On Traveling Solo

Take the picture, buy the croissant. 🥐

I’ve been traveling alone through southern France for the last two weeks, the longest and farthest trip I’ve done without companionship since I was 19. An exciting and unexpected work opportunity took me to Cannes for six days, and since it goes against my personal ethos not to take advantage of an expensed plane ticket, I added on some days at the top and tail.

The last solo international trip I took was also in France, visiting one of my childhood best friends while she studied abroad. She was in finals for most of the trip, so I spent my days wandering Paris thinking the deep thoughts of late adolescence while Feist blasted through my iPod touch.

An only child who was often left to my own devices growing up, I’m no stranger to solitude, but this has certainly been a new muscle to flex. Feeling more than a little bit alien and a little bit lonely, there’s been a pretty big learning curve on this adventure.

I’ve tried getting confident with my travel tripod for photos of myself, but it’s tough to say which feels more uncomfortable, that or asking strangers in broken French to take my picture. After ten days of trial and error, I’ve learned that I don’t at all mind having breakfast or lunch alone, but dinner in public without company feels particularly isolating. I’ve definitely eaten the cost of some exorbitant Uber rides after getting too overwhelmed to figure out the public transit on my own.

But while the pangs of homesickness have been intense, I’ve also developed a lot of joy in not being beholden to anyone else. It’s pretty liberating having zero pressure about your travel companion enjoying themselves. With no schedule and no one else to worry about, I’ve spent hours photographing the tiny cobblestone alleys and white linens flowing from brightly shuttered windows. I haven’t had to debate menu options with anyone or feel guilty about my pickiness over texture. I’ve lost track of time journaling in cafes and felt zero stress spending an hour shopping for skincare in a French pharmacy.

This trip has been about removing pressure, removing timelines, and removing expectations from a travel partner, even myself.

But here’s what I’ve realized - you bring the relationships with you.

Every time I’ve been about to take the same route back to my apartment, I’ve thought of my husband Ben, who never walks the same side of the street twice so that he can see things from new angles. I hear him when I’m feeling unsure about trying something new on the menu, and know he’d encourage me to order the weird thing. (Sometimes this works out great: the strawberry-shaped glazed pink pastry I had filled with cream and jelly, and other times not so much, like the anis flavored soda I couldn’t have more than two sips of.) Ben’s not afraid to scrap a plan or to spend hours of the day flipping through records in a hole in the wall, and I embrace that outlook when I’m feeling obligated to honor some made-up itinerary.

I think of my best friend Carly, with whom I travel pretty often. I hear her telling me to ask for the better table in the restaurant, to be unapologetic about getting the photo I have in mind, and to generally not give a fuck what other people think. Her phantom voice reminds me to be less afraid and to take advantage of every opportunity I’m presented with. I think of Sara, the world’s best postcard writer, as I sit and write a huge stack of them in a cafe, and of her husband Boris, who can find calm anywhere in the world with a book in his hand. I plan my days with my dad’s voice suggesting I “pick one main thing to do each day.’ He and I have a long-standing, jokingly clunky phrase about leaning into some of the cliché things when you travel: Do the thing you’re supposed to do in the place you’re supposed to do it. (We’ve abbreviated it to Do The Thing.) I hear him telling me that when booking a boat tour or eating at Brigitte Bardot’s favorite restaurant.

I’ve texted more than a few selfies of me eating baguettes to my friend Jake, whom I once inhaled an entire one with in under 2 minutes on a street corner in Paris, and photos of Coke Zeros to Mario and Alex, who refuse to agree with me that Diet Coke is superior. I’ve smiled at the thought of my godmother Sandy, who calls me peach blossom, while eating a juicy peach from a market in St Tropez. While getting my waist measured for a belt in a small leather goods shop, I burst out laughing about an inside joke with my friend Maggie. When finding the perfect smooth rock on the beach, I think of my Aunt Andrea and her many bowls of shells and seaglass. And when I get stressed about not seeing or doing enough, I circle back to the travel mantra my Aunt Meghan and Uncle Phil taught me: “Treat every place like you’ll be back.”

My mom’s voice, who passed away years ago, has been especially loud on this trip. I had my own truly Proustian moment when biting into a specific almond pastry we’d lost our minds over the first time she took me to France twenty years ago. At the Matisse museum, one of our favorite artists, whose use of color reminded me of our lengthy discussions on Fauvism, I thought my heart was going to come out of my chest. When I stepped into an ornate Catholic church in Nice to light a candle for her, I was so overcome by her presence that I wept uncontrollably in a pew for a good twenty minutes. The catharsis was staggering, and I felt a profound sense of relief afterward. (Turns out, churches are excellent places to cry.)

Traveling alone has been made so much less lonely by the constant emotional companionship of the people I love.

I’ve gotten comfortable with discomfort, reminding myself that like any other difficult emotion, loneliness is a wave you have to accept and wait to pass. (Or FaceTime your husband crying and make him show you your cat, which has absolutely happened more than once.)

I’ve had to get creative with how I plan my days and stay open-minded to adjusting that plan if I feel like it. I’m returning home spilling over with fresh ideas that I had real time to think about and process because there was no one to talk to. I feel inspired in new ways that I know are authentic to me because they were unaffected by outside voices. If I have the choice to travel alone or with company, I will always choose the latter, but I’m so grateful for pushing myself to do the thing, and to the people in my life who inspire me, whether they’re present or not.