There is no magic like traveling alone, without friends or colleagues to condition one’s opinions. It is the very loneliness that makes travel worthwhile: to be in isolation with historical forces, with only landscapes and books as guides.

–From Robert Kaplan’s Eastward to Tartary, page 121

When I studied abroad, I traveled alone. Sort of. I went with a program from a different law school, and no one from my school was on the same trip. I didn’t know anyone when I arrived in Budapest and the people in the same program were spread all over a huge dorm, one person to a room. I arrived a few days before the start of classes, so I was definitely traveling solo at first, although I quickly made some friends with other students in my program.

Traveling alone is nice, but at first it is also scary and intimidating. Upon arriving in Budapest, I accidentally told the cab driver to take me to the wrong location, and then very nearly lost my laptop. If it weren’t for an exceedingly nice English-speaking clerk at a hotel near where I was dropped off, I would have been in serious trouble. I remember calling my husband that night, slumped up against the wall of the pay phone booth, sobbing hysterically.

Have you ever traveled alone?

Related Posts:

• Introduction to Eastward to Tartary by Robert Kaplan
• Trust But Verify: Using Hindsight to Read Eastward to Tartary