Things I Learned From Travelling Alone
Here’s the thing most people don’t tell you about exchange: It becomes routine. After you’ve been in a country for a while, it becomes normal. You settle into the pattern of school life and all the things which come with it- studying, friends, etc. Sometimes travel gets forgotten.
This trip to Spain was my way of changing things up. I love Morocco but it had become normal for me in a lot of ways. When I decided to take this trip (in the shower no less), it was a very spur of the moment decision. I decided to book a return ticket only and then find my way through Spain almost entirely on my own (Caleb joined me for the first bit which was awesome).
About 3 days after Caleb and I split ways, I was sitting in a Starbucks (bc none in Rabat) in Sevilla, and had a bit of a breakdown. Put it simply, I didn’t know how to be on my own. For the first three days, I had fun, met new people and saw an amazing city, but when I was on my own, I didn’t know how to act or what to do.
You don’t understand freedom until you travel alone. Waking up in the morning with the ENTIRE day to yourself and nobody or nothing stopping you from making decisions. At the same time, nobody and nothing compelling you to make any decisions. You are completely on your own. It’s an overwhelming feeling- the rush of adrenaline through your body which tells you ‘I’m gonna do something different today’ mixed with the thoughts in your head saying, ‘Really? What?’
Here are some of the lessons I learned along the way:
Travelling alone forces you to make friends: This is a total cliche but it’s super true. When you’re travelling alone, you meet people who come from all corners of the globe. Each one with a story and something you can learn. Travelling shows you that you have more in common with people than you think. And you bond with people over all sorts of things. I made friends with a guy from Poland because we both liked Russell Peters and with someone else because we both loved churros. Making friends is scary at the beginning, but it’s a huge learning experience.
At the end though, travelling alone is a microcosm of life as a whole. You meet people for a day, learn something new, have a good time, then you part ways with nothing more than a facebook friend request, a photo, and unforgettable memories. You learn that at the end of the day, whether you meet people again or not, you’re on your own and you are the only person you have to please.
Travelling alone gives you LOTS of time to think: Travelling alone is a bit like taking a really long shower except you don’t have to worry about actually washing or about how you’re killing the environment. It’s an extended chance for your mind to wander because you don’t have anything keeping you focussed on other things. As a result, everything you’ve forgotten about or put off for ‘later’ comes flooding back, except you don’t have anywhere to put it away. On the one hand it’s incredibly frightening having a midlife crisis trying to get your proverbial shit together and being afraid of not knowing what you want to do with your life, but on the other hand it gives you a chance to work through everything and try to slowly start figuring out what matters.
And this allows you to discover and rediscover ways to pass the time
I was lucky/unlucky that I had wifi in all my hostels, but often it barely worked and on busses it almost never did. As such, it forces you to find different ways to pass time. For me, I found myself in cafes a lot- often because they had wifi. But even more so because it gave me a chance to relax and write. Writing became my way of coping with being alone. I’d spend random hours just writing whatever came to my mind on the back of bus tickets and receipts. It gave me a way to cope with the loneliness.
I also found myself reading more- a lot more. The hostel where I stayed in Madrid had a book exchange which had Inferno by Dan Brown, which has been on my reading list for a while. Because I had so much time (and had seen enough art galleries and churches to last me a lifetime), I spent a whole afternoon and read the whole book. From there I picked up four or five other books which I finished along the rest of my journey. Sometimes when you get busy, you forget the things you do for fun. I had forgotten how much I love to read and I’m glad this trip gave me a chance to rediscover this.
Travelling alone humbles you: You don’t realize how little you actually know until you travel. There’s nothing quite like that feeling of ending up in a new city with nothing but your bag and dead phone and having to go to a cafe to ask where you are and how to get to town in broken Spanish. All of this happening at 6am after having no sleep the night before. You realize how little you actually know, and further how much you rely on “the kindness of strangers” to quote Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire.
However, by interacting with people, even in some weird mix of Spanish, French and English, you learn people aren’t all terrible. They are actually nice by and large. People generally like helping others is my experience, especially if you approach with a smile and look totally lost.
You pick what YOU want to see when travelling alone: I don’t like art museums, especially art from the 15th century. Maybe it’s because I don’t know how to appreciate it, but it’s not something I enjoy. As such, I didn’t go see any when I was in Barcelona, and only went to one in Madrid because it was free (Brown genes). Travelling alone gives you the ability to not visit certain places, and not be pressured to by others.
On the other hand, it gives you the freedom to spend as long as you want in certain places. I love places of worship- especially really nice churches. Because I was alone, I spent the better part of a day exploring and enjoying the Saint James Cathedral in Santiago Compostela in Northeast Spain. I got to tour Spain the way I wanted and got to see Spain with no regrets about not more time somewhere.
I have learned so much about myself from travelling alone. Before travelling I was incredibly nervous because there were so many things that could have gone wrong. And things did go wrong, it wasn’t perfect. But from the adversity and struggles I learned so much. I feel like this was one of the best trips I have ever taken, and I am so glad I did it
