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Thoughts about traveling alone...
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Seth Familian
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Jul 27, 2001 08:53 PDT
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Hey there!
A friend replied to my last groupwide e-mail asking "what's it like to
travel alone?" (as well as why I use empty words like "amazing" and
"fantastic" so many times in my e-mails), and after writing what must be
at least a solid page in response, I figured the rest of you might enjoy
reading what I wrote as well. If not, I apologize for flooding your
inbox, and I promise you won't hear from me for at least another week!
:)
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First off, I´d like to apologize for the unseemly and downright annoying
repetition of bland and often empty words like "amazing" and "fantastic"
in my groupwide e-mails; I often find myself writing these supposed
literary gems in internet cafes while racing against the clock, trying
not to waste the day in wonderful foreign cities by sitting at a
computer, typing away. The unfortunate result, though, is that my prose
becomes a bit shoddy, a bit repetitive, and a bit unoriginal (as well as
a bit repetitive :). So yes, I'm well aware that I tend to use those
words of not so specific "excitement" way, way too much, and I'll
definitely make more of an effort to avoid such things--for the good of
both my writing style/quality as well
as for those exposed to it on an all too consistent basis (gasp! there
are really people who *read* these e-mails!).
As for your other questions, yes I am traveling alone, and I must say
it's been quite an, um, interesting experience--both good and bad. The
good of it is that I have total control over my itinerary (which was
only vaguely planned when I arrived in Europe, with a list of cities I
wanted to see in my head and a heap of country-specific guidebooks in my
pack), as well as the time I spend in each of these places and where I
specifically spend it (I often find myself fiendishly chuckling at those
groups of four and five, standing in the middle of the street, each
pointing in a different direction
and simultaneously to a conflicting place on the map, each with their
own idealized and unrealized "perfect day" in mind.). The latter is
especially good for my photography, since traveling alone provides total
freedom for me to truly explore these cities with camera in hand, and
really see details or hidden places that might otherwise be overlooked
when wandering with a larger group (i.e. I don't ever piss anyone off by
lingering 10 to 50 feet behind, hunched over some obscure detail in the
street).
The other major plus of traveling alone is feeling no qualms about--and
in fact being really pushed to--meet, talk to, get to know, and hang out
with new people every single day. While I've only been traveling on my
own for about a month now, I can see that there is a real luxury (and
almost a danger) in always having someone else with you, as you're never
really pushed to branch out and meet new people (unless, of course,
you're either both incredibly outgoing people or you become absolutely
sick of the person you're traveling with). That traveling companion (or
those companions), then, has the potential of becoming not merely a
social safety net, but a social restraint, which for so many reasons can
limit the fun, excitement,
drama and intrigue of an experience abroad. So far from being lonely,
traveling alone can often be liberating!
But of course, all coins have two sides, and so traveling alone is not,
as you hinted at in your note to me, all peaches and regalia. There
have been days or moments (most of which were clustered in the beginning
of my trip, but some of which crop up even now) when I've felt really
alone in cities, frustrated beyond belief that I know no one, can't
speak the language, can't vent to someone or put two heads together to
figure out a logisitcal problem.
Meals haven't really been that isolating and depressing (people seem to
think that meals--eating alone--is the worst part of traveling alone),
since I often make myself lunch and enjoy it in a park or sit at cafes
in the afternoon or evening, either writing or soaking up/observing the
atmosphere or both, and I'm always excited to try out suggestions that
anyone might have, since the restauraunt's atmosphere is usually part of
the reason it's so good. What's more, some of my best, funniest, and
wierdest stories to date come from
times when I've met people while at a meal (for instance, when I started
talking to the guy to my right over tapas at a cool little place in
Barcelona (Irati--awesome, cheap tapas (thanks Rochelle!)) and he ended
up telling me his whole life story--from details about his lifelong
career as a photographer to how he was once held in a Moroccan jail for
a month back in the 70s. Wow!) But other facts of traveling
alone--like trying to find a room as one single person in a country like
Spain where dormitory-style rooms come few and far between, hostel/hotel
owners are reluctant to group lone travelers together in larger rooms,
and singles are annoyingly or oftentimes impossibly expensive--have
bummed me out.
Having said all of this, though, I still think traveling alone is one of
the best experiences I´ve had so far in this little life of mine, since,
if anything, it really has pushed me to meet, meet, meet so many
people--from outrageous and saucy Spaniards to awesome Aussies (and
Kiwis) to gregarious Germans (okay, the alliterations are lame, I
know...). I've met so many people, in fact, that one of my journals has
transformed into a mini phone book, a list of worldwide friends and
contacts, places to stay and people to hang out with. And these people
have also been partly responsible for shaping and reshaping my
itinerary, as before I arrived in Budapest I had never heard of Grunau,
Austria or the Treehouse, but after meeting a really
cool guy named Gil who could give this little Austrian mountain town
nothing but praise, I changed all of my plans, and couldn't have been
happier.
So, as I like to say, traveling alone can either be amazing or amazingly
frustrating (there's that word again! arrgh!!), but it's often the
former and for me, and it has truly *made* my experience while on the
road.
I hope you're all doing well and I'll be in touch from London or
Ireland!
take care,
Seth
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