Every Woman Should Travel Alone Once in Her Life

Blair McKee
Jul 22, 2017 · 4 min read

I recently attended Mozcon, a digital marketing conference in Seattle. The trip spurred a lot of firsts for me: I traveled alone, went to the other side of the country, bar crawled with a stranger, ate at a 100% vegan restaurant, and met some SEO super heroes.

For the majority of the trip, my brain lived somewhere between absolutely terrified and

“don’t tell me what I can’t do!”

… I’m going to call this cautious cockiness, for lack of a better oxymoron.

Growing up, my youthful travels were limited to a 24 hour driving radius from our home outside of Washington, DC.

Aka: if we take our handy dandy d=r*t equation… distance = (5 miles under the speed limit) x (how long my siblings and I could go without killing each other *)

*This number was dependent on how long the portable DVD player would last. Pre-DVD players, how long my parents could stand listening to the Simpsons without wanting to drive off the road.

As an adult, I am limited to how far my dogs can stand being in a car. My caucasian shepherd, Vader, refuses to lay down in a moving vehicle so my radius is pretty limited.

TLDR;

I was beyond ecstatic to finally venture well past the Mississippi. The only things holding me back were little sound bites from my husband and family,

“aren’t you scared to travel alone?”

or

“are you sure you want to do stuff on your own before the conference?”

I was rightly terrified.

So, I planned the trip to a tee. I had the hotel and flight booked out three weeks in advance and my browser was full of tabs of all the things I wanted to do within walking distance. After dark, I promised my mother and husband that I would always take a Lyft.

My Lyft driver from the airport to my hotel was roughly the same age as my mother and had a daughter my age. She was a transplant from my native Arlington (across the river from DC) and hated Seattle.

“There are no lightening bugs and no stars. Ever. But the weather is great, thanks global warming.”

Oh, and she said she had only once stepped outside of her car while driving in Seattle. Her luck, the first person to approach her tried to sell her crack.

“Don’t leave your hotel at night. Don’t go anywhere, honestly.”

Oh, but wait… I had four hours to wander Seattle until my hotel room was available, no car, no friends, and my phone was dying.

Sorry Lyft driver (aka: my West Coast mama bear)…

I’m going to stop right here for a second and preface this next part. I will not regale you with an epic of my adventures. This story is about finding empowerment. About embracing my gender even when I was scared to.

WTF → Why Didn’t I Do This Before?!

Roughly an hour before what I thought was sunset (PS: sunset in Seattle is almost 10pm in the summer, so I was extremely premature), I went to a brewery that was highly recommended via my trusty Yelp app.

If you ever go to Seattle, you have to go to Cloudburst brewery.

I sat at the bar and tried every IPA on the menu while looking aimlessly at the opposing wall and mentally debating which art museums I wanted to see the following day.

If you’re thinking “drinking alone is lame” then you’ve never been to a decent bar by yourself with a dead phone.

Quick tidbit for anyone doing this:

DON’T LOOK AT YOUR FUCKING PHONE.

Put it away and talk to people. I met the most interesting people on my trip because my phone was dead or dying.

That’s when I met the first stranger that eventually became a momentary friend. He was a temporary transplant from Chicago who loved craft beer and micro-breweries as much as I did.

Around beer number three, he asked if I wanted to try his beer. I took a sip and sputtered,

“I don’t even know your name!”

That night, we visited four different breweries in the downtown area and ended the night with (an apparent) Seattle staple, Dix burgers.

And yes. I was worried. Did I mention I’m a control freak? The buzz helped and once my phone was charged I felt confident enough to venture over a mile away from my hotel to a brewery across the river.

I told my husband his name, where he was from (hoping if anything happened we could track him) and each bar we went to.

At the end of the night, he waited until I got into my Lyft (this is starting to sound like product placement, but it’s not) and I passed out before 1am.

Over the next week, I met up with another stranger (or group of strangers)each night and traversed the city in search of good beer.

I did this for five straight nights, each time meeting new people to adventure with. And no, I never stopped worrying.

Tip #2, if you do this yourself, find a seemingly trustful stranger (oxymoron?) to be your wingman before you start drinking. If you can’t find anyone before dark, don’t go out.

Despite my trepidations, I was able to uneventfully visit a vegan death metal bar (I recommend the fish tacos), listen to the caterwauling of karaoke with another DC native at 3am.

Every dawn that I successfully made it back to my hotel was a victory. I had never felt so satisfied texting my husband at 3am that I was crawling into bed.

I’m not going to tie this up in a bow. Just promise me, if you’re a woman (single or married) to challenge yourself and go on a trip alone at least one time in your life.

And don’t forget to stay off your phone. ❤

Blair McKee

Written by

Front end dev. Designer. Writer. Vegan. Digital Marketer. Yogi

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