[Content warnings: loneliness, sorrow, loss, breakups, death of parent.]
Traveling has always been part of my life: it was something we did with my family of origin; then, I also started doing it with the families of my best friends and, eventually, just me and my friends.
Technically, the first time I traveled by myself was at the end of high school, to go visit a friend in Germany. My first real solo trip, though, wasn’t until grad school: January before starting my PhD. Prompted by my first really painful breakup, I went to visit a friend in Milan for a few days; from there, I went on to Vienna, where I spent a week by myself, meeting up just a couple times with an old friend who lived there, but not staying with her: I stayed in a 10-persons mixed room in a hostel and soothed my pain with long walks in the cold (I don’t recommend visiting Vienna in January!), visits to museums and palaces, bookstores and cafés. I quickly found my favorite café, its walls covered in bookshelves, where I would sit in a comfy armchair in a corner by the window on the upper floor. On sunny days I rambled for miles and soon made my favorite, familiar routes, usually in parks and/or along the river.
That was nearly twenty years ago. Since then, traveling solo has become one of my habits, or rituals. Even when I was in close, monogamous, cohabiting relationships, I made a point of having one solo trip per year, just for myself. The pattern of my solo trips is always very similar: I combine travel to new places with visits to friends or acquaintances, often people who can host me for a few days; as much as I can, I include stretches “on the road” (either driving a car or riding a train for hours); I try to get a mix of new experiences together with some of my routines (e.g. running, hiking, walking, swimming); I seek out unfamiliar landscapes while quickly finding, or building into them, places that are familiar and beloved to me (rivers or other big bodies of water, bookstores, small cafés, squares or parks or meadows).
Traveling solo has become almost a necessity, almost the only choice I have since there’s nobody in my life who’ll really go on planned trips with me. I can visit friends or acquaintances on some of my trips but if I want to travel, most of the time I have to do it by myself. So I travel solo.
Traveling soothes my pain.
Traveling soothes my pain in ways that are similar to how running and motorcycle riding and rock climbing soothe my pain. When I found out about my father’s death nearly two years ago, I got on my motorcycle and rode. When I broke up with my European (gender)queer ex-friend in the summer of 2023, I went on a long road trip. Actually, I have coped with every major loss or breakup in my life by traveling, by getting out and going somewhere.
Traveling soothes my brain. It literally feels as if my brain were being rewired, as if the chaotic tangles in my head were getting combed out smoothly. New places, new landscapes, new experiences capture my attention, fill me with excitement, joy, awe. The practical aspects of the journey force me to think about the “real” issues at hand (e.g. fluids check in the car, mileage, weather) rather than the painful issues in my heart. I can (hyper)focus on interesting, pleasant things like new places or practical issues while also zoning out from daily life and/or small details that on a daily basis become overwhelming for me. I bring with me or rebuild many of my routines and find new “homes” on my trips. And being alone on the road feels less lonely than being alone in my daily life at home.
While traveling, I can forget how alone I really am or, at least, justify it temporarily with the fact of being in a new, unfamiliar place. While traveling, I can let myself be completely absorbed by the new experiences and unfamiliar landscapes and practical issues and logistics. While traveling, I can remain on the surface of human interactions with strangers and not have to worry about relationships. While traveling, I can forget the pain of being aro-ace, the pain of my many fundamental relational needs being unmet. While traveling, I can forget how stuck I feel in my “real” life.
Yes, I travel to explore but I also travel to escape from the pain of my profound loneliness and the inescapable fact that my life is a long chain of failures.
The Little Prince and the Fox 