Who she is: A 40-year-old therapist who lives with her husband and two kids in Houston.
Where she’s been: Calgary, Canada, Greece, Paris, Grenada, Mexico, Honduras, Jamaica, and all over the U.S., though Denver is her favorite.
Top of the bucket list: Returning to Grenada and going to Spain, Italy, Nigeria, Seychelles and Morocco.
Her solo story: Only a decade ago, Merrissa Hughes didn’t really know how to book her own flight. She made a mistake when she bought a ticket to meet friends in Las Vegas and had to pay extra because of it.
Cut to today, and now Merrissa has four international solo trips under her belt and plenty more in the works.
The 40-year-old mother of two got into solo travel after the death of several close family members, including a beloved aunt and her father.
“My dad had always wanted to go to Alaska, and he never went,” she said. “And so I thought, ‘What if I don’t get go to all these dream places that I’ve dreamt of just because of logistics?’ I wanted to empower myself to see the world and see other cultures, regardless of who could travel with me.”
Merrissa had also been chatting with a co-worker who was from Paris.
“I would just talk to her and dream about going to Paris, and I was like, ‘Well, why can’t I?'” she said. “That’s when I started booking these trips.”
First, Merrissa wanted to dip her toes into solo travel before going somewhere with a language barrier. So she went to Calgary, Canada.
“I was super scared and nervous,” she remembers feeling before she left on the trip in September 2022. “I got on the plane thinking, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ But I loved it. It was so beautiful and magical.”
Merrissa went to Greece later that same month and then, her dream destination of France in October 2022.
Besides fear, Merrissa said the biggest challenge to going on solo trips is “mom guilt” and answering questions from people who asked her what her kids would do while she was gone.
“I told them, I was like, ‘Those kids have a daddy,'” Merrissa said, adding that she wants to show both her 11-year-old daughter and her 14-year-old son that women can have lives outside of motherhood.
“I want them to care for and love their spouses and their children, but I don’t want their lives to end because of being married,” she said, adding that she wants them to know: “There’s space for you, as well.”
So, she “pushed down the mom guilt.”
“I told myself that I do deserve this, I deserve this time,” she said. “I hadn’t taken a vacation in three years, I had been working on all cylinders. I give back a lot to people and it was time for me to pour into my cup.”
One of the indulgences Merrissa has particularly enjoyed is splurging on photo shoots with professional photographers, which has cost her between $200 and $300. In return, she gets stunning photos that would never have been possible asking a stranger or setting up a tripod.
“When you are on vacation take all the pictures,” she wrote on Instagram when she posted an image from a professional shoot in Grenada in March 2023. “Be extra. Do you.”
Merrissa’s travels have not been without hiccups. She faced both a logistical nightmare and one scary night during her trip to Greece.
The logistical nightmare happened when her luggage was lost the entire week she was there.
“I’m plus size, and I’m Black and Greece is very not Black,” she said, explaining that it was challenging finding clothes that were flattering and makeup for her skin color. “It was a whole ordeal.”
Luckily Rihanna’s Fenty line at Sephora saved the day and her scheduled photoshoot.
Merrissa’s scary experience came when she was returning to Mykonos from a day trip and got off a bus thinking she could find her way back to the hotel. She quickly realized that she was turned around and wasn’t sure how to get back. It was dark and her phone was dying.
“Then this guy came up on a motorcycle. He was like, ‘Hey, you need to ride?’ And it was more than implied what getting a ride to the hotel meant,” she said.
Merrissa acted quickly by calling the hotel and sending the staff pictures of the street signs she was seeing.
“My thought was they could find me if I didn’t show up,” she said, adding that she also texted some friends that she was lost, her phone was dying and they should call the hotel to check on her.
“I’m Christian so I also prayed,” she said. “I needed to get back home to my kids.”
Plus, she joked, she hadn’t been to Paris yet. “I had already booked the flight lol.”
The hotel staff helped set her straight. “(And the phone) went completely dead as I was climbing up the hill to my hotel.”
Now Merrissa always has a portable charger when she travels. “It was not a good idea to be wandering around in a foreign country with your battery almost dead,” she said.
Of her solo trips so far, she said Grenada is her favorite and a country she can’t wait to revisit.
“I really, really loved it as a Black woman,” she said. “I was surrounded by all very, very melanated people of all different shades. And it was just really, really nice.”
As a solo Black female traveler, Merrissa said she wishes there were more resources to help research destinations in terms of safety and acceptance. So far, she said she hasn’t come across discrimination or danger specific to race.
“There are some spaces that I will research and I’ll be like, ‘Hmm, I would really love to hear from a Black woman,” she said. “Racism is still very prevalent, so I was nervous about some things but the interesting thing for me, even though I love the U.S., I love my country, I felt safer in other countries than I do in the U.S., especially being from Texas. I still love my state but I was actually really surprised by that.”
She hopes her solo travels inspire other women to find the courage to plan their own trips.
“I remember prior to planning these trips by myself, I didn’t even know how to book a flight,” she said, recalling the botched booking to Vegas when she was 30.
“Having to plan every detail, it was a responsibility of mine,” she said. “It’s just that sense of empowerment that I can do this myself as a woman. I am not inadequate. Our different genitalia does any magically make me unsafe or incapable. I can do all this if I put my mind to it and research it. I can do it.
She Goes Alone 