INTO THE WILD UNKNOWN
Solo adventure traveller, photographer & writer
I’m Rita, a Portuguese solo traveller and landscape photographer. I write practical, experience-based guides for independent travel in Pakistan, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and beyond – places most travel blogs don’t cover.
5+
months in Pakistan
50+
countries
€30
daily budget
100%
independent travel
My story
I didn’t set out to become a long-term traveller. I quit my master’s degree, volunteered at a hostel in Prague, drifted to London, and ended up in Switzerland during the pandemic, where I discovered wild camping and multi-day hikes in the Alps. That lit a spark.
In 2022, I started what was supposed to be a short trip through Turkey, Georgia, and Central Asia. But the road pulled me in. Since then, I’ve been slowly exploring the misunderstood corners of the world: hitchhiking through the Omani desert, camping in Kyrgyz valleys, sharing stories in remote villages in Pakistan. I travel solo, on a tight budget, using public transport, couchsurfing, and doing temp jobs when I run out of money.
Into the Wild Unknown exists because practical information for these destinations, especially for solo women, is almost nonexistent online. I write what I wish I’d had before I went.
Why I Created Into the Wild Unknown
I started Into the Wild Unknown because I was tired of seeing the same destinations over and over again – Paris, Bali, Rome – wrapped in glossy filters and packaged itineraries. But what about the forgotten corners of the world? The places where nature still feels wild, where the mountains haven’t been carved up by cable cars or dotted with luxury chalets?
Long before I ever thought of creating a blog, I was drawn to remote, raw landscapes: places where the silence is broken only by the wind, where the paths are barely marked, and the beauty hasn’t been polished for tourism. That love for hiking and wild nature is what first led me off the beaten path. I fell in love with the untouched valleys of Kyrgyzstan, the high-altitude trails in northern Pakistan, the rugged canyons of Oman.
And I quickly realised something: while these places were life-changing, they were also incredibly hard to plan for. There was so little information online, especially for solo female travellers like me. Most blogs were written either by couples or male adventurers. Few talked about how to travel with local transport in Pakistan or what it’s like to wild camp in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan alone.
So I created Into the Wild Unknown to fill that gap. To help people like me who crave real adventure, who want to discover places untouched by mass tourism, and who prefer hiking boots to hop-on-hop-off buses. I write practical guides for places that most travel blogs overlook, and I share personal stories from the road: the real, unfiltered side of solo travel.
What Destinations I Cover in Into the Wild Unknown
South Asia
Pakistan: Hunza, KKH, Gilgit Baltistan
Central Asia
Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan
Southeast Asia
Indonesia – remote Sulawesi island
Middle East
Turkey, Oman
Caucasus
Georgia, Armenia
Africa
Egypt
Planning a trip to Pakistan or Central Asia?
I offer Pakistan trip planning, solo travel consultations, photo licensing, and brand collaborations.
Why I Travel This Way
Solo, on a budget, no tours, no fixed plan. It’s not the easiest way to travel. There have been moments I’ve sat in a dusty bus station, completely lost, wondering what on earth I’m doing. But those moments are also where the growth happens. You breathe, you figure it out, and you move on, because no one else will do it for you.
The most important thing independent travel gives you is flexibility. I don’t follow a schedule. If a place pulls me in, I stay longer. If someone mentions a valley I’ve never heard of, I go. That spontaneity has led to some of the best experiences of my trip, things I couldn’t have planned even if I’d tried.
I won’t romanticise it entirely. It’s tiring. It requires constant decision-making. Some days you just want someone else to figure out the bus times. But it also means the trip is entirely yours: shaped by your choices, your curiosity, your mistakes. No one curated it for you. That’s the whole point.
On Travelling Solo as a Woman
People always ask “Aren’t you scared?”. The honest answer is: not where you’d expect.
Some of my most unsettling moments have been in the so-called “safe” European cities like London, Paris, or Athens. But in Hunza, Bishkek, Tbilisi? I’ve walked home after dark feeling completely at ease. The places the media warns you about have consistently been the ones where strangers go furthest out of their way to help me. Not because I asked, but because a woman travelling alone seems to bring out a protectiveness in people. I’ve been walked to bus stops, fed, looked after like a sister or a daughter.
There’s also something solo female travel gives you that I didn’t expect: access. As a woman, you get invited into spaces most male travellers never see. Kitchens, family rooms, women’s gatherings. You sit with grandmothers and teenage girls and hear the kind of conversations that don’t happen in public. You see a country from the inside, not just the surface. That’s a layer of connection that’s genuinely hard to find any other way.
Does any of this mean it’s always easy? No. There are extra calculations involved in being a woman on the road. What to wear, how to read a situation, when to trust your gut and leave. That’s real, and I won’t pretend otherwise. But it’s also just part of navigating the world as a woman, anywhere.
If you’re thinking about doing this and fear is the thing holding you back, I understand that. Start somewhere that stretches you just a little outside your comfort zone. Georgia, Armenia, Oman. Let the confidence build from there. Travel teaches you in layers. The more you learn to navigate on your own, the more confident you become. Eventually, you realise there’s nowhere you can’t go.
A Note to You, the Reader
If you’ve made it this far, thank you – truly. This blog is a piece of my heart. I created Into the Wild Unknown to share the kind of travel stories and guides I desperately searched for when I first set out: honest, detailed, and from the perspective of a solo female traveller who doesn’t take the easy road.
I know how intimidating it can feel to venture into the unknown, especially when you’re doing it alone. But I also know how deeply rewarding it is to travel this way. To make genuine connections, to challenge yourself, and to see places that most people will never even think to look for on a map.
I hope what you find here gives you the confidence to step a little further off the beaten track, to question what you’ve been told about certain places, and to discover the beauty that lies in the unfamiliar. Trust me, the world is far kinder than they make it out to be.
See you somewhere wild.
– Rita