24 Hours In

Travel is a broad term, packing in as many meanings as can fit in its bulging suitcase. For some, it’s packing the kids in the car and heading down the freeway for a few hours of respite before the slog begins again on Monday. For others, it’s about getting together with a group of mates and tackling Thailand, making sure every bar on Kao Sanh Road is witness to the sight of sunburnt singlet shoulders and a new tattoo or two.

Kate in Barcelona

But for some, travel is about something else. It’s about more than snapping the sights, trawling the pavement and jumping back on the bus. It’s about setting your own pace, getting closer to the culture and most importantly, doing it solo. 21 year-old Kate Cora travelled Europe for eight months before starting uni, and believes travelling alone offered a chance to escape from the norm and test herself.

“I suppose it was a lucky stage in my life where I was feeling amazingly confident and self-assured. At 18, adventure was the only thing on my mind. Looking back now, I could say that a good part of my decision to travel alone was pure naivety, but none the less, I still had an overwhelming desire to break out of my world and experience the rest of the world.”

“Travelling alone was like throwing myself off the deep end… but if you know within yourself that you have made the right decision… the rewards are amazing,” she says.

It’s this idea that travel can be about personal challenge and change that attracts so many people to exploring their world alone. University of Wollongong student Chris Counsell took a year off travelling and volunteering throughout South East Asia after high school, and says doing it alone left him with experiences that stay with him today.

“All of the experiences, particularly the ones where things don’t go as planned, really do change you. Honestly, the 300 days I spent overseas seem surreal now that I’m comfortably back home. You always catch yourself thinking back to times overseas, drawing on the experiences and knowledge for use in everyday life.”

Canadian student Julie Luckham, who recently travelled throughout Australia, agrees with this notion of travel as an agent of change.

“It can be a good chance to learn more about yourself, and increase your confidence in your capabilities. It’s a great way to make friends from all over the world…and maybe an opportunity to find out what you are or aren’t interested in, or to push your limits without other people’s influence.”

But what is it really like to go it alone in places where everything but your passport is foreign to the senses?

“There are always moments where you get lonely, particularly when you are stuck travelling and have no one else to help you,” says Chris.

Alicia Crouch, an Engineering student at UOW, spent five weeks travelling Europe after a session of studying abroad in England, and says that nights can sometimes be lonely when you don’t have a group of people to go out with.

Kate believes this is overcome by the compulsion to seek out other like-minded travellers.

“As an individual it is almost second nature to seek out other single travellers. No person, while travelling, picked or chose with whom they ‘hung out’ with, like one would in their home country. Everyone seemed to at least try and be friendly.”

Solo travel can also end up being more expensive than travelling with a partner or a group, especially when it comes to accommodation. When Julie travelled to Perth, she found that hostel accommodation was pricier for singles than for groups, who could better distribute costs.

“If I could, I’d try and get a hostel room with friends. Getting your own room is sometimes just too much.”

Chris with a family in Nepal

Speak to anyone that’s travelled alone for a time though, and they’ll tell you these moments where things go wrong, plans are thrown into disarray and guidebooks thrown out the window are the moments that make the journey. These are the moments that challenge you to think on your feet and confront things that you may not have thought you were capable of.

“Getting the trains to Raxaul in India was the worst (I ended up in the capital of Bihar, the poorest state in India, at 3am with no trains to Raxaul as they had set them on fire in student riots). But you get used to these times really quick, particularly when you realise the sooner you grit your teeth and move on, the sooner you’re going to get to a time where you can enjoy it,” says Chris.

Solo travel is about traveling on another level. So throw your comfort zone out the window, learn a few phrases, pack a change of clothes and get out there.

“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself.”
- Soren Kierkegaard

Want to know more about traveling solo? Read on for Part Two of 24 Hours In’s Guide to Going it Alone