Meet Alexandra Costa

We recently connected with Alexandra Costa and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Alexandra, great to have you with us today and excited to have you share your wisdom with our readers. Over the years, after speaking with countless do-ers, makers, builders, entrepreneurs, artists and more we’ve noticed that the ability to take risks is central to almost all stories of triumph and so we’re really interested in hearing about your journey with risk and how you developed your risk-taking ability.

I started realising that, overthinking was what was causing me to doubt myself. When you decide you want to do something, if you are willing to actually go through with one idea, nothing matters. The questions how, when and why will be answered during the journey.
So, to develop my ability to take risks, I started trusting my instincts and wishes. I stopped overthinking and creating problems that do not exist yet.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

Hi,
My name is Alexandra, I am a 24 years old flight attendant and I love solo backpacking around the world.
I never really thought about becoming a flight attendant but when the opportunity presented itself I just thought “what do I have to lose anyway?”, and that’s how I got the work that changed my life.
I am lucky to have a seasonal contract, this means my company gives me 2 months per year, plus the usual annual leave, off. During those 2 months I still get payed but only the basic salary, no flight hours. What at first sounded like a horrible situation ended up being exactly what I needed.
With 2 months free every year I started planning trips, at first I thought about working abroad in exchange for accommodation. After doing that once, I completely changed my mind, bought a backpack and started backpacking across Southeast Asia.
Last year i did that from November till March.
This year I’ll travel from January till April. I managed to add my annual leave to my seasonal leave .
I will go to India, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Hong-Kong, Macau, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and Thailand.
All by myself, just with a backpack and the will of seeing and experimenting as much as possible.
I want to try and share as much of my trip as possible on my social media, being more active on the net is one of my 2026 goals!

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I believe I was always a Positive, Adventurous and open minded person.
Solo travelling had just made all these qualities even more important.
When you travel alone, you have to adapt to whatever happens. Being able to do that and enjoy it, requires a lot of positivity from inside out.
My adventurous side came out naturally, as I was experiencing things. Everyone keeps saying “wow I could never, you are so brave!”. I don’t think I am brave, I just enjoy the trip, and embrace whatever comes with it.
The open minded part is also related to being social and enjoying meeting new people. When you travel alone for a long time, you will crave some human interaction, a simple chit chat in a hostel could make the difference. People ask me why I enjoy staying in hostels, and I always have the same answer for them. I don’t enjoy sharing my privacy, my room, my bathroom… I enjoy talking with people. When you travel alone for weeks, months, the idea of going back to an empty room everyday is not the best. I believe you’ll feel lonely after a while.

So my final advice is, if you would love to try travelling solo but can’t find the courage just do it anyway! The courage will come after, just be positive and enjoy the ride , it will be worth it !!

If you knew you only had a decade of life left, how would you spend that decade?

I would travel the world non stop, take all the risks possible and the closer to the end day, the crazier I would get!
I can’t imagine leaving this world without having experienced to the fullest, there is so much to see and do, why waste any time?
I would cross all continents, visit the 7 wonders of the world and eat all sorts of cuisine .

Contact Info:

• Instagram: alexandra_costa28_
• Other: TikTok- Alex.in.transit

Image Credits

I took the photo.