An Ode to Solo Travel

With remnants of last night’s attempt of sleeping on an overnight bus, you step outside with your backpack. You feel disoriented: all the signs are in a language you don’t speak a single word of, there’s a different hum as the day starts, or maybe it’s just because of your lack of sleep since that guy four seats in front of you decided to snore through the night. 

Exhausted, you make your way to your 14-person bedroom backpacker hostel and grab the map. Everything is odd, unfamiliar. You try as hard as possible to not look like a tourist but you feel exactly so: a stranger, an odd-one-out, a sticking sore thumb in the middle of a city that buzzes and goes about its day, never for a moment thinking of extending a helping hand. Worse, you’re experiencing this headache all by yourself.

“Why did I take a 13-hour bus ride all the way here again?”

So you grab your coffee (by pointing at whatever that lady at the counter is sipping) and try to see all the highlights in one day. It’s all beautiful, but it gets boring. It’s like you could Google Image all these sights from the comfort of your bed back at home, ideally in worn-out pyjamas.

“Three more days here… How does one fill the time?”

Then you meet a fellow traveler who’s been around here maybe a day longer than you. You don’t really feel like being social but she seems to know where to go, so you say yes when she invites you to see that underground event. You feel even more out of place but after a good ten minutes you ease up and drink with locals who the only English words they know are “Hello beautiful”, “Where are you from?”, and “How you doin'?” (they just got Friends on TV, you learnt). Maybe it’s the fifth shot of tequila, but you start telling yourself,

“Hey, maybe I can do this.”

Soon you know the route from your hostel to the main square like the back of your hand. The shopkeepers, florists, and baristas that line your daily morning walk say good morning to you. You’ve quickly picked up the language and have used that to your advantage to butter up your neighbourhood sandwich man to give you extra fries. You have the Facebooks of your hostel mates and locals you met the day before and you’ve already had plans to trespass some hill tonight. That itinerary you meticulously built before you embarked on this journey?… What itinerary?

Inhaling deeply, closing your eyes, you try as hard as possible to remember this moment. So that the scents, sounds, and sights are imprinted forever in your memory; and that will be a place you could go back to when you doubt yourself that you cant thrive.

You feel confident, unstoppable. You start choosing apartments and building up a fantasy of living in this city because you already feel like a local. You snicker when you’re reminded of that day you got off the bus. When you see tourists in cargo shorts with their maps wide open, you help out but feel that you’re nowhere like them, despite being a tourist yourself.

“This sure feels like home.”

But then your phone lights up with a reminder of the next flight you need to catch. It’s not just a travel reminder. It feels more like the universe keeping you in check and reminding you that, all this? This is all just temporary. Your heart sinks at the thought of leaving this city along with its routines and people.

So unwillingly, you say goodbye.

But tomorrow, you would do all of this, all over again.

A new adventure’s coming up. Maybe this time bring some earplugs for the bus?

Words and photographs by Nadia Pritta Wibisono