking is like in the mountains. But yeah, I totally did the backpack around Europe when I was in college, but I was doing it with girlfriends. I was with a couple of other people, and I think also at that age when you’re 20/21, you don’t have that fear, you have the wariness, but it’s not quite the same.

ADELE WANG

Exactly.

NICOLE

And then once you are older and you’ve been with partners or people and you haven’t traveled as much, I think that’s the big thing. And one of the things I got out of taking a trip by myself is that I probably should do this on occasion. You know what I mean? I travel for myself, for work, away from my husband, but just a trip to indulge for yourself completely alone is, I think, really undervalued.

ADELE WANG

It really is because you start to get out of your brain and feel more sensual of the experience. And for me, traveling now at this age by myself, I think is different than how I might have traveled when I was in my 20’s, because at this point in my life I wasn’t as interested in the least expensive option of everything. I mean, I could have stayed at a hostel, and I thought, no, I don’t think so. So I learned about myself. I have a certain standard now for comfort and safety that I wouldn’t have had in my 20’s.

We’re at different points in life. I don’t know if that means I’m less adventurous. Maybe it’s just I have a standard of what my body needs. Food was more important. I think in my 20’s I would have just eaten anything. Street food is fine, but I also said, no, I want the experience. I’m going to go to a nice restaurant and really experience this for myself. I wouldn’t have thought of that in my 20’s. So I think there’s a little maturing process that when you traveling, your focus is different than a little later.

NICOLE

I totally felt the same way because I was like, okay, I’m going to go to a nice restaurant. I’m going to order the drinks and the food, and I’m going to really enjoy myself. And then I cooked some of the time when I was there, and I also rented a car and went on adventures on my own, but I chose adventures where I felt like other people were around and it wouldn’t be totally isolated, right? But it’s an interesting thing because one of the things I really got out of it is for so many of us who have partners or previously were partnered, that it is actually important to occasionally test this. Because you and I talked about this a little bit in our last conversation, about how important it is for us to really tune into ourselves and know who we are, and I think that traveling by yourself is one of those, the biggest ones, especially if you have been partnered for a long time. Like, wow, will you learn so much about yourself? Even if you took three days alone to take a trip and not with girlfriends and not just literally by yourself? I think that’s key.

ADELE WANG

I think there’s something about solo travel that there’s no substitute for it, and I think it has to be for, I would like to say at least an extended period. Anyone can go solo for a day, but if you were to go solo, I think it takes a good three or four days for your brain to just switch into a different mode. At least I know for me, once I landed in Spain, I don’t know, I was not the real me for a while, probably. I was just so keyed up and it took a good four or five days, or maybe a week before I noticed. I was just thinking differently, because there’s nothing like being physically put into unfamiliar surroundings to turn on the rest of you, that’s sort of atrophied.

When you’re in your house, you’re living your regular schedule. There are parts of you that go to sleep. I think they literally go to sleep, and you don’t notice how much is on autopilot. And autopilot makes day to day living easy. We’re not constantly thinking about our next meal or how to get out of the driveway or how to get to the grocery store. But when everything is unfamiliar, these parts of us, I think, come online and there’s a little bit of fits and starts, but that’s good. You start to feel more like, oh, this is where I’ve been. Like, I’m alive again. Maybe talking to people you wouldn’t normally talk to. I think that’s always interesting how people change on travel. I don’t know about you, but I discovered I was having conversations with people that I wouldn’t have thought I would.

NICOLE

Well, I feel like I actually talked a lot more to people who worked where I was at, and that was interesting because people who were on vacation, I didn’t end up talking to, but I went to Hawaii, right. Also after they had opened up, after the pandemic, I really learned a lot about the place in a way, because I wouldn’t have talked to them otherwise, because if I was with somebody else, I would have been talking to them the whole time. And sure, we would have chit chatted a little bit with people who work there, but I really had longer conversations because I was by myself, so they would talk to me. And then I really learned so much about lockdown on Kauai and how challenging it was for them, and I felt like I really got a much deeper insight into the place I was visiting. I agree, it’s because I was alone.

ADELE WANG

There’s something about time, because if there’s someone there, not that they’re waiting on you, but when you have nothing but time, and it’s just you and your attention is not distracted, (not to say that someone with you wouldn’t be a great part of the conversation), but there seems to be something so lovely about not having anyone or anywhere to go, just you, with whoever you’re talking to, and I think people can feel that, because there’s something about traveling in a group. There’s this group energy, people traveling in groups, which is lovely, it’s a different experience, but I don’t know if it just feels different. What do you think?

NICOLE

I’m with you, because I feel like everything about going on a trip by myself was challenging for me, because even when I was leading up to it and trying to get friends to go with me, and no one would go for whatever reasons, and then I had to tell people I was going by myself. And even that was like a challenge. They’re like, you’re just going to go ninety’s in Hawaii by yourself? And I’m like, yeah, great. I mean, people were encouraging and supportive, but I had to feel ownership of that choice. And then once I was there and being present, being present without being anxious, is such a balance.  I think for women it’s really trained into us that we’re constantly in danger if we’re by ourselves or in unfamiliar places, right? And so I had to really work that with myself. I had to work on how do I feel about eating something really lovely for myself, indulging for myself, or going for a hike by myself, and then just literally making so many decisions the whole time I was alone and every piece of that, I feel like I was really stretched when I went by myself. Like, pretty much the entire trip, I felt stretched. And then I felt so proud of myself because it was so big for me.

ADELE WANG

Yeah, and I didn’t realize how much I had internalized the idea of the man protecting the woman, because we don’t realize this, it’s subconscious. But for me to go off by myself, even I was a little bit embarrassed about it at first. Like, you don’t have anyone to go with you or with this weirdness.

NICOLE

Right.

ADELE WANG

I realized I’d subconsciously expected Bill to sort of be my protector everywhere we go. And like, why? Where did that come from?

NICOLE

I have that too, and then we’re talking, obviously, very heteronormative relationships, but it’s still funny because sometimes I’m like, well, could they actually protect me? Are we actually safer? Or is it just this mentality that you’re safer because there’s someone else there? And it is really interesting because I felt the same way sometimes for me, like, oh, I can relax because someone else is with me. But then what do you sacrifice sometimes with that in terms of you really paying attention and being present and tuning into yourself, instead of releasing to the other person?

ADELE WANG

I think maybe we’ve over-exaggerated certain know; there’s no reason I just went to Malaga, Spain. We’re not talking about some place where you really do need to know what you’re doing. And I have a lot of respect for the seasoned traveler woman, the solo traveler woman, that knows how to keep herself safe. She’s taken on that responsibility for herself. She’s very savvy do this. Not that it’s just common sense for people who travel a lot. I’m like, “Good on you”. But how much have we exaggerated this idea that, by yourself, are you going to be okay? Not that anyone ever said that, but there was a little bit of that echo in me, whether I learned it somewhere from our culture, you’ve got to be careful? I don’t think that’s helpful. I don’t know. It’s something I’m unpacking, because I don’t think men think this way. If men want to go, they just go. They don’t sit there and think about the fact that they are a single guy, but women have been conditioned to be a little more cautious. Now the truth is probably in the middle somewhere. Obviously, it’s useful to take care when necessary, but if we have made women scared and nervous, I don’t think that encourages women to go do something and find these parts of you that have fossilized and go to your mean. That’s when you come alive. And once you’ve done it once, you want to do it again, right? Like the first time, it’s always, “Can I do this? I’ll bind myself.”  Then it’s “Heck, yeah, totally”.

NICOLE

Well, and it’s interesting for me because I’ve been married for less than a year, and so now I’m looking at this experience where it’s like taking myself away from people feels harder. It’s not so much about going away. It’s more about removing myself from the people I love and being around them. It’s an interesting balance because back then, when I was single and it was also pandemic times, I’m like all I have is time on my hands, then it was such a good stretch. Now I feel like the stretch for me is like taking that space, and I feel like for a lot of the women listening, probably that’s the case for them, too. It’s like the stretch of, can you just go by yourself, and not anybody else? That is like the ultimate level, because I feel like women struggle to take ten minutes for themselves every day, let alone actually investing fully in a trip for themselves. And it’s not a self-improvement trip in the traditional way. It’s not a retreat, it’s not like something else. But literally, the stretch is needing and taking some time by myself to explore, be with me. And I feel like that would continue to be a stretch for me, the idea of how would I make that work in a year for myself again?

ADELE WANG

I did notice a distinct difference between when I was going for a retreat, when there are people expecting me, and there’s a whole agenda, versus when I was on my own. And I’m glad I did that because it allowed me to feel the difference in my expectation of myself. On the one hand, there’s a program, and I’m in this beautiful place with women, but the other is you’re on your own, and that’s refreshing. I imagine if I were to do this again with Bill around, I think he would have been very puzzled. Why do you want to go by yourself? Do you not want to travel with me? There would have been a little bit more of that stickiness, and then I’d be like, ok, let’s go together, and I would not have had another solo experience because Bill wasn’t really a solo traveler himself. He was like, “Why would you want to go by yourself?” I’m like, “Because it’s awesome”.

I think if I had pushed it, he would have been fine with it, but, oh, my God, the guy would have been nervous about me every single day. I want you to check in. I want you to text me how you’re doing every night. I need to hear. Because he was like a worry wart, so I think we sort of programmed people to be unnecessarily afraid. And yet, if I were going to parts of the world that aren’t as secure, I would want somebody to know if I disappeared.

NICOLE

Well, this is funny, because I had a person in Seattle, Karen, who was my friend and my contact while I was gone. Every time I would keep her up-to-date, she wanted me to tell her what I was doing every day, so somebody knows what’s going on. I would just text her my itinerary and let her know if I was back. But then I was out on a hike one day, and I thought she really is far away from me. She’s in Seattle. I’m in Kauai. I’m on a hike. If something happens to me, it could be a long time before anybody knows what’s going on. That was an interesting experience to really feel alone on a totally different level. And at the same time, I also was totally fine. It’s an interesting balance, and I feel like we’re trained to not be alone. Someone has to know where you are at any given time.

ADELE WANG

Exactly right.

NICOLE

But I also knew that I was totally safe. It’s a really popular hike and there are lots of people around.

ADELE WANG

And it’s interesting you said that, because I actually felt less secure when I was hiking here in the US, than when I went to Spain by myself. There is a place in the Blue Ridge Mountains, it’s phenomenally beautiful, and this was after Bill passed away, and I was looking for a way to kind of grieve, and I realized things happen in American forests and parks. We see it every day in the news. There’s some woman who got abducted on this trail, and there was a very real know, when you’re out there in an American national forest by yourself, you do have to think about these things. This never crossed my mind in Malaga, Spain. I felt more physically insecure here in the US, because I knew if someone jumped me on a trail, it’s all over, there’s nobody around, and I’m not going to be packing anything. But I thought what a shame that you can’t even go into the mountains. I don’t care about bears and coyotes. I’m worried about two-legged people that go around and attack solo women. And I think that’s a real shame.

NICOLE

It does make you look at all of these things, and there’s just so much you and I, I think, both teach and work on this a lot. Like, so much conditioning. And I feel like what’s happening here is we’re just getting ready to talk about it, because that’s what happens. You go on a solo trip, you start to do things outside of your norm, and you really come up against that conditioning. That conditioning was really strong for me on that trip, and I really had to work myself through it every single day. But I’m actually really glad, because I feel like it made me see it in a totally different light.

When I was younger, I lived in China for a year by myself, and I was really aware of all that stuff when I was younger. And then you get into this comfortable life, and everything is really good, and then that travel does start to teach you how to stretch yourself again. And I loved what you talked about, awakening parts of yourself, because there are very real parts of ourselves that go dormant in certain times of our lives, and so how can you actually start to bring it back?

ADELE WANG

Exactly. They go underground. And I noticed that I really got to know things, instead of just believing things. There’s nothing like real-life experience. You might have had an expectation about something, or the way the Spanish folks are this way, or the Greek people are that way, and then you actually meet them, and you talk to them. I realised then to have a real life experience is nothing like what I read. I mean, maybe a few courtesies of how to say thank you and things like that, but people are people, and I think the more people can just run into each other and have a conversation, the better, because people are getting awfully siloed these days.

NICOLE

It’s true, it does. And it really stretches you to meet different types of people too. I’m also totally in the world, I know my people, I’m in my communities where I live. And then when you go somewhere else and especially a foreign country, although I wasn’t in a foreign country, but when you go to a new place and you really have to cross language barriers and cultural barriers, there’s so much richness there.

ADELE WANG

Yeah, it’s a wonderful experience. So if you’re listening and you’re kind of thinking about this, be adventurous and notice what parts of you will come online when you’re in a place you’ve never been before on your own, thinking on your feet and asking, what do I want to eat today? Even food from meal to meal is different than where you just go downstairs to your fridge, or just get something on the way home from work. You don’t even think about it. But when you’re traveling, every meal is an adventure.

NICOLE

Absolutely.

ADELE WANG

And how do you want to do it? Do you want to sit down? Do you want to buy something to go? Where do you do that? How much does it cost? I mean, all these things that you normally don’t have to think about. When I was in Spain, I never knew that a type of ham, called Iberian ham, is like the pride of Spain. I had no idea. It’s funny because what’s so ordinary to them, is exotic to me and vice versa.

NICOLE

Totally.

ADELE WANG

So, everybody, if you’re listening, do it. It’s good for you.

NICOLE

Yeah. And I would say this one’s going to come out at the beginning of the year, and it’s a great time to really look and reset. What are my priorities? How do I actually take care of myself? And if you’ve never done that before, I actually feel like it’s super important to be like, okay when I’m looking at the bigger picture of the year, instead of just slotting the things in that I always slot in, what is it that I really want? What’s really going to help me expand and know about myself? To me, I’m always like, okay, how am I going to know myself in a deeper way this year? And this is something I feel would be a really important way to get to know yourself in a different way.

ADELE WANG

Excellent. Because you’re around people who don’t know you. I mean, even if you travel with somebody, they already kind of know you. But you can be anyone if you wanted to. You could make up some wild story about what you do in the states. No one would know. But it’s very refreshing to be around people where no-one has any idea. You can recreate yourself. If you’re normally shy, you might find yourself talking up a storm. If you feel like trying on some bizarre, funky outfit that you normally wouldn’t because you’re more of a classic kind of dresser, you get to explore all kinds of yourself. Not a club person, but you’re going to go to some club in Paris just to see what that’s like. And no-one here has to know. That’s the thing.

NICOLE

Well, I have one more question for you, Adele. Because you were healing, obviously, from the passing of your husband, what did you find for yourself by taking that trip?

ADELE WANG

Oh, my goodness. For me, it was like I had to see different kinds of sunlight. I needed to eat different food, I needed to see the ocean, I needed to hear different kinds of language around me. I needed to be fed in a way that was not so cognitive. It’s kind of like being pulled out of one environment and plopped somewhere else, and just sort of being incubated with totally new experiences, new everything. That’s what I needed. I didn’t want to talk too much. And in the losing of myself, in the sensory, the sensual, the way the light hits the ground is different in Malaga than it does in Atlanta. And just noticing the way people move, their bodies are different, the diet is felt. I don’t know, it was very nourishing to me in a spiritual way, more than if I had just been talking about my sadness. So I just sat in a cafe sometimes and I might be crying, but I’m just sort of taking in the world. It’s like being in an incubator. At least that was for me. That’s what I needed. And the ocean is lovely. There’s nothing like soaking in the Mediterranean and feeling the salt water soothe.

NICOLE

Yeah. So powerful. Thank you for sharing that. Well, Adele, it’s been such a joy to have you on the conversation again. I just love talking to you. I feel like there’s just so many interesting insights, so many things we can keep talking on.

ADELE WANG

I love what you’re doing with your podcast. Thank you for having me back again, and you ask such wonderful questions.

NICOLE

Thank you. And what’s the best way for people to find out more about you?

ADELE WANG

Sure, I’m pretty easy to find. You just google my name or my website. Adele Wong with an A-W-A-N-G. I’m on a lot of the social media platforms. I do have a podcast, All Things Human. I would love to have you as a guest, Nicole, where we’re talking about the human spirit, what it takes to live this one bodacious life. We have one life. What are we spending our time doing? And I’m basically talking to people who have lived in a life of always getting ready. I’m working on myself at someday. Then my life will finally start. And we’re deep diving now. What do you need now? And that’s why I love this topic. You might need to just travel and find all these pockets of you that have fossilized, never been developed, or you didn’t even know, and come home changed in some way, because I’m more interested in being a traveler than a tourist.

A tourist is you go to see stuff, but it’s a little bit more of a consuming mindset. Like, I’m going to go see this. A traveler takes in everything, and it informs you, it informs your heart, it informs who you are, and you come back in some way changed. That, to me, is really the essence of our conversation. It’s not about just going to see something for the sake of seeing something. I want to go see the David, the Da Vinci, the Sistine Chapel. Those are all lovely, but it’s really more the experience that you come back changed in a way. You cannot get this out of books.

I do talk about this on my podcast, All Things Human. What’s happening to us? It’s an energetic immersion. And then we get out of all these weird things we’ve been taught, patriarchal or whatever it is. I’m on Instagram, YouTube, all the major channels. If people want to inquire, I’ve got a free gift on manifestation stress. People are welcome to download that or just reach out if you want to have a conversation.

NICOLE

Amazing. Well, Adele, thank you so much for sharing your gifts and your wisdom with the School of Self-Worth, and I’m so happy to have you back on with us today.

ADELE WANG

Thank you. I’ve enjoyed it.

NICOLE

Thank you so much for tuning into today’s episode. Before you go, don’t forget, if you are a high-achieving woman who wants to uncover your biggest blind spots preventing fast, intuitive decisions, I’ve got a 72-second assessment for you, so make sure to dm me quiz on at Nicole Tsong at Instagram, and thank you for being here and for listening. We read every note that we get from you about how the podcast is making a difference in your life. Please know how much we appreciate each and every one of you. Until next time, I’m Nicole Tsong, and this is the School of Self-Worth.