Solo Travel: It's Simply A Jigsaw Puzzle

Think of the map as a travel jigsaw puzzle.

I haven’t always been brave. I’ve been foolhardy at times. I’ve been a bit of a risk taker. I like to think I’ve been adventurous. As a teenager my mother took my sister and I to live in England for a year. That’s a story worthy of several blog posts. We travelled there and back by ship when ship travel was still a thing and Cruises were not. I started travelling solo when I was eighteen. I wanted to move as far from my island home as possible (I think that year in England changed me and I never quite fit in at home again) so like many of my surfing friends I went West. Then I went East. Then West again. Then East again. When life got too challenging, aka I broke up with my boyfriend, I came home. I had moved States four times and driven across the Nullabor Plain by myself when the road was unsealed for a lot of the way (west to east across Southern Australia is a big drive) I was twenty-one and I was ready for that first overseas holiday. So where did all the single people go in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s? Club Med Tahiti of course! I had my first Bankcard and I had my passport but to be honest I had no idea what to do with it. Tahiti was it and after that probably predictable experience I was back to Australian places again - it is a very big country I suppose and I always loved roadtrips. I don’t know why I never did the backpacking thing overseas or the holidays in Thailand and Bali like many of my friends. It was almost fifteen years before I left the country again for an extended stay in Hong Kong and I wasn’t really travelling solo. Eventually I let my passport lapse. Life happened. Work children relationships financial and emotional commitments. When I divorced I had that urge to take-off. To re-discover me and all that goes with it. To be anonymous. Where though? The idea of travelling solo to a foreign country completely unnerved me. I had lost my sense of self. Relationship breakdowns can have that effect even if other people don’t see it. My courage and confidence had wavered. The thought of being in a big airport let alone a train station (no trains where I come from) made me feel panic. What about language? What if I got lost? No I couldn’t do it. My confidence was zero. Where could I go that was overseas but wasn’t? New Zealand! Not too far, they speak English and it’s so like Tasmania. I booked a ‘mystery hotel’ in Christchurch for two nights on Wotif (remember that website?) and my flights, and off I went. Ten days. I was so nervous but once I checked in to the hotel and walked around the city I felt fine. It was a short holiday with some adventure and it gave me confidence to go further the next time. Some people travel well with a friend or a group or a partner. I have found through trial and error I travel most happily solo. This does not mean that I am averse to the idea of a travel companion, and often someone comes into my life when I am travelling and the journey has an added dimension. I have written before about how I feel different when I’m away and I’ve read articles about how people are more relaxed more open to meeting people and perhaps more free to be themselves when away from home. People sometimes tell me they wish they were brave enough or confident enough or something enough to do what I do. It might be having coffee, or seeing a film, or dining out, or driving long distance - solo. It might be a weekend away a yoga retreat or three months in Italy. Being on your own for an hour or a weekend or longer, in public, “yes I’m obviously on my own”, can be really uncomfortable. It’s one thing to read “you are enough, you can do this”, it takes small steps and lots of practice trips to really own those statements. When I went to New Zealand all those years ago I knew one person there and after a week I met up with her for a weekend. When I spent months living in Italy I began the trip with other people but after a few days went my own way. When I went to the UK my son was in the same hemisphere and I was able to spend days here and there with him. I might have spent most of my time travelling alone but I always had a back up plan. So next week I head off to Norway Sweden and Finland (maybe a few other places who knows yet). I’m travelling on my own, I have a general plan, I have a Latvian friend I met in Florence to spend a weekend in Helsinki with (three countries in one sentence) and the rest of the five weeks will be an adventure. What started as an invitation to be a companion on a voyage up the coast of Norway became a solo travel expedition down the coast of Norway. By travelling down instead of up I avoided the single supplement and actually got a refund from Hurtigruten (happy traveller). So then those six days were like the first pieces that fitted together in the jigsaw puzzle map. Next came the edges, the flights into Stockholm and out of Oslo, don’t ask me to explain how I decided on that because I can’t. Then came the rest of the puzzle, making the pieces fit around the voyage, how long here how long there, Airbnb here, Airbnb there, a flight, a train, maybe a ferry? Still there are several gaps in the jigsaw puzzle with the pieces waiting to be placed. I like this. I like the uncertainty, I like the openness to whatever might present, or whomever. Did I mention I’m a romantic? A romantic who loves Nordic Noir and Vikings. I think I’ll be in my element even if I can’t pronounce any of the names in ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ or the towns in Wallander and yes I know that the actor who plays Ragnor Lothbrok is actually Australian. What would a solo travel adventure be without a little fantasy though. I’ll be blogging about my experiences and posting to social media often. I want to encourage anyone who wants to travel or simply become comfortable doing anything solo. Taking the first step outside your comfort zone is simply that - a first step. Take one step, then another step, then a drive, then a plane or a boat or a train. It’s your travel/life story, you get to write it.

Happy to have you following along with me on this next adventure,

Karen x