“You are ALONE?” (Part I)

You’ll recall, from way back in the first (non)chapter of this (non)book, that when I arrived in Zadar, Croatia in September 2014 on the overnight ferry from Italy, I was incredulously asked by Goran at the rental car office, “You are . . . . ALONE?!”

Why, yes.

I was.

And I still am.

And I happen (currently, at least) to think it’s the best way to travel.

Which I will, of course, explain below.

Let’s start by taking a look at why it doesn’t happen more often.

Most people travel as a part of the couple (or family with kids) they’re in. A very big percentage of people are in couples. It seems the way most humans are wired. For all kinds of reasons. Love, finances, procreative desires, DNA drives, desires for companionship, and on and on.

And, I am coming to believe, also out of fear.

All kinds of fear.

Fear of being lonely. Fear of not being able to handle the world on your own. Fear of not being able to take care of yourself by yourself. And a very big one: fear of being perceived by others as odd or as failure for not being in a couple.

Each of these fears are understandable, justifiable, reasonable. And believe me, you ARE going to be perceived as somehow “off” as a single adult by lots of people, lots of the time. (Which you can glean just from the little things like folks asking, “You are ALONE?!” and restaurant hosts asking in restaurants, “Just you?” or, “Just one?” when you walk in, and other diners looking at you oddly and then looking away when they see you at a restaurant table alone.)

It is as if your being alone makes others uncomfortable. Which, in turn . . . until you learn and decide not to take that on . . . can make YOU uncomfortable.

What this means is that you have to have a certain kind of bravery to be single.

And to travel solo.

Because you’re gonna get a lot of judgment and pity and weird vibes from lots of people.

You are also going to be lonely parts of the time, and you ARE going to be afraid you will not be able to figure things out on your own, and you ARE going to be afraid you will not be able to take care of yourself.

Guess what?

These are exactly the reasons why, and situations that make, traveling alone so powerful.

A big part of being in a couple is the delicious way it insulates you from the rest of the world. Especially the parts you both don’t particularly like or cotton to. The way it provides, as one of my friends used to put it, “a soft place to land” in the bumpy parts.

When you travel with a partner, that’s exactly what happens, too.

You’re insulated.

You eat together. You walk crooked streets together. When you get lost, you have each other to console and to figure it out (and the downside: argue with), instead of being scared on your own. You divide up odious tasks by whom-they’re-least-odious-to: someone does the research, someone makes the reservations, someone figures out the exchange rate and figures out how much that slice of pizza costs you, someone drives or converses with foreign taxi drivers and train agents.

When you go alone?

That’s all on you.

Every single bit of it.

And more.

Because when you are anxious about any of these things, and all the other things that come up, THERE IS NO ONE TO NATTER ON ABOUT THAT WITH. The constant side-kick you have to process or witness or somehow settle you down about those kinds of things?

Nope.

Not there.

It’s all on you.

AND THAT IS AWESOME!!!!!

Because you know what?

You figure out you are fine.

All on your own.

All by yourself.

Which is the first great thing you gain by traveling alone: the confidence you get by facing and overcoming all those fears of everything, from how to get by on your own in the areas of life that scare you, to how to let go of other people’s odd looks at you sitting alone with your coffee.

And the next great thing you gain by traveling alone?

Everything else.

Everything you came to see.

When you are traveling with someone else, that’s where your focus is.

Couples and groups are great for lots and lots of things.

But they take up a lot of space on your brain’s hard-drive.

And they also require you to do a lot of compromising. About every single facet of when, where, and how to travel. Every minute of every day.

And all of this . . . your focus on the unit you’re traveling as a part of, the space that takes on your brain’s hard-drive, and the necessary compromise in each moment . . . tends to insulate you (again) from what’s going on around you.

In other words, for all the benefits you’re going to receive by traveling with others (sharing with them, not being freaked out, etc.), you’re gonna miss a ton of stuff that you came to see.

Because you’re going to be talking. . . . in your own language . . . to the person you’re with. Instead of noticing how people get on and off the bus here. Or you’ll just take a taxi instead, because your partner hates to ride the bus. You won’t stop and take that picture, because you are tired of the sighs of exasperation you hear when you fall behind in the walk through town. You won’t be watching how the people who live here relate to you, because they will always be secondary in your attention to the person or people you are already with, from home.

If you travel to learn, instead of just to get an interesting break from being at home, there’s no question in my mind: the biggest bang for your buck is doing it solo. Where you observe everything around you in a kind of powerful isolation. Where you are paying more attention, because your brain’s hard-drive is not full of attention bytes on the group you came with. Where you follow your own rhythms and desires about where and when and how to go places and do things. Where you end up, in that openness, meeting terrific people who live where you’re visiting. Where you end up learning all kinds of remarkable things because of that. Where, because you need to figure out how to do each piece on your own, you experience exponentially more than you ever would by avoiding parts and dividing up tasks with someone else. Where, because you are not comfortably insulated by traveling with someone you trust, your brain gets just thrown-off and discombobulated enough to let it begin to see every-day life in different ways than it ever would have had you not been brave enough to come by yourself.

Give it a try.

Even for a day.

Go it alone.

And see what magic happens.