“Traveling - it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller"- Ibn Battuta
That’s the story of my life. When I am traveling, I prefer to be silent, to be quiet and to be calm enough to observe what is happening around me. In fact my travel days are one of those rare days where I let the other person speak and I listen, I listen intently. I am intrigued by new cultures, new destinations and new stories! Of course, once I am back I won’t rest until I have recounted each and every experience to my often reluctant audience. But how did I ever discover I liked all these?
In the very beginning, like everyone else, I used to look for company to travel. There wasn’t a travel plan which didn’t include a whole a lot of begging/convincing a friend(s) to come along. My travel plans revolved around others’ availability and others’ plans. When I met more people who were interested in travel, it didn’t take long before I made friends with them and went on several trips together. The trips were full of laughter, poking fun at each other and a whole lot of talking because all of us were new to each other and we there because of our common love of travel. What these trips were not was enriching. In the sense that while meeting new people was fun I didn’t learn anything about the place that we were visiting because we were so busy with each other. We were confined in this familiar protective bubble with little chance of interaction with the others. Conversations bounced between the closed contexts of our group, there was little that felt alien.
On some unsuspecting trip, clichéd as it may seem, I happened to discover the joy of discovery. I started traveling with few and actively avoided all such trips that included a huge group. After all, all that joking and talking and laughing got in the way of me experiencing the place. When I look back at such trips, neither do I remember the conversations nor do I remember the place. At this point I must be coming off as an increasingly anti-social person. I will be lying if I say I have nothing against such vacations, well, I hate them. Please don’t judge me. But what I do love is to travel in a way where me or my friends are not taking over a place, where I am not intruding. I want to be able to blend in, observe, learn and not seem intimidating.
To tell you the truth, I didn’t take to solo travel for a really long time. My first solo trip was only in 2011 to Sikkim. I have gone alone to join groups where I didn’t know anyone before but never traveled all alone until that point. And I traveled solo because I didn’t find anyone to come along and also because I didn’t want to wait for someone to come along. That was a small 5 day trip in the foothills of Himalayas and that one trip changed my life and how! Since then I have daringly set out travel to the remote islands of Andaman and to stay with the headhunting tribes of Nagaland alone and had some pretty remarkable experiences – both terrifying and breathtaking.
In India, especially, we are not accustomed to the idea of doing things alone. Be it, going to the movies or going shopping or god forbid, eat alone! Here, doing things alone will only attract pitiful glances and sympathetic enquiries. I have been asked several times if I didn’t have a family. If I did, how they allowed me to travel alone was invariably the next question. Always. The good thing about traveling alone in India is that everybody wants to know your story. They come to you, they are curious and let you immerse in their world. I have had some really long and interesting conversations with the locals wherever I traveled alone or with just a friend. The bad thing about traveling alone is that everybody wants to know your story. As a woman traveling alone, I do attract a lot of attention. Sometimes I just want to be left alone but that doesn’t always work in my favor.
Half the times, I am at my wit’s end with all the things going wrong around me, like the snakeskin in my room or landslides or falling sick or the lack of public transport or landing in a remote village where the hotel’s locked down and there’s no power for 2 days. Half the times I am also scared to death. But the confidence that comes from the knowledge that I survived all these and lived to tell the story leaves me in a far better state than I earlier was in. We all know that magic happens outside of our comfort zone. I am now willing to take on challenges and enjoy the freedom that I am given. By trusting myself and being forced to trust strangers, I now know that I can work my way around chaotic situations and that people elsewhere in general are quite nice and friendly. I have taken some stupid decisions too but I’ve learnt my lessons.
Solo travel opens a whole new world that has been shielded by none other than our own presumptions. In the process I also do have better and insightful travel experiences. There are loads of posts on the internet advocating solo travel, but I decided to share these thoughts anyway because to hear something from someone you know or relate to can make a bigger difference. I know that once a friend hiked all alone thinking “If Neelima can go solo, I can too” and I know I drew strength from my other friend who hiked alone.
I do not want to paint a rosy picture of solo travel though. It is not going to be easy but is the reward going to be worth the effort? Yes! Words like safety, loneliness etc get thrown around generously whenever solo travel talk comes up, we’ll discuss that in a later post. Solo travel is difficult only to begin with but it is an incredibly enriching experience. I won’t say take a huge leap of faith and take that month long overseas trip just yet, but try. Time is too precious to spend it waiting for something to happen or for someone to come along. Pick up your bag and go. Don’t pin all your hopes on waiting for the perfect time or finding that perfect travel partner to begin your journey. In fact everyone should take a solo trip - to discover courage, confidence, freedom and to grow as a person!
Today it feels amazing to say “Yes, I am going alone!” I can and I will.
What are your thoughts on solo travel in India?
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2012 Women's Day post - My Little Secret (on How to get started with Travel)
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2012 Women's Day post - My Little Secret (on How to get started with Travel)
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