December 21st 2023 to January 7th 2024, I enjoyed my first ever solo-trip into the American wilderness. I cannot even remember how this trip was conceived beyond the desire to be alone for a long time. Why Utah? Why Sequoia? Who knows when and how the seeds were planted in me between the hours I squeezed for sleep and the brutal business of a Harvard semester. I think the romanticism of travel had long died in me from the too many long-haul flights and the discomfort of dry air and TSA lines, but I knew that this trip marked something momentous, and thus warranted a proper reflection.
First and foremost, I should explain a little of the logistics of solo-travelling to anyone who might be interested in it before I delve into my many thoughts. The first principle of solo-travelling is safety, and safety rested in my pockets in the form of a sharp Swiss-army knife. I never had to use it, but it was the most legal self-defence equipment I had as a woman. I imagined wildlife, or a man on the trail who stares for too long, or foraged food … A healthy dose of paranoia is important.
The second principle is to come to terms with the fact that money is made to be spent, and to get my priorities straight. It is a misunderstanding that solo-travelling in America, great land of cars and oil, is anything economical like backpacking in Europe. It is E.X.P.E.N.S.I.V.E. Don’t get me wrong, I was thrifty; I had chosen the cheapest Airbnbs that added an extra 2 hours of travel time, bought indirect multi-city flights, never ate out (always cook your own food) except to scarf down the bare necessities of nutrition – granola bars, cold sandwiches, coffee in tin cans, cooked pasta. I personally get really money-anxious and will instinctively strive to be the most cost-efficient (ie. Plot every gas stop for the cheapest price per gallon, turn off my car AC to save on fuel etc) and there are moments when solo-travelling where I cannot afford to try to scrimp and save. “If it’s something money can solve, it’s not a problem.” This is a mantra I stuck by because peace of mind for making bigger decisions should be prioritised. I was travelling to safely see the world, not to accumulate savings, and so one cannot be miserly with spending. In many ways, this trip had healed my relationship with money.
A few more practical pointers:
- Go-to cheap and balanced meals to prepare – Pasta with diced vegetables (onions and bell peppers), mushroom omelettes, seared fish, cubed beef stew, steam corn and sweet potato.
- What’s in my bag? Always, extra layers and heat pads (point 2.5: always check the weather forecast), granola bars, 1 gallon water (you will get lost, so never underestimate how much water you need), physical map or at least offline screenshots of the digital map.
- Always take water and snack breaks in 30min interval or more frequently. I had to look out for myself because I am my own best safety and dehydration and impaired decision-making are self-sabotage. However, always keep two mouthfuls of water with you no matter what, as a sort of hope to keep going to the end of the hike.
- Set-up SOS and emergency contact on your phone. At least for Iphone, learn how to use the satellite SOS call for places with no signals. Also update someone on your daily itinerary (which I don’t do, but do as I say not as I do).
- Rent cars from Turo or other private car app rather than big rental companies. They are better maintained, have snow-chains and traction devices and other safety mechanisms that big companies don’t allow (I cannot overstate how important they are driving in cold climates). Most importantly that’s at least one person who has a stake in the timely and safe completion of your trip in case you get stranded somewhere with the car.
- Take photos, not just for memories sake, but to remember the path on a hike. When lost on a hike, get to higher ground, look, and think logically: the trail will likely follow rivers, or stay in flatter areas like the spines of mountains, or in the flatter valleys, or the busier roads.
- Close the curtains at accommodations because no thank you to people finding out that I stay alone.
- Pack backpacks, not suitcases, because you will need as many free hands as you get when travelling alone.
Keeping to my principles, solo-travelling was a lot less scary than I had thought. Beyond the mundane how-to, which I am sure I am forgetting lots of, I had the privilege of time and quiet to sit with some of my reflections.
Solo-travelling is humbling because it requires, in my opinion the most important skill of all, a mastery of our own weaknesses. On the most practical level, I knew my own limits and learned to give up. There were only so many hours of driving I could stomach at once with the finite attention and the growing soreness of my right leg. I was constantly balancing between the desire to optimise my time-to-expense-ratio and the nagging fear that I am alone and if I waded too far out alone no one would know if something happened to me. I had to say no to many things I have planned in my itinerary because I had no luxury of napping in the car. As much as solo-travelling creates an impression of self-sufficiency and the all-powerful independent young woman, the essence of such efficiency comes from understanding my own fragility and powerlessness.
On a more philosophical level, I am learning to enjoy the company of my solitude, and thus master the fatal weakness of human loneliness. Humans are born alone, and will pass alone, and so we must learn to be comfortable with our sole company; this was a wisdom my mother’s hermit-esque predisposition had always reminded me of. When it was apparent to me that I was accompanied into the stern silence of nature by only my shadow and my own thoughts, I appreciated my upbringing. It is not that I do not enjoy travelling with friends – there is a certain pleasure in being able to bounce off the excitement of others or talk about something amazing we saw – but there is something default about expecting safety and enjoyment in numbers that I wanted to challenge. I feel like very often I am in a position to take care of both myself and others around me, and that itself is confirmation that I am more than well-equipped to look after only myself. Having a companion in times of crisis makes things feel less stressful, but it does not inherently change the fact that there is no car, or the roads are icy, or I am lost in a desert. There is also the freedom of being completely selfish in my desires, to hike difficult paths, to wake up at ungodly hours to catch a sunrise, to simply stay in all day to binge-watch Attack on Titan (which I did on my very last day).
This trip also foregrounded my absolute distaste for people. In my own snobbish way as a solo-traveller, I look upon the bus-loads of glampers and mass market tourists (derogatory) with a certain allergic reaction. The mediocre crowd, toiling to see the same views – that is, the view of the shuffling backs of other humans obscuring the natural wonders – taking the same photos with their DSLRs pointing in the same direction with the same shuttering sound of commercially available banality. The dull crowd! How they chatter incessantly, too loudly, oblivious and in the way. The average white American tourist is overweight, poorly-dressed, and mediocre in the way their dull eyes squint blindly at the places of wonder. During the Christmas season, it was a different crowd – the Chinese and Indian tourists who jumped upon the off-peak prices, who pretended their language afforded them the privacy of commenting on their surrounding inappropriately, and always delighted in yelling at their children. If I might be allowed to make even more egregious generalisations, the crowd almost always ruined the national park.
I was also shocked by how unhappy people were around me, in juxtaposition to my own unbridled joy. Parents who shove phones in their children’s faces to pacify the crying child and their own embarrassments, children who complain about having no service and longing for their phones, and unhappy families with poor communication, where the couple is always passive-aggressively fighting or making the life of their children miserable by nagging on the all-too-familiar staples of family trips. Why are the good examples far and few between, I wonder? Do people not travel and spend money to enjoy the trip?
That said, I have also learnt that in spite of the distaste, I could be easy-going and get along with anyone who offers me the gift of conversation. It was shocking to recognise this part of myself as a unique product of my time in America. As a child, I was devastatingly shy and could not even bring myself to task for directions from strangers. Yet here I was, talking to strangers on the airplane, asking for recommendations, chatting about the hike to fellow hikers… I am learning that older people do not find me intimidating in the same way everyone tells me I am scary when I am growing up. I think this was important to the solo-trip. A few years ago, I would probably have done this trip entirely alone and awkwardly unconversational. It made me feel like solitude can be a choice, not something thrust upon us. It showed me that I have improved upon my impression of extroversion, and it was a relief to know I have not lost myself in its act.
I am now caught in the limbo of jet lag and my next leg of travel to Europe, and perhaps have forgotten many other things that had struck me when I was travelling. I will conclude with an encouragement: To anyone planning your next trip, consider going alone with the company of solitude, and notice new things about yourself, and the wide, unfathomable world.
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