Traveling Alone
It's Always Worth It
My English taxi driver this week revealed that he recently traveled alone for the first time. He’d gone to visit his grown daughter in Australia, and tacked on solo travel. He admitted to feeling nervous beforehand and empowered by the experience afterwards. I felt elated for this complete stranger who I saw only through the rear mirror, and completely understood.
I’ve traveled alone for years, and often for extended periods of time. I’ve driven myself all over Europe and the US, learned how to speed on Italian highways, survived flat tires in the middle of nowhere, enjoyed countless solo meals and made many friends.
I spent weeks in a silent house with no wifi, surrounded by farms, an hour from any resources, combating an army of flying ants. I’ve learned garbage systems in medieval villages, social graces, new languages, and various car complexities. I’ve cried from aloneness, from getting lost, from blistering heat and plans unraveling. I’ve watched the elegance of communities, the elderly members who sit outside of their doors to watch the television inside, hoping to greet neighbors walking by and feel less alone. I’ve learned who I am from being an outsider.
Traveling with people you like is easy but traveling alone takes practice. Half of the appeal is freedom—if freedom is learning to change a tire in another language without any witnesses—and half is fear. It’s important to learn how to do countless things on your own, especially in a foreign place, and to solve for inevitably bad moments. I’ve never felt as capable after a work meeting as I have after navigating solo travel.
Until these fears are tested, we rarely know we have them. That’s the whole point. The idea of spending time alone in a beautiful European countryside setting, writing and reading and working at your own speed, can be more enchanting than the reality. But after a while, after you break in, the reality becomes more rewarding than the idea.
