Traveling Solo

If you’ve been hanging around here for a while, you know that the nest has been mostly empty since last summer. Oh, people come and go on breaks, and this summer I certainly won’t be sitting around here alone, jazz on the Spotify, worshipping the sun.

And I do wish we all lived closer together. But everyone is off doing what they should be doing right now, and that’s the way it should be.

Anyway, I’ve done three major solo trips this year: I drove to New Mexico back in August, spent the last week of October in Guanajuato, Mexico, and then was in Italy – Naples and Puglia – for a good chunk of February. Although I touched on traveling solo here, I thought I’d write a little more about it.

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to a female acquaintance after Mass here, telling her about the Italy trip, and she stopped me – “You went…by yourself? Not on a tour?” Yes. No. “You went alone?” Yes.

Now this woman is married and of course enjoys being with and traveling with her husband, so it’s understandable that traveling alone isn’t part of her mental landscape. I get it. If I were married, I’m sure I’d feel the same way. I did, in fact.

But even married women like to go off by themselves. I met one on the plane back from Italy. There was a group of middle-aged to almost-elderly women who had just finished two weeks in Morocco. One of them sat next to me, and we had great conversations off and on over the many hours in the air. The group, she said, was of solo female travelers, most of whom were, indeed married, but whose spouses didn’t have the same bug. So a couple – or more- times a year, they went off in a group. The trip before this had been South America.

But my seatmate said, too, that even though she enjoyed the group – she also liked to take trips on her own (I guess her husband really doesn’t like to travel – or perhaps can’t – she was probably in her mid-70’s), and was currently planning her next. A group can be fun, she said but sometimes you just want to experience things on your own, and you don’t want the burden of wondering and worrying about other people’s needs and wants.

“I have no trouble,” she said, “going into a restaurant or bar by myself. It’s…wonderful.”

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The rest of this post is going to meander and probably spiritualize in a predictably tedious way, so I’ll pause and be very practical for a moment. Let’s talk about safety and security.

Driving a thousand miles by myself…going to Mexico…going to Naples…driving alone in Italy…did I feel safe?

Absolutely.

Just hearing the words “Mexico” and “Naples” makes some nervous, but I’ll tell you – I was in and about downtown Denver in November, and I felt more ill-at-ease and a creepier vibe there than I did in either of those other places – and I wasn’t alone there. Walking around Naples at night felt safer to me than walking around downtown Denver during the day.

But specifically: I’m not stupid. I don’t wander around staring at my phone (which is not an Iphone, so extra layer of theft protection there) oblivious to my surroundings, a ready target. I don’t wear jewelry. I give off a vibe of awareness and attention. I go where there are people.

And I have five people at home who know, every day, my general whereabouts. I don’t know if my phone can do any locater thing, but what I do is text them most mornings and let them know my plan – I’m going to Herculaneum today. Because in case something happens – and things do happen – believe me, you don’t have to lecture me about the unexpected – they’ll at least know where I was supposed to be that day.

Now, back to meandering.

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Of course, personality affects your interest in or comfort with traveling alone. I’m an only child, and normally completely content alone. I’m an introvert, which means that my energy and recharging comes from being alone, too. The best way to understand that, I think, is to think, “What do I need to do to feel like myself? To feel really present in the world?” For some, it’s interacting with others – they don’t feel alive unless they’re engaged with other people. I had one kid who was very much an extrovert of that type, and believe me, until I figured out the personality type differences at the heart of our differences, it was..challenging.

For me and other introverts, it’s alone time. If I’ve been with people all day, I need about two to three hours to myself in the evening to settle in and reconnect with myself, and not feel as if I am somewhere out there that needs to be gathered in. That’s why, when the kids were here, I was such a night owl, usually up until at least midnight, usually later. Now? I’m quickly, weirdly, tumbling into Old People Hours – I don’t go to be super early, but I’m not unsettled until after midnight anymore, either. I’ve been mostly alone all day, so…I don’t need that late night alone time. Makes sense.

So where was I?

Oh yes. So that only child-introvert-Harriet-the-Spy personality means that traveling solo through life is my natural state. I’m always alone in my head. Not – I hasten to say, especially for my family’s sake – that I don’t like it when they’re here. Not at all! In fact, even though the solo state is natural – it nonetheless feels somewhat incomplete. When a car pulls up or even a phone rings and it’s one of them, it feels as if a missing pieces has fallen into place. It feels right when the door closes and I’m alone, it feels right when they’re back.

The adjustment for this new traveling solo stage has come, not with any sense of awkwardness or discomfort, but with purpose.

Why? If I’m not taking kids on an adventure in search of Teachable Moments ™, why bother?

And that was hard. It was hard because for fourteen years, I’d done so much travel with the two youngest (now both in college), and the choices of destinations were rooted in three factors: any particular interest of theirs (Mexico and Central America, for example), cost and my sense of what might be a good…yeah…educational/formation experience.

It wasn’t just about culture, history and nature, either. When we set out on our traveling life, I had another purpose: I wanted them to see and live in the reality that there was much more to life than, say, the 5th grade at Our Lady of Sorrows School in Birmingham, Alabama.

Not that that was a bad place, at all. But after raising three much older kids and witnessing their navigating through adolescence and young adulthood and getting a sense of how the American social landscape was shifting: getting, ironically, more insular, enabling narcissism, self-involvement and self-concern, not to speak of tribalism – I thought that one of the best gifts I could give these guys was to remove them from that for periods of time and help them see that the world was a very, very big place, with lots of people with lots of different viewpoints and lifestyles and that yes, as Rick says,

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So that was my motivation, my framework for traveling for almost fifteen years.

And yes, the first two solo trips were just a little difficult because that period had come to an end.

I was a little at sea as to what to do and why I should do it. I missed my fellow-travelers and while I didn’t miss much of the logistics and the interest-balancing and for sure didn’t regret spending 2/3 less (at least – I’m very low maintenance) on travel – I actually did miss being a part of my kids’ experiences as they discovered a new part of the world.

I enjoyed and got a great deal out of seeing new things with them and partly through their eyes.

So now…what?

During those first two trips, especially, I battled conflicting emotions: glad to be somewhere, interested in what I was seeing, grateful for the freedom, guilt about privilege, guilt about self-indulgence, wondering if I could live in this new place, missing all of my kids, not just the two frequent travel companions, thinking about what they would and wouldn’t enjoy about this new place, plotting on a return with one or more of them, wondering if this was at all justifiable, so aware, again, of the privilege that screams from even having these questions at all.

There were, indeed, times, when I was a little sad – sad that those days were over, because you know what? They were fun. I really enjoyed taking those guys all over, and I’ll probably be sitting here when I’m 80, looking at those pictures over and over again, no doubt.

The nostalgia, though, is quickly overtaken by the goodness of the present moment. Everyone is doing well. Oh, there are struggles, and serious ones, but there always have been and always will be. I’m glad everyone is where they are, doing what they’re doing.

Do you see where this is going?

Because it’s not just about one woman’s attempt to put her empty-nest solo traveling in perspective.

It’s not even just about the empty nest – although any newly-minted empty nester probably understands.

It’s about any change, any transition, I think.

For me, the answer to my questions are evolving. For right now, anyway, I am really not alone. The two youngest adults are in and out and we’ll be hanging around together, with some comings and goings, most of the summer, really starting now with all the spring breaks and Easter breaks and graduations. The fall is up in the air, as well, depending on other people’s decisions about their lives.

Some people preach a gospel that we’re all better off following our dreams and organizing our lives – and the lives of others – around our individual dreams and goals, even as parents, making sure the family system is one that facilitates our success. Okay, fine for you, but I try – try – to make my framework for living, especially as a parent, and even as a parent to adults – as something I call “radical availability.” On the phone, to shoot over and help with the kids or help you move – I’m there. Being available to my kids? That’s something I’m never going to regret.

So, my days as tour guide might be mostly over, but I can and want to host and facilitate and hang out at night while during the day everyone’s gone off and done their own thing during the day. But then there’s that next generation, rising fast, too, and just about old enough to take a trip and start the journey…

Spain, 2019

Someone said to me a few months ago, as I was mulling over all of this, Stop! You deserve this time! You’ve worked hard for your kids and given them a lot! Relax!

Well, I don’t know if “work hard” describes me in any way, even as a parent. But even if it did, I’m not sure I could agree. My time on earth wasn’t given to me for self-indulgence – even the introvert, content to be wandering the streets of Naples alone, knows this. There has to be fruit that serves others in some way – even if it’s something as simples as: this refreshes you and gives you more energy to serve or you’ve learned something that you can teach someone else or share or you were in this place at that time, and you encountered that person, and you both were enriched or one more lesson in: you’re not the center of the world or you learned how to navigate a difficulty and a challenge which will help you help someone else someday.

Oh, and then there’s you people: You can write about this and maybe someone reading it will be helped, entertained, educated or inspired.

Not that I’m settled into this as the complete answer, no more challenges needed or desired. I’m not nestling into some identity as “middle-aged traveling woman.” I am keenly aware that the space that I am privileged to inhabit now, first, could be gone tomorrow. Life changes, as we know, on a dime.

But I also know that this space is not just for me. Because the spaces we live in – as they change, evolve and shift – are never just for us, because of course, that space is always shared.

France, 2012