window seat to nowhere
notes on taking a solo trip for the first time
The title of this entry may sound melancholic but the trip it covers was anything but. In fact, it’s a reference to the expectation in my head when booking plane tickets.
Let’s start from the beginning.
Early January. The sky is grey and the mud hasn’t left the soil of your faux fur-lined Dr Martens for long enough to start questioning your sanity. Not the best environment to be in for someone who’s still recovering from a major burnout, when ‘who knows’ is the go-to choice to any and all questions about the future. Doomscrolling your phone gallery, like a maniac searching for a visual that could inflict an emotion.
Any emotion.
This usually happens moments before I cave in and book another London trip. A city flooded with emotions. A thought creeps in… what if we would break a pattern? A minute later I was for fun checking travel destinations that would be as far away from my general preferences as imagination permits.
Fuerteventura. An unknown name appears on the screen. If you check the first few images on Google it seems like… nothing. An island of sand and a few lonely hills. Perfect destination for someone who can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she’s been on a beach. Or a holiday that wasn’t disguised as work or a study trip.1
Tickets booked, reminders added to the calendar, we’re good to go. “Going with who?” - a simple question from a colleague a week before the trip caught me off guard. Actually… nobody. The exact moment it clicked this was going to be my first ever truly solo trip.
Sure, I’ve travelled a lot, and taken flights on my own more times than I could count.
Yet it was always travelling to something, for something, with advanced research done and meetings planned with local contact details safely stored in my phone.
This trip may not be my first time in Spain or the Canary Islands, which probably subconsciously pushed me to select the final destination, yet it was the first time I knew nobody in the place I was going to visit.
Self-consciousness flooded in. Should I be worried? Should I do extra preparation? What does it mean to travel solo? Luckily there was too much to do at work and too little time to focus on worrying. I didn’t know what to expect but I knew myself and betting on my gut feeling has never disappointed.
With one backpack and a heart full of zero expectations, it was time to board the flight. The plan? There was none. In my mind, the island had one road, two houses and nothing for my burnout soul to do just lay on the beach and finally get some rest. If someone is watching over us, I hope you had a good laugh.
To establish the baseline. Creatively, I’m an introvert. My own time and space are crucial elements to successfully make something out of nothing. In other situations, I’m an extrovert through and through. I love large crowds, I love going on side quests and saying hi to new people and hearing their stories. There is a bit of a grey area where both scenarios can interlope and my brain awkwardly glitches confused over which personality to call out but that’s a topic for another article.
Let’s cut to the chase. It ended up being the most wholesome and joyful experience.2 Airbnb shared flat - a treasure check of new friends. An unexpected remote working community event helped to finally cross karaoke and Greek food off the bucket list. Yoga on the beach, more yoga in the studio doing trust exercises with people met two days ago.
Road trips turned into beloved side quests. A love for Taylor Swift was declared loud and proud - for the first time met not with judgment, but with cheers and shared lyrics.3 Eating my body weight of gelato, and calories burned while exploring the extraordinary selection of surf shop goodies. New favourite hoodie and island merch (yeah, what) secured. A crash course in community building.
Not to mention accidentally matching my visit to the Canary Islands carnival schedule. Afternoon naps and evening dances, volleyball practice in the sunshine. Trusting your instincts led to sweet rewards, rediscovering kindness of the strangers and live music washing over everything. Somewhere along the way, the sun the moon and the beach became close friends. We’re on a first-name basis now.
Precious moments with other people are those I never have the words to talk or post about. That’s literally the reason you don’t see them on Instagram or other social media pages. The best I can offer is a glimpse of the part of the gallery that never sees the light of the internet.
If this doesn’t look like a solo holiday it’s because it wasn’t. This must be my favourite part of being alive. You never know what awaits around the corner of a seemingly random decision. I’ve been living in Lithuania for close to five years now and I’ve never connected to anything or anyone as much as I have in a week in a town least likely for someone like me to visit. Or perhaps, most likely.
“This is not a place people come to find themselves“ a comment made in passing stuck with me. Mostly because it’s true. It gave me nothing new in a life-transforming first solo trip sense you’d expect. But it did give me a space to be myself to the fullest. There were no new answers, no life-altering revelations. Just feeling good about myself around people who were happy to be themselves. And that’s gold in a world that pushes you to be everything but yourself.
On my way back, I had an evening layover in London. Alone again, the craving for silence and what would actually feel like a solo experience hit me. I never had a meal in a restaurant alone. Of course, there were many instances where I would get a takeaway and eat alone but to have a proper sit-down meal alone was an item on my new bucket list of solo experiences.
There was a tiny new voice in my head asking if doing things solo simply means that you’re being lonely. Does it mean being met with the gaze of the strangers wondering what happened there? More than anything, London was a perfect place to find an answer. I could call any of my friends there which meant the decision to eat alone was truly a choice, not a necessity. And that’s what happened. I chose to spend the evening alone and go to one of my favourite restaurants.
The first few minutes were awkward as hell. To ask for a table for one, to wonder if you’re imagining the looks of the waiters and other clients or not. Trying to remember whether when I was a waitress I would wonder why someone is eating alone. I kept texting the group chat for emotional support (not sure whether for me or to give an excuse for the strangers around to draw a conclusion to the situation).
But then the food came and I got over it. It turned out to be a fulfilling new experience and I don’t think ever before I truly experienced my favourite dishes in the same way. When you’re eating with someone there’s usually a conversation going on, the mind works overtime to accommodate multiple tasks.
When you’re on your own it’s just you and the food. Having paid and left, the invisible weight of society's expectations paid and left too.
Here’s the bottom line.
Everything is better when you make space and time to be yourself.
To rest. To enjoy life outside of mundane admin tasks, outside of wearing a uniform, and pursuing an unattainable idea of perfection. To be enough instead of chasing the need to be more.
That’s when you realise you already have the answers you’ve been looking for.
P.S. An actual overview of an island as a travel destination will be shared on my website.
One, to be precise, in eight years which isn’t healthy and we’ll be making the proper holiday an annual tradition.
In my mind this trip won’t count as a full-on holiday due to some unplanned work moments but only because I want another excuse to have a holiday soon and to learn how to truly fully disconnect. Wish me luck.
For the first time in like eighteen years, mind you. It never ceases to amaze me the hate and stereotypes media has manufactured yet it’s another topic for a different article.