I left Cape Town on Monday, and here I am in Wilderness - a small town along the Garden Route. Wilderness is small, but it has a beautiful wide beach with crashing surf, several delicious restaurants, and feels as slow as can be.
I prefer, usually, to stay in a place at least two if not three nights. Two nights often feels rushed, and too much travel leaves me feeling anxious and frenetic. This time, however, I'm feeling the trap of too much time spent alone. Loneliness is not something that solo travellers talk about often, but I've found that travelling alone is characterized by highs and lows in a different way than travelling with friends or family.
Travelling alone means the freedom to follow your own whims and needs, no responsibilities to others, and a wider possibility of meeting other travellers -- but it also means complete reliance on the self. There is no one else there to catch the slack when you are tired, or anxious, or the hostel you've booked is in fact a terrible dump, and you have to wander around town at 11 looking for somewhere else to stay.
The answer to this for me has been trying to develop a daily routine that, even if I am in a new place, lends a sense of familarity to my days. I try to do yoga every day - not always possible at smaller, or overbooked, hostels.
I check in with myself and drink a cup of coffee in the morning.
And I try to always get outside and exercise.
Some of these things become impossible if you are doing, for example, an organized tour - or travelling somewhere where its unheard of or unsafe for a woman to run outside alone. In these cases I tend to suffer more than not.
I prefer, usually, to stay in a place at least two if not three nights. Two nights often feels rushed, and too much travel leaves me feeling anxious and frenetic. This time, however, I'm feeling the trap of too much time spent alone. Loneliness is not something that solo travellers talk about often, but I've found that travelling alone is characterized by highs and lows in a different way than travelling with friends or family.
Travelling alone means the freedom to follow your own whims and needs, no responsibilities to others, and a wider possibility of meeting other travellers -- but it also means complete reliance on the self. There is no one else there to catch the slack when you are tired, or anxious, or the hostel you've booked is in fact a terrible dump, and you have to wander around town at 11 looking for somewhere else to stay.
The answer to this for me has been trying to develop a daily routine that, even if I am in a new place, lends a sense of familarity to my days. I try to do yoga every day - not always possible at smaller, or overbooked, hostels.
I check in with myself and drink a cup of coffee in the morning.
And I try to always get outside and exercise.
Some of these things become impossible if you are doing, for example, an organized tour - or travelling somewhere where its unheard of or unsafe for a woman to run outside alone. In these cases I tend to suffer more than not.
Comments
Post a Comment