Five things I learned from travelling alone

Amsterdam... somewhere

Some people can’t even imagine drinking a coffee on their own, while others will eagerly send themselves to the other side of the world, phone off and backpack in hand. Going it alone isn’t for everyone, but there are definite benefits to taking the plunge and travelling solo. Determined to give my passport some use but without the patience to begin a lengthy dialogue about where to go, I said goodbye to London and Guten Tag to Berlin, hallo to Amsterdam and salut to Paris on my own. My language skills didn't take off much beyond this, but I did learn some other things along the way.  

Appreciate the brilliance of being alone

As David Foster Wallace rather gloomily pointed out, we are all of us marooned in our own skulls - we are all ultimately alone. We can either drive ourselves mad constantly scanning the horizon for the glimpse of another ship, or we can roll up our sleeves, hunt out a reliable water source, and get on with it Swiss Family Robinson-style. When you travel solo, chances are you will be on your own for at least some time, whether that’s on the flight over, for a long train journey, or even just lunch. This is actually quite fun. No, seriously.

Having no one else to worry about means you can do whatever you want without worrying about seeming rude or inattentive. Want to stare out the window aimlessly for four hours? Or listen to a podcast without seeming antisocial? Or just catch some sleep? No one can distract you or complain. Or post photos of you mid-nap on social media.

I think many struggle more with this around meals, but eating alone can also be something of a relief. Not only can you use a fork instead of chopsticks without judgement, but there’s no one to argue with over where you eat, no small talk, and all the time in the world to people-watch, eavesdrop on conversations (like eating off the floor, we’ve all done it, so don’t get high and mighty) or just to read. I’m not saying we should all seal ourselves up inside one-person-only cells for the rest of our lives, but learning how to spend a few hours or days on your own is good brain training.

You will meet awesome people

Getting out of your comfort zone gives you the chance to meet people you would otherwise never have crossed paths with. Whether it’s for a dinner, a day, a weekend or the rest of your life, taking the opportunity to get to know someone else's point of view can only teach you more about what's outside your own little bubble. Not everyone you meet will be your new best friend, and you're lucky if you find someone like that, but it's still worth talking to them.

However, the caveat is that to find these fantastic fellow wanderers, you also have to put the effort in. Luckily, it’s easier to be brave when you’re in a place where no one knows you, plus being deprived of conversation will make you more keen to take a chance when the opportunity arises. Strike up a chat with the person on the plane, say hi to that person in the park who caught your eye. You never know, it could be the start of an interesting discussion or a beautiful friendship (or just really fun). 

More practically, you also have to put yourself in social situations, which probably means hostels. Do your research before you go, and make sure other solo travellers have ticked yours off as a good place to meet like-minded people, rather than couples and groups of friends who are more likely to stick in their own little circle. No one is saying that sharing a room with 10 strangers and all their various smells, snores and nocturnal activities is glamorous. However, in between cursing the guy two bunks over for his persistent tractor imitation, and silently begging the couple in the next bed to just hold off for one night (both true stories), this is the place to meet people. Finding a hostel with a bar and/or communal area is another good tactic. Even if you don’t drink, this is a great place to meet people open to making new friends. This works even better if some big sporting event is on. Who cares if no one there has anyone competing in the curling: pick a side, place a bet, and get ready to cheer.

You can go wherever you want

Forget being dragged shopping for four hours, or to the Chair Museum, or to slowly roast on a beach in the sun all day. You’re the boss and you set your own itinerary. You can be selfish and not have to waste your time doing things others in a group might love but which bore you to tears. Want to go to another museum? Go ahead. Feel like a long wander through the city? Sure. This can actually be a bit scary, as it means that if you don’t take responsibility for filling your days, you won’t actually do anything. Get some guide books and a map before you go, and highlight the stuff you want to see, then work out a sensible way to get round it. You can do this on the plane, if you focus (not that anyone would leave it that late). Even if you don’t see it all, this will make sure you get to the crucial bits. You can also book tours and activities once you’re there, to make sure you drag yourself out of bed and at least do something vaguely holiday-like.

Arriving is the worst

No matter how excited and prepared you are, it’s normal to experience a feeling of being completely overwhelmed by everything around you when you first arrive, as well as by everyone else seemingly knowing where they’re going. Knowing that this ‘small fish in a big sea’ feeling is coming should make it easier to handle. It might be tempting to hide in a corner and rock on your knees while wondering when the next flight home is or testing out the 'No place like home' heel clicks, but you’ll feel much better if you force yourself to get out and do something in your new environment. It will go away, so don’t worry about it: just focus on your day.

You will get lost and it will be fine

I spent much of my time alone in varying degrees of being lost. These range from, ‘I know I just have to go left down this street somewhere,’ to ‘I’m sure I’ve walked past this desolate Soviet-era building/quaint bakery/sex shop at least twice already,’ to ‘It’s getting dark, I’m not even on this map, and I’m pretty sure those are vultures.’ 

As I've recorded on this blog several times before, I can’t read maps, so if you also suffer from this, a bonus tip is to learn how to read maps before you go. Also, always read the full name of the street, as it turns out that evil city planners really like to give very close roads similar names. And map-illiterate people like to totally ignore them when they do. If you plan nothing else, make sure you know where your hostel is from the station or airport. In my experience, locals know when you’re lost, and they will try and help you – at least they will if you’re a 23-year-old woman.

There’s also something to be said for smartphones. Everyone is glued to these anyway, and since I didn’t use one, every time I pulled out the last remaining paper map of Amsterdam in existence (which was, on average, every two minutes and eighteen seconds), everyone around me could see I was a gullible tourist with no idea where I was. Everyone except for the couple who asked me for directions, despite the loud and proud ‘I <3 Amsterdam’ t-shirt. (Oddly I actually knew where I was at that moment; is this what you people feel like all the time?) 

Luckily, getting lost can actually lead you to places you wouldn’t otherwise have found, like the art studio in Paris run by a charming and talented guy from Portland delightfully named Buzz, and the colourful neighbourhood in Berlin dotted with the types of gypsy caravans Enid Blyton wrote about, as well as bits of the Wall. That said, the relief at getting back home and knowing where you’re going without having to pull out a map every two seconds makes you want to run down the well-known street, tearing that frustrating bit of paper into confetti and screaming 'I'M HOME AND I KNOW WHERE I AM!' Until you take a wrong turn.

What can we learn from the 'Day of the Dead'?

At least this explained why he always seemed
to have art on the brain.

Falling on 2^nd November, Mexico’s ‘Día de los Muertos’ ('Day of the Dead') has a history that can be traced back for thousands of years. With an emphasis on remembrance, family and celebration, there are crucial lessons to be learned from a day that brings death to life.

Despite the many positives, let’s address the inevitable problems that arise with such a suggestion. Firstly, there are the religious overtones to consider. In Mexico, food, such as sugar skulls and special ‘pan de muerto’ bread, and blankets are left out for the soul of the deceased, and some families build shrines to them and to the Virgin Mary. For atheists and other non-Christians, these traditions would be irrelevant or even inappropriate. A second concern is that what would begin as a festival dedicated to the dead could quickly become another opportunity for companies to shove merchandise down our throats: cue an endless array of cards, banners, bunting, toys, sweets and cakes all appearing in shops three months in advance in a tacky attempt to obscure the true meaning with pound signs.

These are, of course, important issues, and as such I am not suggesting that we take every element of Mexico’s traditional Day of the Dead activities, rituals and beliefs and transplant them to the grey November streets of Britain. It is, rather, the essence of this festival that I believe we could learn a lot from. Day of the Dead seeks to unite families in order to celebrate an individual who has died, a complete contrast to the stiff upper lip that we Brits are often expected to maintain, at least to some degree, when faced with the death of a loved one.

Although traditions concerning children tend to be more sober, a significant part of the celebrations are devoted to taking a humorous look at the person’s life. While I have, fortunately, never died, I think I would prefer to be remembered for my wild sense of humour and wacky flights of fancy than as a disconnected, staid and noble figure. Besides, I am all for encouraging dressing up and the consumption of sweets in my honour.

Of course, everyone must deal with death on their own terms, but a festival which encourages mourning as a celebratory group activity rather than a sorrowful solitary pursuit means that families and friends can support each other through grief. While facing that telling space in your life can never be easy, bottling up painful emotions will not help in the long run, and repressing sweet memories that are now bitter with loss means losing part of your life with that person. Having just one person to discuss your loss with, particularly with a humorous overtone, can reassure you that you are not alone. Each individual’s memories of the departed will keep them alive and refreshed, mourned but not idealised, gone but not forgotten. 

While the thought of skulls, souls and altars might make you cringe, it is the message at the heart of this festival that is of primary importance. When people die, it is OK and even healthy to mourn for our own loss, but also do them the honour of celebrating their life, complete with wonders, warts and all.

Lessons learned on a mad dash round Europe

No matter what angle he tried, she kept sticking her head in the way.

Along with various facts about Amsterdam canals and a profound understanding of the habits of the Austrian monarchy, my six days, six nights, six countries and approximately nineteen train journeys have taught me some invaluable lessons about how to travel.

Learn to pack light. Of course you intend to wear all four pairs of shoes, use every millilitre of conditioner and read all seven books when you are cavalierly throwing them into your suitcase. However, when you are standing forlornly at the bottom of the fifth flight of stairs you've come across in one Metro station, chances are that you would happily exchange Life of Pi or the red trainers that match the cardigan for the extra boost. Besides, when you’re collapsing into a train seat after a hard day of trekking through palaces and scoffing pastries, an iPod and magazine are more than sufficient entertainment.

Motorists in Europe will try to kill you. Be aware that motorists in Europe see pedestrians as sport rather than obstacles to be avoided. The friendly green man on the pelican crossing is not so much a signal that you may cross the road without danger of death as a challenge to try and do so. The traffic lights may officially be red, but be prepared for trams, motorcyclists and BMWs to hurl themselves at you without remorse. Indeed, every road crossing becomes somewhat reminiscent of that old game, in which you are frog trying to make it across the road without being squished. After employing many strategies, I discovered that the safest approach is to form a large group on either side of the road and cross together. While this may seem like a rather touching act of mutually beneficial camaraderie, it’s not: the aim is to make sure that you are in the middle with everyone else acting as a buffer between you and certain death at the hands of a malicious French driver.

No matter how high your grade, GCSE German will not help you. While certain phrases may have been useful when crafting that coursework or desperately trying to understand what the distant voices on the tapes were saying, in the real world no one cares that ‘Ich gehe gern ins Kino’ or that ‘je m’entend bien avec ma famille’. Confronted with a sign that doubtless conveys some vitally important information, the knowledge that ‘Ich habe eine Schwester’ suddenly seems deeply unhelpful. Furthermore, when you do work up the courage to respond in the native tongue (or a variation thereupon), the other party will inevitably respond in perfect English, which may even extend to sarcasm. Either book yourself into that foreign language course now, or avoid further humiliation by admitting defeat, tearing up the phrase book and going to America.

It is possible to execute a night-to-day look in a train toilet. Night trains may be a useful way of covering long distances, but they are not exactly conducive to stylish dressing, personal hygiene or daily skin routines. While the train company proudly advertises the onboard washroom, this turned out to be neither a room nor somewhere it is possible to wash more than a finger, owing to the fact it is actually an upright coffin with a sink thrown in. However, with a careful combination of wriggling, balance and grim determination, it is possible to enter as a pyjama-clad, make up-free, tired and dishevelled mess, and emerge a jean-clad, made-up, tired and dishevelled mess. Make sure you take baby wipes to replace your shower, a steady hand for the mascara and leave your best, carpet-scraping pyjamas at home. And if all else fails, throw on the dark glasses, grit your teeth and think about the croissant calling your name from the next exotic location.

Map reading is a crucial life skill. Consider the following exchange:

“We need to go down this street, through the park, along the canal and turn left.”

“No, it’s straight ahead, second left, first right, over the bridge and then third left.”

“That’s what you said yesterday, and we ended up in Calais.”
“Actually that was Hamburg.”

If you have ever found yourself in an unfamiliar location with a friend/relative/significant other, chances are you have had a variant of this conversation. It turns out that along with percentages and the names of the Tudor monarchs, map-reading is actually useful in real life as well as in school. At some point in your travels you will be lost. It may be that you are standing at the statue of an entirely different King Maximilian, are in the wrong city, or are desperately trying to find your Amsterdam hotel in the rain as it gets increasingly cold and dark. At this point, the ability to read a map correctly, preferably the first time, will seem very important. Fortunately, many big cities have large maps at various points in the city. While standing in front of these arguing may reveal you both as embarrassing tourists, if it means saving you a sprint to the station or a wrong turn down an alleyway, it’s worth losing the je ne sais quoi and finding that ‘You are here’.

These are not necessarily the most important lessons I learned on my travels. As you may have noted, there is no mention of how to securely attach your passport to an unused part of your leg, how to operate those foreboding lockers in train stations, or even details about the military planning required to send a postcard back to England. However, should you ever find yourself planning your own mad dash around Europe, I hope that these brief lessons will help you avoid discomfort, danger and deep humiliation.

Feel free to share any travel tips, tales or terribly unnerving warnings of your own below.