Uplift Magazine

Going It Alone

By: Sarah Bradley, 20.10.2007 | Comments (1)

My love for going away alone started by accident, rather than design. I was desperate for a holiday, but had nobody to go away with. One night I had my browser window open on some cheap flights to a European capital city, taunting me with the fact that if I didn’t book them then and there, by the time I had thought of somebody to go away with, they would no longer be such a bargain.

Workmates told me they thought I was brave for deciding to go somewhere by myself. And I was scared, at first, because everybody knows women shouldn’t go anywhere on their own, right? Since knee-height we’re taught to beware of vague, unspecified attackers who make the streets unsafe for women and girls. But I’ve since realised that there’s nothing brave about travelling alone. I’ve travelled and been on holiday alone (mainly in Northern Europe and the UK) many times since first doing so, and apart from my initial trepidation, have never had cause for concern.

On the contrary, I believe holidaying solo to be the lazy option, since if you’re the disagreeable sort (like I am) you never have to agree with anybody about where you’re going to go during the day or where you’re going to eat. You can try to argue with the paperback novel that accompanies you to the dinner table in the evening, but it’s pretty much a given that the two of you aren’t going to fall out and spend the evening in an uncomfortable silence.

I’ve noticed there are a lot of women holidaying by themselves, writing things in notebooks and reading books by monuments. I was surprised to see Dubrovnik full of them. I wondered, what is it about women that makes them travel alone? All the men I saw were travelling in a couple, or as part of a pack. I privately think that maybe there are a lot of us women fed up of trying to agree….

I’ve never been afraid when I’ve been out on my own; I’ve played it safe in European countries and cities, places where you’re far less likely to be mugged or attacked than your average UK city centre. It’s true that travelling by yourself does make you afraid to do certain things. Once, when I was leaving Wakefield to get on a plane, my poor beleaguered mother said to me in an injured tone, “You never tell us where you’re going. If anything happened to you, we wouldn’t know about it for weeks.”

I remembered my mother’s words on a beach in Lokrum, Southern Croatia. I’d purposely sought out a deserted cove, a place where I could swim alone far from squawking children, leering blokes, and the constant chatter of other tourists. I found this little place by half climbing and half falling through some undergrowth at the side of the marked path. There was nobody there except one old guy, and he was leaving just as I arrived. No coincidence, probably. I picked my way down the rocks and climbed into the sea. I couldn’t swim there because the sea floor was too uneven and the waves too vicious. Instead, I did as I always do in these situations, which is to sit on a rock, holding on so I don’t get knocked off when the waves get high.

Ordinarily I would have given no second thought to diving into the thrashing mire, not if I’d had someone with me. But if you’re alone, swimming somewhere deserted, there’s always the thought in your head: if I get injured, there is nobody to help me, and nobody knows I’m here; my loved ones won’t find out what’s happened to me for a long time. When my body washes up Croatian police may take weeks to identify to whom it once belonged. So I’d better not end up dead, not just because I don’t want to be dead, but because I don’t want to put my family through that.

Yes, you can get hassle from blokes sometimes. Guys who think that if you come away by yourself you’ve done it to get laid. (Does it not occur to them that sex is also available in the UK?) Of course men want to chat you up. You can tell them to go away. It’s easy. This is one situation where you don’t need to be worrying about hurting somebody’s feelings. You can generally avoid unwelcome attentions by being buried deeply in reading a book, although sometimes not even that works. If somebody is insistent on using your choice of book as a conversation opener, there’s no getting around the fact you have to be rude to make him go away. This is no time to rely on Fictional Boyfriend. After all, if you say you are waiting for Fictional Boyfriend your new friend might offer to sit with you until he arrives. But he has no answer to the line, “I don’t want to talk to you. Leave me alone.” You see the beauty of it? “I don’t want to talk to you” is unfuckwithable if you don’t want to be chatted up. (Pretending to be Hungarian or Finnish is a good standby option).

Contrariwise, should one want to make friends, then it is easy to do that as well. Those wary of travelling alone for the first time, fearful of having nobody to chat to, would do well to stop in a Youth Hostel. Here you can find an assortment of people of ages and nationalities, many of whom will also want somebody to chat with. Making conversation with somebody you meet in your accommodation is one of the best ways to stop yourself feeling as though you’re going crazy. And by the way, you’re not going crazy; you’re just thinking too much. That can sometimes happen. But don’t worry, it quickly wears off.

My tolerance for other people seems to be decreasing as the years go by, and the more I go away alone, the less I can bear the idea of holidays with others. Lone travel is a liberating experience. The best thing about it, for me, is the not having to agree. You stay where you want and you go where you want and if you fancy spending three hours in a cafe with a cup of tea, you spend three hours in a cafe with a cup of tea. Nobody sits opposite you jiggling their legs going, “I’m booooored” Similarly, you spend all afternoon in a museum looking at mounted moose heads, or the theatre where Beethoven used to work, or whatever you’re into, and nobody says, “Can’t we go shoe shopping?” This, for me, is the triumph of going on holiday alone: the ability to be totally free to make your own decisions and please yourself in new and beautiful surroundings.

So my advice to anybody who doesn’t want to holiday because they’ve nobody to go with is this: go alone. Develop some faith in your own ability to be self-sufficient and keep yourself entertained. And most of all, don’t be held back from going somewhere you want to go because of a fear of some vague, darkly-lurking threat. Fix yourself with the ambition to do exactly just as you please, to be as boring or as adventurous as you like, wherever you like, and to give yourself some happy memories.