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Lone, Lone on the Plane: One Big Reason To Take Your Next Trip Solo

This post was written by our Content Director, Sarah Gabbart, about her recent trip abroad—SOLO.

I clutched my map. Well, my phone—it has a map on it, you know. But that wasn’t helping me much. The place I was looking for was off the grid. Well, as “off the grid” as a street food park in the middle of London’s East End could be. Where on Earth was Dinerama? It was a place cloaked in 15 levels of hipsterdom (or should we say “yuccie” now?) and all of those levels were hiding someplace in plain sight.

By this point, I had circled the block four times, asked two strangers for directions and checked my phone every three seconds, hoping for a clue as to where this place was located. As I crossed the high street one final time, stomach growling and hangry-ness setting in, I saw the sign peeking out from behind a perforated metal gate.

DING. Found it!

And it’s closed.

Bummer.

My choices were 1) Figure something else out for a local lunch or 2) Hop a cab back to my hotel and eat room service. I chose street pizza and some local beer.

This experience fit in perfectly with the cardinal rule of solo travel, which I have determined is: Just roll with it. This being my first trip completely alone, I was a little nervous about what was in front of me. That apprehension turned into a moment of “Oh snap!” excitement when I realized that, as a party of one, I was able to go and do just about anything I pleased. Without having to accommodate a larger party or having to make sure everyone all agreed on what to do next when something changed, I was able to move about so much more easily that I imagined.

 

That crowded restaurant? Table for one, please! The exclusive members-only bar without a sign? Sure lady, you can come in for a cocktail. It was freeing—and enlightening. Solo travel teaches you to be brave, to be okay with being uncomfortable and to be positive in spite of the things that challenge you. It’s so full of things that don’t go according to plan and that makes it both a whole lot of fun AND an accurate metaphor for life, the universe and everything.

In any life and any career, and especially in a creative one, there are times you have to adapt. Take a new road. Find a new solution. There are moments of uncertainty and times you need to just knock on that unmarked door and hope that it’s the cool bar you heard about. The ability to be flexible and to be brave about what is just around the corner serves people well and traveling alone—even just once—is a great way to practice these valuable skills.

In the East End, I chose to stay and explore. With a belly full of street-food-defeat pizza, I walked around for a while, getting genuinely lost for about five nervous minutes. On a random back street, I heard a crowd and decided to walk in that direction. It was a roaring scene of different types of ethnic foods and little stalls filled with goods and tourists. I found Brick Lane. Had I not rolled with it, had I just gone back to a familiar area, I wouldn’t have seen the beautiful graffiti peppering the landscape or smelled the fresh paella wafting across the street. This, my friends, is why you travel—to seek the unexpected and be flexible because the best things are rarely planned.

@ShearCreativity: