🧳 Anxious about my first solo work trip abroad next month, feeling silly about it

Four days. That's the whole trip, Wednesday to Sunday, one conference in a city I've never set foot in, further from home than any trip I've taken before, and the first time my company has sent me alone instead of with a senior colleague. I've flown alone before, done domestic work trips without blinking, changed cities for weddings and job interviews without a second thought. This one feels different, and I can't fully explain why, given how much smaller the actual list of things that could go wrong really is. It's not the flight or the hotel, both booked and confirmed weeks ago, seat assigned, hotel confirmation printed and saved twice over, plus a screenshot of the passport page just in case. It's the smaller stuff, a two hour layover in an airport I don't know the layout of, finding a taxi at eleven at night in a country where I don't speak the language, being entirely on my own if my bag gets lost or a meeting gets moved without warning and there's nobody nearby to ask what to do next. Nothing on that list is dangerous. All of it still sits in my stomach like a stone that hasn't quite settled since I booked the ticket a month ago. My partner keeps pointing out that people my age have done far bigger trips solo, backpacking trips, whole months abroad without a fixed plan. He's right, and I know he's right, but it doesn't help much at eleven at night when I'm imagining the layover on a loop. I've packed and repacked the same carry-on three times already this week, which fixes nothing practical but keeps my hands busy in the evenings. I keep telling myself that by the second day I'll have found my footing, that the version of me standing in that airport will handle it the same way I've handled every other unfamiliar thing eventually, one step at a time. Has anyone else felt this ridiculous before a first solo trip, even with plenty of travel experience otherwise?

I felt the same before my first trip alone, and I had travelled a lot with family. Being the only one responsible for every small decision was what made my stomach tight. The layover was boring, not scary. I found a seat near the gate and read for 2 hours. Repacking the carry-on 3 times sounds very familiar. I did it 4 times, so you're doing fine.

Took my first solo international trip for work at thirty one, four days in Singapore, and spent the whole flight over convinced I would get lost between the airport and the hotel somehow. Ended up being completely fine, the anxiety mostly lived in the days leading up to it rather than the trip itself, which felt almost boring by comparison once I landed and got moving.