I Command You to Travel Alone

Normally, I don’t play the role of influencer or mom. But just this once, I’ll be that person who urges you — wait, no, commands you to travel alone at some point in your life, especially if you haven’t done so.

Before I go off, let me clarify one thing first: traveling alone is not glamorous.

I’ll say it again. Traveling alone is not glamorous.

Spending consistently long periods of quality time by yourself can be difficult. You experience a lot of quiet, uncomfortable moments while trapped in your sometimes endless train of internal thoughts as you reflect on past memories, conversations, ideas, or fantasies.

Your attention, normally turned outward, now inspects inward. Your desires, needs, and fears. What you could have done or said to undo the past. What you love and are embarrassed of. Sometimes you hate what you see in yourself, so much so it makes you physically cringe. But that’s when the real growth in your multi-faceted self starts.

Another hard truth about solo travel is you are your own liability and master of your independence. You are your own CEO, travel itinerary keeper and planner, parent, lifeline, and even nurse.

For example, last week I came down with a high fever while alone at a cabin in Traunkirchen, Austria. The nearest grocery story and pharmacy was a 40 minute walk away, the Airbnb hosts were out, and I felt too sheepish to ask for help. I sluggishly pulled myself together to make a light vegetable curry with purple rice in a less-than ideal kitchen. There was only one stove top, dead bugs in the cabinets, and the nearest sink was separate in the main house, where the bathroom was also located. I cut vegetables at the pace of a sloth using a blunt table knife and a ceramic plate, nearly puking at times because of how sick I was, wishing I had paracetamol.

This two hour process nearly felt like a lifetime. For someone who normally prides herself in being independent, I wished for the first time that there was someone who could take care of me because of how off I felt while trying with utmost determination to feed myself. But if not me in that moment, then who?

Times like these also test how well you cope with not speaking to or meeting anyone for several days straight. Silence was my constant companion during that particular leg of my summer travels, but it was also just a canvas. Limited roaming data also forced me to give up doomscrolling while on public transport; and so, rather than looking down while on the regional bus, I was looking out — out into a world of the most luscious shades of green I’ve ever seen in my life, dotted with wildflowers, a visual therapy of sorts for my eyes after months of being glued to my computer screen pumping out movie and infographic posters and short video assignments for classes.

The minimal disturbance in the me, myself and I equation hyper-heightens all my five senses. I see, hear, taste, and smell things in a way I wouldn’t have if I were traveling with friends (mind you, this isn’t to say I don’t enjoy being around people at all. But if you were wanted to soak in the atmosphere and personality of place, frolicking solo is certainly the way to do it). You pay more attention to tiny details you’d otherwise easily miss. Like that pixelated art of Stewy from Family Guy on a building façade in Malasaña. Or even just stopping to listen to the rollercoaster speed at which Madrileños speak to one another, the way they colorfully roll their ‘r’s and how the ‘th’ sounds contrast deep vowels.

I genuinely enjoy observing the everyday life around me because as a creative, I’m always on the hunt for inspiration. And to most people’s surprise, a huge part of being creative is actually by not being creative! Observing and staying present is how ideas formulate, marinate, and evolve. And I’m always so fascinated by where people get their ideas from. A former schoolmate recalled incubating a project while watching anime. One got his from sex. Another from seeing a fucking toad cross the street.

I also learn a lot about myself when I wander for long periods of time alone. I’ve even grown to appreciate spontaneity. In fact, some of the best travel experiences are never planned. Last weekend in Vienna, what was supposed to be just a stay-in-bed kind of night turned into an impromptu participation in trivia night downstairs. It then turned into a group outing to Strandbar Hermann along the Danube, followed by one of the most wack silent disco nights I’ve had with a TV show producer from New York, student from Melbourne, and a lawyer from Stockholm.

I truly believe life is too short to wait on your friends to do something fun and worthwhile. I mean, if you’ve been dying to see Jorja Smith sing at Stadtpark Open Air in Hamburg and none of your friends are free that night, you have to go, even if alone. Even in Madrid, I find time to entertain myself when I very occasionally have no concrete plans. It was during my solo adventures when I came across my favorite magazine shop/cocktail bar in La Latina and finally found a shop that sold sweet corn arepa flour from Colombia. You will never know what’s out there unless you stay curious and explore.

Those who know how to enjoy time alone will always find happiness anywhere. Solitude does not equate loneliness. In fact, I’d argue that the former is a state of being, whereas the latter is a state of emotion. It’s true that expats like me spend a lot of time alone as we navigate change. But in the process of that, I’ve managed to rarely and truly feel lonely.

There’s an amazing world out there. Yeah, with the wars, diminishing women’s basic reproductive rights, et al, it’s ugly. But if we’re too hesitant to venture beyond what we see, how will we get to experience the brilliant things that await us, both the good and bad, coded with life lessons and moments of self-discovery that we didn’t know we needed? Solo traveling, I believe, is the medicine, nay, the answer to reach the range of what constitutes the human experience.

Quoting Victor Frankenstein from Showtime’s Penny Dreadful, “Man does not live only in the empirical world. We must seek the ephemeral, or why live?”