I once emailed a food writer to ask for her advice on how to become a food writer.
Her answer: "Start eating."
That was when I was 16 years old. I gave up on the restaurant critic dream within a year, but I kept her advice close to heart. I stayed interested in writing, but expanded my interests:
I wanted to write about people, about thoughts, and things I noticed happened at parties, the texture of a feeling, the architecture of loss, and the reason why home was so difficult to find.
So I adapted her advice for all the above: "Start living."
Traveling alone seemed like a good way to jump into the deep end of life: it would naturally provide challenges and a lot of fodder for observation. My first solo trip was to Guatemala, and it sparked a lifelong love of my own company in a foreign country, or the next town over.
Baby Mari in Guatemala
Solo travel has charged so much of my work that it's the thing I get asked about most. And yet, the thing I know how to answer least!
I don't have tips for getting cozy with solitude and I'm be terrible at giving packing advice, but I'll attempt to provide my own thought process so you, too, can plan a journey to new corners of the earth and your psyche!
Contemplating and choosing
Where to go
I follow the whims of my current interests when it comes to deciding where to go. Sometimes it's a phase: I went to Berlin because I loved going dancing and it offered a lot of that, I chose to visit Lisbon because I wanted to counteract some ugly parts of life with immense beauty, I took a bus across Tennessee because I enjoyed both bluegrass and blues. I'm interested in surfing now and toying with lessons in Oaxaca. (This interest is sure to pass shortly.)
Sometimes it's an inkling that piles up: As soon as a curiosity about Brazil ignited, the desire seemed to catch flame from the ambient ethers: I'd meet someone from Rio or see a good movie set in São Paulo or hear a fun Portuguese song, and took them all as a sign.
And sometimes it's arbitrary: I knew I wanted to live abroad for a while after graduation, and figured I could teach English. Two countries were actively accepting teachers: Chile and China. I read that Chile was slightly more hospitable to my vegetarian eating habits at the time, so I picked Chile and spent a wonder-filled year in Santiago—a city I wouldn't have sought out. It worked out magnificently, as did my alternate-universe year in China I'm sure.
My current dream destinations: Nepal, Turkish Islands, Napa Valley, and Lake Atitlán
Why to go
I am interested in "the extended mind," the idea that our minds expand beyond our skulls. For example, when I write, my thought process happens outside of my brain, on to paper or my laptop. Travel gives us new settings for our mind's activity to take place, outside of ourselves.
I pay a lot of attention to the way that a new setting might influence my thinking and feeling, and I seek out places that I hope will reshape my mind by either opening my opinions, softening my preoccupations, or narrowing my focus.
Such as: being by the ocean.
Up until the 17th century, Europeans generally viewed oceans and mountains as ugly or inconvenient—boils upon the earth! Then Henry More suggested that maybe big empty natural spaces could provide spiritual contemplation, which influenced art, which then influenced tourism: wealthy people started going out of their way to see oceans and mountains, to experience their once-ignored grandeur!
That story speaks to the different ways that we've (under)valued landscape throughout the years, and how simply being in a certain place can provide a collective feeling. This is something I contemplate before I travel.
How to go
I don't like bopping around a country; I prefer to dig into one place. Otherwise, my attention gets too scattered (as do my belongings). Traveling for pleasure is brand new for humans; every civilization up until recently agreed that traveling was a huge and horrible undertaking to be avoided if possible, and traveling around to a number of places in one trip gives me some ancestral flashbacks to the chore of schlepping.
When I choose a specific city to visit within a country, I'm already getting attached: that's a nice feeling. I already gather some allegiance to the particular spot I've chosen for my future memories to take place.
Packing and preparing
What to bring
I might download a couple movies for the plane; here is a list of my favorite flight films. You could get inspired by Queen, a Bollywood movie about a girl who takes herself on a solo honeymoon.
I bring two books of completely different tones. I bring a guidebook to orient me. I bring a new journal. For comfort, I bring something really cozy to wear and my own pillowcase.
I prepare by making a playlist so that I associate this trip with certain songs: here is one I made before I left for a month in Patagonia, and here's one I made for a fortnight at a fishing village in Connecticut.
FYI: You are going to forget something. You're going to wish you'd packed a different jacket or those other shoes. You're going to regret the overcoat you didn't need. Make peace with that now.
Where to stay
When I'm traveling alone, I favor a bustling neighborhood over a pretty one. I enjoy returning 'home' in the evening to see people out and about, forming a cheerful protective layer over my temporary residence.
This may be the most embarrassing thing I admit here, but I will often google "hipster neighborhood [city]" as a starting place to get a sense of where to stay. While I abstain from using this term in normal life, it has global significance for what I'm looking for in a neighborhood abroad. I'm sorry. When we get a new word I'll revise this paragraph.
When I'm traveling alone, I'm not picky at all about the accommodations themselves. I like to have some surface to write on, a window to look out, and that's it; I'm a hermit crab who feels easily at home in a new shell of any sort. When I'm traveling with others, I become significantly more high-maintenance.
What to wear
I wear a lot of color at home, but on trips I'm a monochrome individual. Wearing shades of white makes me feel fresh and spunky, ready for an espresso in the plaza or a sunset aperitif at a moment's notice. As a bonus, I think a single color looks nice in photos, if photogenic outfits are something that's important to you.
Tip: Red looks especially great in pictures, so I always pack one red dress!
Monochrome in Greece
Monochrome in Brazil
Monochrome at flamenco class in an old cave in Spain
Anchoring and stabilizing
At home, I eschew a routine, but abroad, I crave one!
As soon as I land wherever I'm going to stay, I find a cafe immediately. Even if I don't love it, I will go back repeatedly as a ritual to anchor me in a new place.
There's nothing wrong with doing the same thing every day while traveling! Doing the same thing often in New York is how I really got to know its complexities and nuances. I used to think that getting to know a new city meant seeking out novelty, but becoming a temporary regular helps you get to know a city in a different, deeper way.
I don't remember every restaurant where I ate in Rio, but I vividly remember going to Bar do Gomes at the end of every evening, saying hi to the same sweet bartender. After getting mugged one afternoon, I was so grateful I'd already made somewhat of a connection with someone in the city; it felt familiar and safe to return to my dear little neighborhood bar after a disorienting day.
Best caipirinhas in Rio!
Adventuring and peregrinating
I'm not a museum or monuments person while traveling alone; I just want to see people going about their lives. So, I make a list of neighborhoods I want to visit within the city and pick a different one every day, vowing to get to know it as much as I can in a few hours.
This involves mucho walking. My walking strategy is to pick some landmark all the way across the city and walk there no matter how far it is. Walking the whole length of a city is a favorite adventure, and introduces you to areas of town you wouldn't normally see. You also have time to listen to your entire thoughtfully-prepared playlist this way.
Sure, this isn't guaranteed awe-inspiring sightseeing: I walked across Melbourne and ended up meandering along a freeway the entire time, but I saw some mildly amusing street signs and took in half of an audio book.
Observing and journaling
The greatest gift of solo travel is sharpened observation.
It's harder for me to sharpen my observation when I'm traveling with others, because my attention leans toward them. Alone, my attention is in hyper-focus and I remind myself of a baby whose alert eyes dart all over the room in search of understanding about this new world. We enter the world alone and we have the opportunity to explore it alone.
Descartes spent ten years traveling solo, exploring "the book of the world," because changing his scenery fueled his philosophical mind and thinking process. Like Descartes with a selfie stick, changing our scenery can fuel our own writing and thinking. Being shaken out of my habits gives me bountiful ways to see the world anew, and my thoughts change their courses in turn.
I'm so glad I didn't have an iPhone for most of my early solo trips, but now I have to make the decision whether to use it or not while traveling. I usually keep it in airplane mode most of the time, and I've been happier on travels where I'm not posting on social media. Sometimes it's connective and delightful to share; sometimes it adds unnecessary self-imposed pressure.
Tip: If you want your picture taken well, ask a teenage girl!
How to keep a journal
-Simply list colors, smells, tastes, or sounds: no need to elaborate. One of my favorite travel writers is James Holman, a blind adventurer who wrote about the scents and songs of plants and animals on five continents as he journeyed around the world between 1827-1832. His sensory observations are marvelous, and remind us that even recording new sensations in list form is significant journaling.
-Sit in a cafe and just watch. Write what you watch. Do that long enough, and your writing will take you on a wild ride, I guarantee.
-Write fiction: My mind goes berserk when I'm traveling, and sometimes a particularly evocative setting will inspire a whole short story, like the magical realism tale I wrote during lunch after visiting a spooky cathedral in Guatemala. No one will ever read that, but it was a fun way to get out some overly-elaborate descriptions that were bubbling up inside.
-Take photos with film: I often use a film camera while traveling, because I love the creamy surreal image quality that invites me to view a scene in a different way. I also enjoy getting them developed once I return home, and being surprised with the results a couple weeks later:
Mexico City on film
Berlin on film
Longing and missing
FOMO is an inevitable part of solo travel. Should you have gone to that other restaurant? Probably. Would today have been better if you'd chosen the different museum? Yes definitely. This is all part of the adventure. If you're not disappointed at some point, you probably aren't reflecting!
Alas, travel never promises to give you the precise experiences you had in mind. I remember going out of the way to treat myself to an elegant seafood emporium in Porto that was supposed to be outrageously good, only to find that it was a comically unpicturesque chain restaurant in a mall...not a disaster, but not what my imagination had in mind for me. They were closing and I had to rush my order, which I sheepishly ate at a plastic table, embarrassed by my expectation.
It's times like these that I remember this zen idea:
If you're gazing at the sunset but telephone wires are in the way, consider that telephone wires aren't distracting from the view; they are part of the view.
In other words, if an imperfect sight or a less-than-ideal experience seems to be a tarnish upon the otherwise pristine trip, consider it as an opportunity to learn more about the complexity of the culture.
I, for one, would be so much more interested in a photo of a mall chain restaurant in Greece than the same sunset photo in Santorini that people line up for hours to take.
As a solo traveler, you're in a prime position to explore a place's intricacy on your own terms, and being let down is inevitable—an invitation to investigate your own perceptions.
Remembering and memorializing
How to remember
I appreciate material memories: I buy postcards, I seek out gifts.
I always buy something special to remember the trip, usually art or clothing. The purchases I treasure most are the ones I made to reclaim my own joy:
I bought a bird painting in Spain to remind myself that I was still an adventurer even if temporarily immobile, I chose a wooden Mother Mary figurine in Guatemala in the midst of spiritual turmoil to remind myself that there are so many ways to experience the Divine, I insisted on a pink necklace in Argentina that symbolized hope as the pandemic flared up in my home city.
If possible, I buy a special scent (just a cheap one) when I arrive, and wear it during the trip so that I always have a strong olfactory tie to my memories. I did this when I got to Porto, and smelling the cologne years later takes me right back to a sun-filled park on an April afternoon. I can still hear the children chatter as they leave the nearby school.
Leaving is as important as arriving
Many people have written about travel ethics better than I could, but I try to leave a place a little better than I found it. You can tip well, help a stranger, put a significant bill in a street musician's hat, or make a donation toward conservation efforts in the country that you visited. You can choose not to geo-tag, and you can choose to follow these important tips on ethical social media use while traveling (please do!).
After coming home
The significance of my trip usually comes to me only after I've processed at home, and what's when I like to go through photos and pare them down so that looking through them later is enlivening and not overwhelming. I tend to mythologize my trips according to what was happening with me internally at the time, and photos can either support or detract from that narrative.
My favorite ritual is to look through photos and choose one or two to have specially printed and framed. It's almost like I'm judging my own photography contest, selecting the one that best represents an emblematic moment of the whole experience.
Such as: This scene from Lisbon in which I got permission to take the photo of these two phenomenal musicians playing in a shockingly gorgeous alley. I was going through such a hard time at that moment, and this scene instantly affirmed my belief in a benevolent world. (Also, this photo is completely untouched: that's really what the scene looked like!)
Or this quiet morning in Capileira, Spain, in which mist swept down the mountain to reveal olive orchards and sheep meadows with the north African coast in the distance. I didn't know I was about to get very ill, and I was so grateful to have this day:
Or this evening in Paraty, Brazil, when the streets (intentionally) flooded and I walked back to the guest house in soggy feet but with this image illuminating my brain:
I haven't traveled solo in a long time so I reached into memory to write this. Maybe some day soon I'll be writing from surf camp in Oaxaca, but for now, I wish you a beautiful solo journey to the grocery store or to a foreign land!
Welcome to Out of the Blue, a weekly reflection on something that's caught my attention, and an attempt to learn deep lessons from the shallow and light wisdom from the dark. If you haven't subscribed yet, sign up for free here!