The Amazing Race Australia is an inspiration. It makes me want to travel, even to places I've been, and I’m sure the 100,000 entrants who applied to be on the show would think so too. But you know what is better than running from country to country, and across continents? Taking part in your own amazing race and doing it on your own. Solo.
No I’m a self confessed loner, I love being on my own and spending time in my own company, but in reality, I don’t even cross the road at work to get coffee let alone crossing a continent.
The first time I traveled on my own was my third time overseas. Third time … I knew what I was doing right? No, I’d not any responsibility with any of those trips and suddenly, here I was at Heathrow airport not knowing how to read the signage to get to the Tube. My plan in London was to couch surf for 6 weeks. Friends would entertain me when they weren’t working and any travel would be weekend trips with them. That lasted a week before I got myself a ‘student’ ID and hit the open road.
In the 6 weeks I was in Europe I went to Santorini, Barcelona, Rome, Paris and Krakow. I explored, missed flights, found romance, got mugged, and was the first person in generations to see my homeland since the war. All experiences I would not have gotten nor traded for 6 weeks of couch surfing.
The confidence you suddenly gain is character building, not being able to rely on anyone strengthens you to the core. You challenge your perceptions and there isn’t anyone to judge your decisions. You begin to see things differently and I think, more clearly.
I traveled before the day or Meetups and Twitter, and a travel network was as foreign to me as saying hello in Polish. But I’ve come to realise, they would enhance my solo traveling, but couldn’t give the gift that I’d receive from my self discovery, exploring and pushing my own boundaries in a new city.
And at home, I still don’t get coffee on my own.
