One reason why you should travel solo
I could offer you ten, but here is my take.
I was going to give you a big, long list. A few jokes, some considered titles. But you don’t need that from me, there are hundreds of those online already.
Besides, I was typing out my reasons and it just seemed so bloody obvious. When you travel alone, you’ll make friends, maybe friends for life. You’ll learn things about yourself. You’ll push your own boundaries. Or maybe you absolutely hate it, but you can give yourself a pat on the back because its hard and at least you gave it a try.
It would be dishonest though, to say that these are the reasons I go. I have enough friends already, most of you here, some of whom I did meet in other corners of the world. And I don’t always need to push my own boundaries, they get bent and tested enough in the sway of life at home, with learnings on the way.
If I really question why, dig deep, it’s because it brings up more questions. I adventure alone because it does not satiate the fire of curiosity that is inside, it stokes it. Adds petrol to it. Blows up that hot blue flame and makes sure that it never goes out. The more I visit, the less I understand. The more I see, the more the world confuses me, humbles me with its cultures, languages, geographies that shape the present moment that I witness. Landscapes that are beautiful or unsightly, humanity at its best and worst.
It is the what that propels me. Forget collecting anecdotes or taking photos for the internet. What is it like to watch people bring their deceased relatives to ghats on the Ganges and cremate them. What do tomatoes grown from volcanic soil really taste like on a Neopolitan pizza. What do salsa dancers teach differently in Cuba. What is the difference between moto taxis in Rwanda and moto taxis in Vietnam. What is round that corner.
Once you start moving, more questions and destinations will grow and invade like fungus on the base of a tree. And you really, truly sense them, just as you hear your thoughts more, because in the immediacy of travel and in your aloneness, the self cannot be ignored. You can’t run further than you already have.
Of course, this fire can be poked and prodded when you are travelling with others. But your reasons become something shared, perhaps as simple as sharing time together. Alone, the what waits for you over a cliff edge. What am I like when placed in this situation. What do I want to bring to this world.
I’m fortunate enough to still have my grandmother. She’s an extensive traveller and has been twice around the globe. She lived with a family for a month picking cotton in India. She spent time with tribes in Papua New Guinea and bought spears back over her shoulder through customs. She has a shrunken head in her cupboard and I still don’t know if it’s real or a fake. She went to China after it opened to the world, when people were wearing uniform. She left two teenage girls at home.
I asked her, why did you do it?
“It was to see other cultures, other people, other countries.”
I push her further. But what made you go?
“You can accumulate as many things as you like. But accumulating memories? Nobody can ever take those away from you.”
I have always wanted to know more about her travels but she keeps her stories close to her chest, offering crumbs, nudging me to go places and find out for myself.
At 81, her what has been found.
