Outdoors/Adventure

The exhilaration - and fear - of traveling alone

When I was in my early 20s, I wanted badly to travel but worried about going without a partner. I had romantic ideas about adventures and sunsets, and I was scared that if I experienced these things myself, I would feel lonely. I was also worried about carving out a life that was so independent I would eventually find that I didn't want to be with anyone. Some of my friends would probably push back and say I didn't need another person — a "man", as people say with some indignation — to be happy. Which is true, sort of. I knew I wanted someone in my life. I also knew I was bullheaded enough to get so set in my ways I ultimately might not want to accommodate anyone else.

But, I still wanted to travel, and I wasn't getting any less single.

Maybe I could go with friends, I thought. My friends at the time were conceptually into the idea of traveling, but no one was as gung-ho as me, or made it a priority. We made plans. Those plans fell through.

I found myself choosing between adventuring alone or waiting an indefinite amount of time. Better, I decided, to go by myself than not go at all — not an easy decision.

I worried about my safety, sanity (would I have any fun by myself?), and most of all about feeling sad in the moment without an adventure partner. But what scared me most was the idea of not doing the things in life I wanted to — picturing myself at 70 looking back at my life and chastising my younger self that I should have just gone ahead. At the end of the day, the imaginary old-lady me won out against young-lady me, and I planned my solo adventures.

Deciding to go

I convinced myself that sunsets would be just as lovely next to strangers. I brought a journal and books, plus sensible shoes. I stuffed everything into a backpack, with a black crumple-proof travel dress, Woolite, and really not that many dollars, Then, off I went — several times over the course of several years.

I went on airplanes, buses, and trains. I stayed in hostels (surprise) and since I was alone I met many characters. I banded together with some of these characters for days, and avoided others. I remember discreetly asking a shuttle driver to drop me off at hotel where I was not staying, so another passenger who had creeped me out would not know how to find me.

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In all of these places I went to, I walked. I wasn't a big drinker, so I didn't hang around bars all day. I didn't have a magical hobby or talent that connected me with people. I went, I walked, I hung out, I observed. I sat in public squares or parks. I drank a lot of coffee. I followed the maps they gave me at the hostel. I gawked.

I felt elated. I felt lonely. I felt these things in the same five minutes, for hours at a time, or at the same time.

Many times I was bored. I remember feeling bored for days on end — or trapped in my mind, all thoughts and observations with no one to talk to. Other times I was overwhelmed with people and wanted to escape.

The beauty about traveling by myself was, if I wanted to escape people I could — and I did. I learned how to politely and firmly cut off conversations, walk in a different direction, and decline invitations. This is a big deal for a young 20-something.

Many vistas

Other times, people I met brought me to amazing places. I drove the Blue Ridge Highway; I sat in a lawn chair at dawn on a beach in Charleston while turtles ran past me. I took a train carved through a Swiss Alp to a snowy and thin-aired station at 11,000 feet.

I did watch a sunset by myself, in Key West 90 miles north of Cuba. I felt a scary sensation — loneliness — but also joy at the family next to me; kids were whooping and pointing and saying "oooh" as the orange sun sank into the ocean.

In Spain, an Israeli sitting next to me on a train to me listened to Bob Dylan loudly enough through his headphones for me to hear all the words. We started talking and became hiking buddies — we took a tram up near the top of Montserrat, and hiked the rest. At the top he asked, "Would you have made it all the way up to the top if you were by yourself?" I said no, probably not. He agreed, and said it helped him sometimes to have someone you barely know push you to do things you wouldn't normally.

We took pictures. We were grinning ear to ear; the views and colors were muted and unfamiliar.

We took too long walking back toward the tram, and ended up missing the last tram ride down. This meant walking about 1,500 vertigo-inducing feet back to the bottom on the kind of grated metal steps you can see through as you walk. It was quite steep. If we tripped, we fell on the person in front of us, and in parts we were high above the ground. Our forearms were sore from clinging to the railing once we got to the bottom.

These days, I don't find myself stranded atop mountains in Barcelona quite so much. I'm happily married, and not doing as much solo travel unless it's for work. My partner in crime, so to speak, and I have realized that even though we often view the same sunsets from the same vantage point, we don't always see the same sunsets. (How many times have you murmured "what are you thinking?" and not received the reply you expected?). Even though I still enjoy meeting new people, there's not as much space for me to do that.

I'm OK with that. I'm great with it, actually. It means I'm still open to making new connections, but without as many hours of boredom or exhilaration. The highs and lows have had their edges rubbed off. I feel more stable. I feel happier overall.

That said — and here's a surprise to my younger self — I'm just as excited about going and doing some things alone.

I still love going to cities by myself and walking. I love stopping when I want to, thinking uninterrupted, smiling at the dog walkers, getting lost and then getting un-lost. I can walk for hours.

And, I'm incredibly grateful for all of the solo traveling I did. Even though it was scary at the time, and scary even in retrospect, I think adventuring alone was an important part for me in becoming secure in myself and the world. Old lady me is proud of young lady me. She prods me to keep going.

Alli Harvey lives, works and plays in Anchorage.

Alli Harvey

Alli Harvey lives in Palmer and plays in Southcentral Alaska.

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