(Continued from Falling in Love with Travel)
Many of us have probably experienced situations in our lives when it seemed like one door closed – or maybe slammed in your face – and it seemed to change everything. As I shared in my previous blog, Falling in Love with Travel, the deaths of my dad and husband seemed to rob me of most of my joy in traveling and much of my zest for life. It took some time, but eventually – as the wise ones say it always will – another door opened and caused a shift in my outlook that brought it all back to me.
I thought I would never be able to enjoy Hawaii again without Bill, but then, six years after he died, I decided to try it – to travel to the Big Island by myself. At first, the memories threatened to overwhelm me, and there are still a few places I can’t go back to without tears, but I made an effort to do things we hadn’t done together, and eventually I started to feel “the aloha spirit” again.
Then, one day as I was driving from Hilo to Kona, I suddenly realized that for the first time in my life, I was truly independent. Sure, I was alone, but I was also free. I could get up in the middle of the night and go down to the beach and no one would say, “Where are you going? Get back to bed.” I could buy whatever caught my fancy and no one would ask how much it cost or suggest I take it back. I got to choose where to go and what to see and how long to stay there. For the first time ever, I was really the boss of me.
After that, I began to travel as much as I could. I joined Rogue Valley Chorale and we did summer concerts across Norway and Sweden one year and another time throughout northern Italy. We even got to sing in Carnegie Hall, NYC. After our last performance in Italy, I extended with one-week cruise from Athens to see some of the Greek islands. On a small cruise ship, it seems easier to meet people and feel connected.
When I retired from the college and from the USAR, I started an editing business called Help-U-Write and began attending conferences on writing. Writers meet in wonderful places, so I traveled to Fiji and Tahiti as well as New York, Whidbey Island, Las Vegas, and Maui.
I also did some traveling with friends, especially doing cruises which are expensive for one person, but reasonable for two. My friend, Nancy, and I went to Alaska and the Caribbean and eventually took a guided excursion in China. We also did some group excursions to Guatemala, the Greek mainland, and Mexico.
I joined several groups and toured with them. I went that way to India with a new-to-me friend, Pat. We were a small tour of nine led by an author who had studied all of the various major religions. We stayed mainly in small local hotels and in ashrams and even got invited to a local wedding feast. I went to Egypt with another group not too long after 9/11. We were treated royally by the locals who were exceptionally happy to see tourists from the U.S.
Then came an opportunity for me to journey on my own to France. I had a week’s stay at a timeshare south of Rouen and enough airline points for a Business Class ticket. I looked for a traveling companion, but no one was available. So, I decided to go alone.
I got really excited planning the trip – for me, researching what to see and where to stay and what routes to take is half of the fun – and so I planned to stay near Paris and then drive to the Loire Valley to see the chateaus, visit Carnac to see the standing stones and Mont St. Michel, stop at Normandy and Rouen, and finish off with my timeshare in the countryside. I booked the car and my lodging and got a AAA map, and the next thing I knew, I had landed in Charles De Gaulle Airport and the man at the car rental desk was handing me a set of keys. And then it hit me! What in the world was I doing, planning to drive around France by myself? Was I crazy? I must have looked panicked, because the lovely man suggested that I go have a cup of coffee at the airport café and wait about an hour to drive off. “The traffic, it will be much less by then.” And so, I did.
An hour later, I got in my little stick-shift Renault and drove off, knuckles white and jaw clenched. The first forty-five minutes were tense, but soon after that I left the main highway. Motoring through the countryside, I relaxed and began to enjoy myself. It was not without its moments of unease. I had only my memories of high school French – and high school was a long time ago – but I could read the menus fairly easily and most road signs. However, I did have some interesting side trips because, while I remembered that “a droite” meant “to the right,” I totally forgot that “tous a droite” meant “straight,” so I kept turning right when I shouldn’t have. Eventually, I always found my way back to where I wanted to be.
And I absolutely loved it. I made new friends at the small hotels and B & B’s where I stayed. I practiced my French on the wait staff and they cheerfully helped me. I met other travelers – singles and families and we shared laughter and recommendations and “must-sees.” I drove along, stopping wherever I wanted, my only time constraint being to reach the next night’s lodging while it was still light enough to see. I practiced my French although I couldn’t carry on more than a simple conversation, but many other tourists were eager to practice their English on me. I loved it so much that two years later I went back to France again and drove around there and Luxembourg for two months.
Since then, I have done a variety of travel. My stepdaughter, her husband and I vacationed a lot together. I go to Colorado to stay with Nancy and sight see locally. I visit my grandchildren when I can. I am still the editor for Help-U-Write and am writing some of my own books as well, so I travel to conferences around the country. And I still belong to groups that often take trips or cruises, so I travel that way.
But I also happily travel alone, especially to Hawaii at least twice a year. And even when I attend a conference or participate in group travel, I frequently go early or stay late or both so that I get the bonus of being alone part of the time and with others the rest of the time.
For instance, I did that when I went to New Zealand and Australia. I flew to New Zealand a week early and traveled around by myself using local transportation and buses since I am dangerous driving on the “wrong side of the road.” Then I met a friend in Auckland, and we took a Princess cruise along the coast of New Zealand, over to Tasmania, and up the coast of Australia to Sydney. She flew home from there, but I stayed on another two and a half weeks and went to Melbourne, Darwin, Alice Springs, Uluru, the Great Barrier Reef, and Brisbane. For me, that is the best of both worlds. I get time to explore on my own and see the places I’m really interested in seeing, and I get the fun of being with a companion or a group of like-minded people as well.
So, that is why I subtitled this website “Solo or not, here I go.” The door that opened showed me that I could travel in a variety of ways, all of which were safe, interesting and rewarding if I allowed them to be.
I hope I will physically always be able to travel – and as long as I can “go,” it doesn’t matter to me if I am on my own, with a group of people I don’t know well, or traveling with dear friends. I love it all. Sometimes being solo is really a blessing because I have the freedom to go places or experience things that others might be reluctant to try. And other times, being with a friend who also likes to travel or with a group of people who are interested in the same things I am can be equally wonderful. To me, it is all an exciting and fun adventure … and my favorite thing to do.