In the years since, I feel a jolt of excitement whenever I hear about a woman traveling alone, whether she’s a single woman surfing in Costa Rica or a married journalist dropping into a war zone or a mother going to the wilds of Africa, discovering what quiet sounds like when it unfolds around her. Such exotic forays are out of reach for many people – including me, for most of my life. But I also think you can take a day hike by yourself, you can travel to the lake by yourself. And what you find is a reassurance that you can stand on your own in the world.
There is a poignant scene near the end of “Wild.” Cheryl Strayed’s mother is close to death, and she tells her daughter, “I never got to be in the driver’s seat of my own life … I always did what someone else wanted me to do. I’ve always been someone else’s daughter or mother or wife. I’ve never just been me.”
God, that moment cut me. Boyfriends are nice, and careers are important, but I think this is all I’ve ever been after: to just be me.
I can’t travel much these days. I don’t have the money. I have a cat I love beyond all reason, who is old and tired. But I also found that I had to stop moving every time I grew uncomfortable. Being in the driver’s seat of your own life is grand, but it requires knowing when you are out of gas. I try to keep a traveler’s eyes. I take expeditions to strange suburbs. I take expeditions to the 7-11. (Behold: Corn Nuts in their native environment!) After years of movement, my challenge now is to sit still.
But I also try to hold on to the girl who was young and stupid enough to believe in foolish adventures, the girl who was equal parts ready to fall in love with you and hurl a ball peen hammer into your front windshield. I had a strength I did not realize, but one I did not forget. When I am restless and defeated and scared again, I tell myself this: that the greatest trip of my life came because I did not get the things I wanted.
From this terrific article, “Every woman should travel alone” by Sarah Hepola in Salon.
I travelled to the Philippines alone and it was wonderful but I spent quite a bit of it thinking about how I might die and how long it would take my family to find out that I was dead. Not that the poor old Philippines is particularly dangerous but I took some significant risks at times.
blue milk 
This! Travelling alone as a woman is both terrifying and exhilirating. And when you can’t do it at least you can dip into the thrill of your memories and be grateful for the woman it has made you.
Thanks for that, what a great article! It has brought back some wonderful memories of travel alone- in Acadia National Park, no less!
I just read Wild (the Cheryl Strayed book) and I loved it. I have travelled interstate by myself (for uni and once for a conference) and I felt so brave. I can’t imagine travelling overseas by myself though…
Traveling alone as a woman is a powerful experience. I’ve done it, and will be doing it again soon. I’ve traveled domestic and international, and have never been so plugged into myself as I have been while wondering.
I sometimes have to travel alone for work purposes. It is an empowering experience but after about 2 days it turns into a chore. It can be a limiting experience as well in the sense of not being able to be too adventurous in the evenings in unfamiliar places as a woman.
I feel I am the exception to the norm. I’ve travelled alone many times and only with people only once. There is complete freedom in solo travel.
Travelling alone makes one look internally far more than one would otherwise and to examine the strictures and structures that one builds around oneself to exist in the frantic modern world. Solo travel peels away these layers in a sometimes painful, sometimes utterly joyful way.
Sure, venturing out in the evenings can be limited (not that I’m a night owl at home anyway) and there can be hassle in some places but for the most part, it’s just curiosity or wanting to explore why you would want to tavel without your husband (and then trying to comprehend that you don’t *have* one).
Being invited to picnic with families in Iran and conversations about politics and propaganda are some of my most treasured travel memories.
I travelled overseas alone a lot in my pre motherhood life. It was also a pre-internet, pre-mobile phone and pre-credit card (for me) life. When eating out alone I wrote a lot of postcards and read books and sometimes met people who invited me to join them. I was naive rather than brave and my naivety seemed to serve as a sort of protective shield. I am no longer naive and I know I am not brave. I wonder if I would do it now. Hope so.
I hope to do a solo vacation someday – not necessarily very far away, or for a very long period of time, but a weekend in the woods sounds just about perfect to me.
So far, the highlight of my solo-travel has been taking a subway home after midnight in D.C. by myself … and, yeah, that was pretty cool. I had this moment as I boarded the train when I looked around and realized that I felt like such a grown-up, staying out late and riding the subway all by myself, without having to call and check that it was okay with anyone else. It was THE BEST feeling.
I travelled alone alot when I was young. I was an exchange student to Sweden at 18 and that really gave me the confidence and desire to travel overseas by myself – all the Swedish girls did with their eyes closed. I never travelled to Asia alone though and can’t imagine being brave enough to do so as I was so hassled by men even though I was glued to the hip of a boyfriend (I was very young though so it probably would not happen now). My most amazing travelling alone though was done when I was pregnant. I had to travel down the Murrumbidgee/Darling/Murray river system across three states for work. Interviewing people in country river towns alone with a baby bump was amazing. People were so friendly and caring and open, all focused around the baby growing in my belly. It was wonderful.
Traveling alone in my early twenties was exhilarating, though I’ll admit I took some pretty ridiculous risks myself. The most empowering trip I think I’ve taken, however, was not entirely alone. Traveling across the world with my almost two year old daughter for company was amazing. It gave me a chance to prove to myself that, even though I was a married stay at home mom, I still had it in me to go it alone. That reassurance is important sometimes.
*puts hand up* another lone female traveller over here.
Although I’ve never been somewhere waaaaay outside my comfort zone – that said, my comfort zone expands with each trip.
I also have specific ways of meeting people, which generally means I spend at least part of each day in company (but hopefully only part). That is company I choose because one of the reasons I travel is for the people I meet.
Also, everything elaine said, qualified by the fact I’ve never been to Iran!