Lone Traveler

I started traveling in a group, a group of my friends and always preferred to travel as a group with friends or like minded people. It was fun all the way and you never knew how time flew with people around be it either the long journeys or mid-day time when you rest or the long chats in the night. I was so used to travel with others that the thought of traveling alone would push me back a bit or rather postpone or cancel the trip itself. I used to do this to accommodate people to join me.

Solo traveling was something that I never dreamt of doing nor wished for it to happen for 2 reasons, one being I didn’t want my friends to miss out on places I visit and the other reason being that I would be bored to death.

Traveling alone was a challenge to relish for me that well was being avoided by me by a safe distance for many years. Well, as the years passed by, things change and you have to step out of your comfort zone if you have to do something. Sometimes, nobody would be ready to travel along with you even with the best of their attempts and you are left to travel alone and one such instance came up when I had a fortnight long trip that had been planned for months in advance and none were available to accompany me.

Desperation soon turned into frustration and frustration into a challenge, let me do it myself in my own way, let me explore on my own, let me show the path to others, let me infuse confidence in others, let me do something new.

With the bookings done and preparations ready, there were days when butterflies were creating havoc in my stomach with thoughts of missing trains, losing valuables, getting lost bothering me no end and overcoming them was a relishing challenge in itself. I used to get myself back on track with the thought of being done with that successfully and enjoying the success and savoring the alive is awesome moments.

Overcoming all hiccups I took off with a high degree of confidence, pepping up my spirits now and then, keeping myself occupied reading books, watching movies and indulging into my camera when on field and never letting myself to be bogged down even for a while.

I let myself free, relishing the challenges that came by, may be the lost wallet incident, or may be the breakdown of the jeep in the middle of nowhere, or rushing through traffic to catch my train, or facing intimidating people.

On the positive front, I met lot of new people, made many friends, built contacts, savored local delicacies, traveled by various modes of transport, met interesting people during train journeys, was humbled by the generosity of the villagers, taken aback by shrewd business minded people and importantly relished each and every alive is awesome moment of my solo travel. Back home, I’m still relishing under the success of my maiden solo travel, I tough challenge that I had to face and pleased that I could do it, a true blue alive is awesome moment for me.