When I first shut the door of my hotel room having arrived in Scottsdale completely alone, I expected a wave of loneliness, a feeling of wishing I had someone to share the experience with. But instead I felt this intense rush of excitement and freedom. The plan was to explore and do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. I was completely FREE. Don’t get me wrong, I love traveling with friends or loved ones or even for work trips. I just love traveling in general. But they say that it doesn’t matter where you go is it’s who you’re with and damn I was great company to myself.
Making every decision myself about what I did and when, not having to adhere to anyone else’s schedule was so freeing but I also noticed it attracted such interesting people. Maybe it was just the kindness of Scottsdale but everywhere I went people wanted to chat about who I was, what I was doing and were just overall, extremely friendly.
Of course, I followed the Fight Club rule of traveling alone – don’t talk ever about traveling alone. But even with my confirmation that I was “visiting family”, every stranger I met felt compelled to share their own adventures traveling solo, whether it was my Uber driver on her first time experiencing Times Square in New York after her friends had bailed on her trip or an older female photographer telling me about the joys of wandering London alone and how she would spend every night going to see a new show. The same photographer actually asked if she could my picture and left me with a memory of just how free and content I was in that moment, on the ArtWalk, sun setting behind me.
The last bit of cosmic experience was when I was walking toward the end of the art walk, thinking about ending my night and finding a spot for dinner, when I heard the most incredible piano playing come from one of the galleries. This is one of the many occasions on this trip when I felt the tug, a tiny spark of inspiration and an undeniable instinct to follow it down whatever path it was going to lead and to not judge but trust. The first tug was when I’d booked this trip in the first place. The second was choosing a hotel without much online information or reviews. The third was going into the mysterious old bookstore and the last was following the sounds of a piano into an art gallery. From there I had an incredible conversation on philosophy, Roman emperors, astrology and more with a composer who also graciously showed me a musical he was writing. It was more inspiration for one day than I could take and it was all from following that tug.
The magic of my solo Arizona trip was that when you’re alone you have nobody but yourself to listen to. It can be easy to get caught up both in what others want but equally just go with the flow of what others want like you’re letting the river take you away without realizing you’ve been brought in the wrong direction until it’s too late. And suddenly you’re alone, it’s quiet, there’s no movement but your breath, your heart and your soul and in that opportunity to breath, the only voice you hear is your own. Call what you want, your inner voice, the tug, it’s just this undeniable feeling that this is the way you should go and then you act on those instincts and it just feels right.
If you are worried about what it’s like to travel alone and if you’ll get lonely or feel lost, 1. you need to trust you’re beautiful, fun, amazing company by yourself and can easily entertain yourself! and 2. you need to trust that this is your chance to do things you normally wouldn’t get a chance to do! If there is something strange or even boring or childlike you want to do, listen to that hidden part of you and do it! Listen carefully for those impulses because you never know where they may lead and from one there are many.
In full transparency even with the tugs of inspiration and inspiring magic moments, this trip wasn’t smooth all the way. I take responsibility for that though. When I travel with others, they do tend keep me in check since I don’t mind “inconvenient” traveling. I plan what I wanna do when I get there but I don’t exactly plan boring these like “logistics” and “flight times”. This tends to get handled by someone else I’m traveling with and traveling alone is when I realized I just don’t care about those things. When I travel with others, I see how yes, it is a lot easier when you plan out your trip to fine details. But it’s not something I stress over. All I care about is getting there and in my experience, the rest will usually work itself out. (See my visit to Sedona without a car for proof of that.)
That being said I book flights on a whim, spontaneously citing to myself that this is going to be future Janelle’s problem when she has to wake up at 4am to catch a flight (which I did), when she arrives at 9am and the check in is 3pm (luckily the room was available early) or the last bit of chaos, when I booked a red eye leaving Arizona at 11pm and more than several hours to kill after checking out of my hotel at 1pm. I stand by the fact this all would’ve been fine had I been staying at a resort or a hotel with 24 hour service. I imagined a world where I could’ve been at the pool, changed outfits, gone exploring, changed outfits again, and hopped on my flight without much drama. But I was staying at the cutest bed n breakfast with very limited office hours. They did graciously go above and beyond allowing me to leave my bags with them for as long as possible so its definitely not any fault to them. I humbly accept all the blame here. But at the end of the day, was I going to let a time mishap ruin what otherwise had been a beautiful, amazing vacation? Hell no! I could’ve went to the airport hours early but instead what better to do when the flight is at 11pm, other than drink? Thanks to my “misdirection”, I discovered a fantastic cocktail bar even if I have to bring my luggage with me. And if you asked me if I would do it all again even with the mishaps, the answer is HELL YES.
