Can you guess which two countries I had planned to skip on my pan-Central America trip? A hint: the current US president just referred to one of them as a “shithole [country]”.

To be fair, the grisly reputation is global as many other backpackers I met also planned on skipping these two.

I was in Nicaragua (whose capital also has a not-so-great reputation but I had rather enjoyed) when I met two ladies who had met recently but happened to both be international teachers in Siberia and Dubai. They were also the most well-travelled people I had ever met.

I was parting ways with a buddy I’d been traveling with for months, and when they said they were going to El Salvador next he urged me to meet them up there.

Entering a new country and gathering your bearings is always an experience as a solo traveler. My preconceptions about El Salvador – seedy, poor, dangerous – made me especially wary. It didn’t help that through the night we had had to cross the border by way of Honduras, and you could hear raucous noise and see lit fires from unidentifiable distance in the woods. I was frankly SHOOK as we waited outside the border office at 4 in the morning.

We arrived at El Tunco that morning and despite my worries, it looked…boring. As in quiet, and safe, and beachy.

I would learn that El Tunco was a popular beach town for both tourists and San Salvadorans. Not some hotbed of violence. Also, renowned for surfers.

After meeting up with my new friends, we met a local who was now living in Barcelona but was temporarily back in the country. He offered to give a tour of the small mountain towns on the Ruta de Las Flores. It was a crucial introduction to understanding the beauty of the country and its people.

After the trip, we parted ways and he dropped me off at a San Salvador hostel in the Zona Rosa. I was then left to explore this city that everybody told me to skip, in the country everybody told me to skip.

Exploring a city by just walking around with Google Maps on my phone is my favorite thing to do. But I have to admit, I wasn’t just thinking the standard “Am I going the correct way?” I went back and forth with that and, “Is somebody going to try to steal my phone?“

It’s always good to be cautious with your belongings. But the fear and apprehension was unfounded.

Inexplicably, my first journey out of the hostel was walking to a supermarket requiring an adrenaline-filled six-lane highway crossing by foot. As I left with my purchases out of the supermarket, two teenaged boys motioned over to me. They were off to the side drinking beer in brown bags, mind you barely twenty feet from the store entrance. “Oh great, degenerates,” I thought. After some back and forth I learned they were students at the nearby university and they invited me to drink with them.

I politely declined, not because they were sketchy or I wasn’t intrigued, but because it was 2:30 in the afternoon and I had just bought ice cream.

This small interaction became the catalyst for me letting my guard down, because after the highway crossing I was approached by another student-aged guy that happened to be walking the same way as me. We made similar small talk and parted ways at the end of the block.

A few more days of exploring the capital by myself, and later with new friends, convinced me that Salvadorans were actually interested in meeting foreigners because there were relatively few around.

So how did I feel traveling to El Salvador as a solo female backpacker?

Let’s just say I felt like a damn celebrity and more importantly, it restored my confidence in strangers that I had somewhat lost due to the Bogotá debacle.

Case in point: I’m confused about which bus to take so I’m the last one on a pretty packed local bus from the La Libertad pier to San Salvador. I’m carrying a daypack, about three shopping bags full of crap dangling from my arms, and a giant water jug.

As the bus jolts ahead, an older lady sitting nearby motions for me to give her my water jug to keep on her lap. I hand it to her gratefully. Seconds later I hear a whistle from rows back. I don’t know who’s whistled, but it came from the direction of a recently vacated seat. There are plenty of other people closer to the seat than I…and they all motion towards me to take it.

I make my way back and the rest of the passengers pass my water jug back to meet me at the seat. I am at once embarrassed by my sloppiness and floored by the collective kindness of this bus full of people.

Traveling alone, experiences just have a way of being more intense, more intimidating, but also more rewarding. To be clear, you wouldn’t get those experiences unless you’re traveling alone.