Emotional Stages of Solo Travel We Should Talk About More

Because These Are the Badassery Parts that Alchemize Our Lives

I travel alone—a lot—which often prompts questions and comments like these:

• “You’re obviously running away from something. What is it?”

• “That seems unsafe.”

• “You’ll get so lonely!”

• “What if something goes wrong?”

• “Don’t you feel selfish doing that?”

• “What if you get bored?”

Here’s the thing. I can’t NOT travel solo. I must do it. It’s one of my four well-being pillars (in addition to writing, boxing, and U2 music). That doesn’t mean it’s always perfect or fun or glamorous. It’s not. Often, it’s hard and confusing and sweaty and annoying and anxiety-producing. But then suddenly, it’s not.

Because, for example, perhaps I’ve just taken a bite of astice, a word I just learned from a Napoletano waiter (it means lobster) at a local restaurant where I’m eating on a terrace, and now I’m intrigued because I thought the word for lobster in Italian was aragosta. So, this guy is now helping me practice pronouncing this new word, which twists my tongue: it’s pronounced “ah-stee-chay,” but my mouth keeps making it sound like “ostriche” (pronounced “oh-stree-kay”) which means oysters. Now, two goddess-like Italian ladies—with thick tendrils of dark hair and kohled feline eyes—at a nearby table get involved, spiritedly asking me where I’m from and why I’m dining alone (da sola), and insisting I visit them at their gelateria down the street because they make sorbetto from mandarin oranges and lemons grown in their garden. Eventually, I go inside to pay my check. While the proprietor runs my credit card, the chef passes by us to grab a bundle of fresh radicchio from the fridge and murmurs something in Napoletano dialect to his colleague. The proprietor chuckles and says to me, “Chef is too shy to tell you he thinks you have beautiful eyes.” I laugh, blurt grazie, and blush the shade of geranium. I retreat to the restroom to wash my hands, sticky with lobster, lemon juice, and olive oil. When I emerge, I run smack into the (extremely cute) chef. We smile, laugh…and he hugs me (in a welcome manner). HUGS me. My soul, my heart, my brain, my skin—a-bloom. (For context, I am fifty-four and live in NYC where the dating scene is absurd; I might as well be wearing an invisibility cloak. So, it’s velvety to feel seen again.)

It’s the unscripted moments that make solo travel transformational, and why I want everyone, especially every woman, to pick a spot on the globe that intrigues you and go there—alone.

I’m an introvert so I already spend a ton of time in my head, vetting and testing ideas, thoughts, opinions, solutions to problems, word combinations. When I travel, all five senses attune to my surroundings even more intensely than usual, amplifying my internal mental/emotional/physical/sensory soundtrack a few dozen decibels—which can feel overwhelming. Through journaling, I try to make sense of what is happening in my brain (cognition), my heart (emotions), my body (somatic & sensory self), and soul (my me-potpourri). Solo travel offers a portal into who we really are at our core—if we give ourselves permission to pay attention.

I thought I’d take a moment to describe the undulation of emotions I experience each trip—to explain why solo travel is soul alchemy.

Stage 1: The Stirring

I love the professional and personal life I’ve crafted for myself in New York City. But if days morph into weeks (or, yikes, months) without a new flight secured in my Delta app, a hotel or Airbnb reservation confirmed in my email, or an international city added to my weather notifications, I get antsy. I wake up at 3:26 a.m. for no reason and can’t fall back asleep. I pad barefoot to my kitchen, grab my phone, get back in bed, and scroll world maps. Eventually, tectonic travel plates begin to shift; a new destination beckons like a beacon. I play around with flight configurations: airports, dates, times, prices. I search artsy, quirky boutique hotels and short-term apartment rentals. I research public transport options and places to exercise. I browse blogs recommending interesting neighborhoods and non-touristy off-the-beaten path activities to try. Decisions emerge. Preferences clarify. Plans solidify.

Stage 2: Anticipation

The moment plane ticket and hotel confirmations illuminate my laptop screen, the giddiness begins. I write the takeoff date on my hard-copy calendar in felt-tip pen, and if I’m feeling particularly zesty, inside a loopy heart. The upcoming adventure feels like a gift, a stimulus, a turbo-boost. Excitement about the unknown permeates my morning journal pages. The thrill of potential discovery amps up my energy toward my work, boxing training, writing. The calendar notation helps me keep inevitable life stressors in perspective. As I leave my tiny NYC apartment each day, my suitcase (always parked near my front door because there’s nowhere else to put it) seems to do a little shimmy and slap me a telepathic high-five.

Stage 3: Invigoration

It’s travel day. I’m (over)packed as usual. Ridiculously ambitious pile of books. Journal. Exercise clothes. Pens that won’t explode ink all over me mid-flight (a messy rookie mistake!). Favorite travel items like an embroidered change-purse I bought on a birthday trip to Lisbon. I water my plants, lock my apartment door, and tote my luggage to Penn Station to hop on the Long Island Railroad to the AirTrain to JFK Airport. I suppress the usual urge to voice a suggested redesign of the (illogical) logistics of the CLEAR/TSA Pre-Check line. I sip a ritual pre-flight glass of vino and snap screenshots of directions from the destination airport to my accommodations. Nestling in my window seat on the plane, I change the language on the video screen to something besides English (ideally, Italian). I can’t sleep; instead, I work, write, read. I feel hyper, rebellious. The plane lands. If the locale is international, I endeavor to speak the language of the immigration officer. I pull currency from an airport ATM. (I love the intricacy and tactility of foreign bills.) If public transport is easy enough to figure out, I take it.

Stage 4: Awe

The emotion of awe is often defined as a feeling of reverential respect mixed with wonder (and on occasion, a smidge of fear). I notice when I’ve shifted into a state of awe because I feel tiny yet expansive at the same time—a recognition I’m just one heartbeat in a world of 8.1 billion humans, merged with a tenacity to take up space and do something impactful. For me, awe feels like I’ve stepped on an electrified cobblestone. Psychologists explain that, as we vibrate from awe, our minds automatically sift and sort past memories, endeavoring to incorporate and integrate new stimuli and sources of information into our established “schema”—the mental blueprints we use to figure things out.

For some people, awe is stoked by things of grandeur like nature, artistic masterpieces, architectural wonders. For me, it’s invoked on Day One of every trip not by something huge, but instead by layers. It usually starts if I’m excited (and relieved) that the accommodations I chose are indeed as refreshing, bohemian, and cute as the photos. I breathe in the air of my new space, dump my bags, take a quick shower, and head out on walkabout. I absorb languages, street art, fonts on restaurant placards. I zigzag side streets, letting interesting graffiti tug me along. I search for the ideal spot for my first meal. I’ll roam for hours seeking the right vibe (less doable when accompanied by increasingly hangry travel buddies; totally achievable traveling solo!). Eventually, a friendly waiter catches my eye, makes me feel perfectly normal asking for a table for one, and seats me at a wooden two-top with aesthetic details like a soup can painted butter yellow holding just-plucked lilacs, or a napkin holder repurposed from an antique book. I scan a chalkboard menu written in loopy handwriting that looks nothing like an American’s. I make sure to try at least one unfamiliar meal ingredient. Inevitably on Day One, I encounter a street musician singing a U2 song in a dreamy accent. I realize I’m grinning at strangers again.

That, for me, is awe.

Stage 5: The Crash

One morning, I wake up low. I’m down. Sad. A pinch of guilt. A splash of shame. A dash of self-indulgence. All of which makes me mad. I have literally hand-crafted my professional, personal, and financial life to enable me to take trips like this. Why do I feel like a bad person? Ok, no wallowing. Get to your routine, now.

I brew coffee. I sip and write Morning Pages—three pages of daily longhand journaling, a habit pioneered by author Julia Cameron in her book, The Artist’s Way. As blue ink seeps into lined journal paper, my funk begins to dissipate. I remind myself, What goes up tends to want to come back down. It’s normal for me to feel gradations of depression and energy depletion a few days into every trip. I soar so high on arrival day, I’m passionately in love with everything and everyone. Smells. Sounds. Eye contact. Food. Wine. Music. Streetlight or moonlight bouncing off water—a river, a sea, a fountain, a mere puddle. Different color wheels than back home. Soul fireworks. For hours, days even. It’s a lot for my body, my psyche, to handle. Hence, the fall. The crash.

My brilliant friend Kelly gave me two pieces of advice about the rut:

• “The fact that you experience a fluctuation of emotions there—like a normal person—means you’re less like a tourist and more like a resident. How cool is that?!”

• “You have nothing to feel guilty or ashamed or self-indulgent about. You are an author/writer/professor. It’s literally in your human contract to travel to write.”

My human contract! Kelly’s words shake sense back into me. I commit to acting resident-y, not tourist-y. I structure a daily ritual:

• Write: Give myself regard as a writer, as an artist, and press fingerprints to laptop keys for two hours first thing every morning

• Run: Pull exercise clothes from my suitcase (or better yet, a drawer) and go move my body

• Roam: Scrutinize a city map and pick one new highlight each day—a contemporary art museum, a fountain shaped like an artichoke, a street art district, a giant staircase—and go explore

Crash over. I rebound.

Stage 6: The Ebb and Flow

For the balance of the trip, I absorb. I experiment with new food flavors. Sip wine that tastes like spice, earth, volcanos, black pepper. Make funny linguistic mistakes. Occasionally loneliness sneaks up on me, interestingly often when I make eye contact with guys who quickly look away, nudging me to wonder (unhealthily) what my love life would have been like if I’d moved to a foreign country to pursue an artistic life in my twenties instead of going to law school. I write the lonesomeness back out—onto loose-leaf lined yellow paper ripped from a legal pad, droplets of olive oil saturating my scribbles. I observe the locals and covet their coolness—their fashion, their pets, their cigarettes, their tattoos, their dialogues, their gestures. I learn. I listen to street musicians singing American songs in sultrier accents. I toss coins into guitar cases lying open on cobblestones. I purchase museum postcards I’ll treasure and not mail. Moments invoke—and stratify—memories of past trips. I feel my soul DNA changing in real-time.

Stage 7: Wist

I’ve invented a travel verb: to wist. The adjective wistful exists; I decided there should be a verb. Now, when each trip nears its end, I actively wist, in verb form, with an uplifting twist. I deliberately dwell…in an attempt to etch, to tattoo, the craved emotions into my skin, my memory. I wriggle in anxiety because I already know the electric silky feeling is leaving me. Abandoning me. For now, at least. Rationally, I tell myself this is exactly the point of travel—to savor irreplaceable moments as evidence of the positive transience of life. Movement means we’re alive, right? The alternative: we stop, we calcify, we die. I like wisting. I’m good at it. But too much wisting often gets me into trouble. Intellectually, I understand that clinging, cleaving to a moment, an experience, a connection (especially a romantic one), isn’t good for me. I hereby pledge to wist judiciously. Delight in the highs of my adventures. But when I sense the urge to dig my fingers into skin or soil or rock or person and hold on, I must realize what I’m doing, and unclench…let it, them, him, go. Lasciarlo andare, as the Italians say. There will be others, don’t worry, I tell myself. Other voyages. Other loves. You haven’t aged out. You can’t possibly age out from travel.

Stage 8: Eudaimonia & Plērotēs (Greek: Flourishing & Satisfaction)

Wheels touch down at JFK. The aircraft lurches, like someone grabbing my shoulders and trying (unsuccessfully) to shake a spell off me. I re-enter my daily life—working, teaching, boxing, writing—but I feel transmogrified. Travel reinvents. Each trip, a new layer. Of intrigue. Of strength. Of protection from things that used to hurt. Jettison the old. Coat myself in new. Travel shows me authentic beauty in grit, in edge—in graffiti, chaos, mistakes, imperfection. Travel deletes, overwrites, unhealthy messages. Travel is more than seeing. It’s being seen—with value. It’s reciprocity. Travel also is a form of restitution of agency over our bodies, a return to empowered choice where to place our hands and feet, the power to leave our fingerprints, our footprints elsewhere—evidence we exist. We matter. The oxygen we breathe into our bodies in spaces all over the world imprints us if we allow it—ornate stamps inking our biological passports.

Above all, travel is flirtation, courtship, romance, intimacy—with self.