About
Three days into my first solo trip to Lisbon, I sat at a tiny restaurant in Alfama with a glass of wine I hadn’t planned to order and a view of the Tagus river I hadn’t planned to find. My train had broken down somewhere between Sintra and Cascais. My backup plan had fallen apart with it. And yet, sitting on that terrace with a plate of bacalhau and no one to negotiate with, I was the most at ease I’d felt in months. That detail has stayed with me ever since.
I am Madhu. I’m a working professional based in the USA, and JustMeOut.com is where I document what happens when I travel alone on purpose not because I have no one to go with, but because solo travel is the one thing in my week that belongs entirely to me.
A full time job, a social life, and a very specific need to sit at a restaurant table for one and order whatever I want without negotiating the itinerary with anyone. That’s me. If that sounds familiar, keep reading.
How Madhu started travelling solo
The first solo trip was booked on a Tuesday afternoon in 2019, mostly out of frustration. Everyone I knew was busy. The flights to Lisbon were cheap. I’d already pushed the trip back four times and I was done waiting, so I put it on the card. Then nearly cancelled three more times before the actual flight day.
On day three, the train broke down between Sintra and Cascais. No backup plan, no Portuguese beyond “obrigada,” and my phone at 11% battery. On a platform bench next to the tracks, I bought a pastel de nata from a kiosk for €1.20. It was the best thing I had eaten in years, possibly in my entire adult life. Sitting there while other passengers complained into their phones, I had one clear thought: I would not be here if I had waited for someone to come with me.
That trip changed how I use my leave. Since then, 14 solo trips across 9 countries, 11 of them taken while working full time, each fitted into 5 to 10 days of annual leave. Not a digital nomad. Not early retirement. Just someone who figured out how to make this work around a real schedule, and wants to save you the planning mistakes I made along the way.
Who this blog is for
Solo travelers, specifically the kind who have a full time job, limited annual leave, and no real interest in a hostel bar crawl.
As an introvert, I plan trips around restaurants and long walks and the specific satisfaction of having no one to compromise with. On one trip to Porto I ate at the same restaurant three nights running because the window seat was right and the bacalhau was the best I’d tried across 4 visits to Portugal over 6 years. Nobody asked me to justify it. I didn’t have to explain it to anyone. That is genuinely half the appeal of going alone.
Travelling with headphones, a book, and a preference for sitting at the bar rather than a group table? Then we’ll get along fine.
What JustMeOut.com is not
A highlights reel. Content generated by AI and tidied up to look human. Press trip writeups where someone else covered the hotel and a positive review was implied in the arrangement.
When a stay is sponsored, it’s disclosed clearly at the top of the post. Places that weren’t worth the trip get said so. The restaurant that looked terrible on the outside and turned out to be the best meal of the week gets the same treatment as the one with professional photos that served cold pasta at a table I’d booked three weeks in advance.
Not a policy statement. Just the only way this makes sense.
A few things about me
I’ve visited 12 countries, 10 of them solo. I plan trips around food first, walking routes second, and everything else gets worked out on arrival. The longest I’ve gone without checking work email on a trip is 30 days, and I’m still trying to improve that number.
I’ve eaten alone in restaurants across 10 countries. Some cities make it genuinely easy. Some make it feel like a social experiment. Porto makes it the least awkward by a significant margin, for what that’s worth.
Let’s plan your trip
Nervous about a first solo trip? That’s completely normal. My first was nearly cancelled three times, as you’ve just read.