I didn't take my first real solo trip until my late 30s.

I'd traveled plenty before that -- with friends, with my husband, with family. But a trip that was entirely mine, planned around what I wanted to do, at the pace I wanted to move? That took me a while to get to.

And when I finally did it, I chose Istanbul.

I'm not sure I could explain exactly why. I'd been curious about the city for years -- the history, the food, the way it sits at the intersection of two continents and somehow feels like both and neither at the same time. It felt like the kind of place that would reward curiosity, which seemed like the right fit for a first solo trip.

I was right.

What I didn't expect about traveling alone

I expected to feel a little lonely. I expected to miss having someone to share meals with, or to turn to when I saw something beautiful and wanted to say, look at that.

What I didn't expect was how quickly that feeling would be replaced by something else entirely.

Freedom is the word that comes to mind, but it's not quite right. It was more like clarity. When you're traveling alone, every decision is yours. Where to go, what to eat, how long to stay somewhere, whether to skip the museum and spend the afternoon in a cafe instead. There's no negotiating, no compromising, no trying to figure out what everyone else wants.

It's just you and the city.

I spent three days in Istanbul, and I think I covered about a third of what I'd planned. Not because I ran out of time, but because I kept slowing down. I'd find a neighborhood I liked and just... stay there. I'd sit at a restaurant longer than I needed to because the tea was good and the people-watching was excellent.

I wasn't behind schedule. I didn't have a schedule. That was the point.

The city itself

Istanbul is one of those places that's hard to describe without sounding like you're overselling it.

The Hagia Sophia is genuinely as impressive as everyone says -- not just as a building, but as a place that has been so many things to so many people over so many centuries. Standing inside it, you get a sense of time that's hard to find anywhere else.

The Blue Mosque is right across the square, and the contrast between the two -- one converted, one still active -- says something interesting about the city's relationship with its own history.

The Grand Bazaar is overwhelming in the best possible way. I went in with no intention of buying anything and came out with a small ceramic bowl that I still use every day.

But honestly, some of my favorite moments in Istanbul happened away from the major sites. Walking through the Balat neighborhood in the early morning, when the streets were quiet and the light was doing something extraordinary. Finding a tiny restaurant that had no English menu and ordering by pointing at what the people next to me were eating. Taking a ferry across the Bosphorus just to watch the city from the water.

Those are the moments I remember most.

On traveling solo as a woman

I want to be honest about this, because I think it's important.

Istanbul is a city with a complicated reputation when it comes to solo women travelers. I did my research before I went, I was thoughtful about where I stayed and how I moved around, and I paid attention to my surroundings.

And my experience was overwhelmingly positive.

That doesn't mean every woman will have the same experience, or that there aren't things worth being aware of. It means that with the right preparation and a reasonable amount of street sense, Istanbul is absolutely manageable -- and genuinely wonderful -- as a solo destination.

I'll write more about solo travel safety in a future post, because I think it deserves its own space. But I didn't want to talk about Istanbul without acknowledging it.

What I brought home

A ceramic bowl. Some Turkish coffee. A few photographs.

But mostly I brought home a different relationship with traveling alone.

Before Istanbul, solo travel felt like something I was working up to. After Istanbul, it felt like something I wanted to do more of.

There's a version of travel that's about seeing things -- checking destinations off a list, collecting experiences. And there's nothing wrong with that. But solo travel, at least for me, is about something slightly different. It's about being present in a place without the buffer of other people's reactions and preferences. It's about finding out what you actually want when nobody else is weighing in.

Istanbul gave me that. And I'm grateful for it.

If you've been thinking about a solo trip and you're not sure where to start, I'd love to help you figure it out. Istanbul might be the right answer. Or it might be somewhere else entirely.

That's kind of the fun part.

-- Wendy
Curious Paths Travel