Maybe you should travel solo
For the avid travellers, the ones who go abroad at least 5 times a year, COVID-19 restrictions has meant going full-blown cold turkey; you’ve had to confront what I call ‘travellers withdrawal symptoms’, and every day your itch just to hear the clanging of that piano at Heathrow Airport intensifies… Safe to say you’ve frantically sought out your passport numerous times during lockdown, if only just to smell its pages as you attempt to relive exactly how you felt when you last disembarked from a plane.
As it so happens, in Taiwan, they’ve even resulted to ‘fake flights’ that never depart, so that people can get their fix of ‘all the motions of catching a flight,’ sadly without the benefits of reaching a destination.
But once we’re all allowed back out again, everyone will be an avid traveller; wanderlust will have stretched far and wide and infected even the most determined of homebodies. My advice to those of you who inevitably find yourselves under its grip is to take that first, valiant step into the world of solo travel.
You’ve been on family vacations… but that’s basically just moving your familial chaos from one location to another. You’ve had your shot at organising trips with your friends… but no one can ever agree on a hotel. And, weirdly enough, the closer you get to the agreed date, the higher the likelihood of said friends contracting what appears to be selective amnesia; by the date of the supposed trip, no one appears to even recall that there had been talk of a trip in the first place. It’s never mentioned again, and the cycle repeats ad nauseam.
So I ask you, what’s stopping you from going solo?
If you’re a woman I know what you’re going to say, and what you’re going to say is not invalid; if you’re a black woman like me, again I understand your reservations wholeheartedly. As usual, we must do the age-old background checks of a destination before we even consider the location. So yes, certainly do your research and don’t go in blind for the sake of an adventure, however, do not dwell too much on the ‘buts’ and ‘what-ifs’ as there is only so much you can be in control of.
What could possibly be the benefits of travelling alone, you ask?
Travelling solo does not mean you will be alone for the entirety of your trip (this is a common misconception), it simply means that you’re not answerable to anyone, except to the demands of the schedule you create and the relationships you form along the way; so you can be as spontaneous as you want. The key takeaway is that you are entirely independent.
This meant that as I planned my first solo trip to Morocco, I knew that I wanted a lengthy layover in Spain when I returned, and that is exactly what I got (I didn’t have to confirm with another person who may or may not have even followed through with the plan). The best thing about this decision is that during my time in Morocco I had met someone who would be in Madrid for the entirety of my layover. Luckily enough, Spanish was his native language, which made my exploring of the Spanish nightlife much more enjoyable and entirely struggle-free.
I like meeting new people, but social settings are particularly daunting for me. So if you’re like me and this resonates a little, you will have to orchestrate the trip in a manner which puts you in a position where you’d have no choice but to socialise.
This is why the initial planning of my trip consisted of extensive research into volunteering organisations. This meant I’d be staying and volunteering with a group of individuals from various parts of the world, so of course it was inevitable that we got to know each other. The ample free time that I had was used to explore the city to my heart’s content, as I knew that I could always touch base back at the volunteering household whenever I needed to.
The point is that you must place yourself in group settings, other examples are teaching positions overseas, or, if you have the means, interrailing.
You learn so much about yourself during this time; I learnt (by misplacing my passport at least 3 times) that perhaps I’m not as responsible as I’d like to think I am — granted I was 18 at the time.
You, however, may discover that you’re much more resilient and adaptable, as travelling alone means stepping out of your comfort zone and being okay with the fact that not everything will go exactly as you’d planned.
