From Hollywood blockbusters like Eat Pray Love, The Holiday and Wild to lesser-known releases such as Tracks and Queen, cinema loves to pay homage to women who embark on journeys of self-discovery. These films present solo travel as the holy grail of inner growth, as the ultimate means of re-energising mind, body and soul. It’s therapy, but with sunshine and a view. So why haven't I ever travelled alone? I’ve certainly had therapy. Why have I never looked on solo travel as a means of self-care, as a form of mindfulness, as some exciting exploit I can embark on with abandon? After all, that’s what single, childless women do, isn’t it? They indulge in “me time”. They jet-set off on their own at the drop of a hat; they mop up cheap flights at off-peak times; they explore obscure towns and remote villages, leaving peers who are held sway by husbands and children in family-friendly resorts feeling envious of their adventurous lifestyle.

But no, that’s never been me. I’ve done many things on my own: bought property, moved countries, dined in restaurants, drank in wine bars, attended weddings... but not travel. When I flew to Sydney, my sister was waiting excitedly for me in the arrivals hall. When I visited Shanghai, my brother was there to take me safely through the colourful, congested streets back to his home. When I touched down in Stockholm on a work trip, there was a full itinerary of events with other members of the press. On visiting Milan to write a travel piece, I spent all three days with a photographer, coordinating words and images. I’ve travelled, yes, but I have never actually explored another country or city alone.

I’ve always felt slightly embarrassed that a solo sojourn is something I’ve never done. I know women who have, and each time, the experience has lived up to the Hollywood fairytale of romance and/or reinvention. Many years ago a former colleague of mine was left by her partner of seven years for another woman. She was devastated. But she took herself off to Paris alone and came back, to use the cliché, a new woman. Her erratically curly hair was now smooth as silk, her wardrobe was a source of daily admiration (by women who worked on glossy magazines; that’s a tough audience) and her smile was wider and more genuine than I’d ever seen it. Whatever happened or didn’t happen in Paris, that trip was the catalyst for a new and energised version of herself; one that I envied, I’ll be honest. Another former colleague of mine, and a friend, Marianne Power, author of the wonderful Help Me!, wrote an article in 2014 for The Gloss about her 90-day road trip around the West Coast of America. Fed up with being single and feeling unattractive in Dublin and London, where she divided her time, she fled for the unknown and wound up dating more men in those three months than she had in the previous five years. She explained, “Never in my life have I had more advances from the opposite sex… I was taken to drive-ins, hot-springs, midnight walks and old-fashioned dinners [and] I’ve never felt so witty as I did on the West Coast.” Power returned from her trip feeling utterly fabulous.

In The Guardian last year, Irish author Rosita Boland wrote that she’s always puzzled by the knee-jerk reaction many people have when she tells them that she mostly travels alone. “You’re so brave,” they respond. That’s exactly how I react to women who head off confidently by themselves to far-flung places (and the not so far-flung). I’ve never even travelled solo in Ireland, always having a friend or sibling in tow. Boland doesn’t consider herself brave, explaining that you’re only brave or courageous when you are afraid of something but do it anyway. And that’s the nub of it. I am afraid to travel alone. It sounds weak and mawkish and unempowered, I know, but there is a pervasive if underlying narrative about the dangers of women travelling solo, and through the years it’s slowly embedded itself in my consciousness. Only last year The New York Times ran an article, “Adventurous. Alone. Attacked”. The title itself is enough to put the fear of God into any woman researching a solo venture without even reading the horrors that were contained within it.

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The number of women travelling alone has skyrocketed in recent years. According to Overseas Adventure Travel, of the 47% of travellers registered as “solo”, a phenomenal 85% are women, while the number of Google searches for “solo women travel’ increased by a whopping 230% in 2019. Women have a history of being confined, restricted, limited, and I suspect for many heading off around the globe without the burden of a chaperone or someone to chaperone is the ultimate assertion of their independence. But when a woman exercises her equal rights it is traditionally met with a good degree of scaremongering – from the early 20th-century belief that the mental exertion required to cast a vote in an election could damage a woman’s reproductive health, to the prevailing culture of victim-blaming women who suffer a sexual assault when they’re dressed up and out enjoying a few drinks. Similarly, when tragedies do happen to women who are abroad alone, there’s an undercurrent of blame that permeates the media. Why was she travelling alone, reporters often ask. The inference is always that women who do what they please will be punished for it.

It fascinates me that although I know at least three women personally who have had safe and joyful experiences travelling alone, the stories I’ve heard of women I don’t know suffering tragic outcomes have had a greater impact. Apparently this is in part because our brains are hardwired to register and remember negative events more than positive ones, and according to Psychology Today, negative news activates an “availability bias” in our minds, which means we’re more likely not only to remember negative stories but to believe that these relatively infrequent occurrences are actually the norm, which they’re not. In an interview with Condé Nast Traveler, Jessica Nabongo, the first black woman to visit every country in the world, made the valid point that, “A woman died in Costa Rica [she’s referring to the Venezuelan-American woman Carla Stefaniak who was killed there in 2018 by an Airbnb security guard]... but ...many many women have travelled to Costa Rica and have not been killed. I am one of them.” She also reminded readers that, “No matter where they are in the world, most women who are sexually assaulted are sexually assaulted by someone they know.”

But it isn’t only these irrational fears that have prevented me from doing what other women my age and much younger are ticking off their bucket list with zeal. I’ve been single for more years than not, with all that that entails – showing up at parties, birthdays and weddings without a plus one for starters – and I lived on my own for ten years. I don’t want to spend holidays by myself too. I have plenty of “me time” as it is, which I embrace and enjoy. I want my holiday to be different, to be a shared experience. I want to build up the excitement along with someone else (not dread the challenge of it alone), I want to savour the experience of each and every day over a bottle of wine that evening, but with a companion so we can laugh, cry or cringe over our efforts. I don’t want the pressure of planning and navigating the trip either. My favourite type of holiday is a city break and my sense of direction is as sharp as a blunt spoon. To explore a city fully without any reluctance or apprehension, the reality is that I need a wingman.

So I’ll never be an intrepid explorer. I accepted that years ago, along with the fact that I’ll never have a natural tan or a walk-in-wardrobe. In her interview with Condé Nast Traveler, Jessica Nabongo also revealed that her biggest takeaway from the entire experience of visiting every country in the world was that, “... most people are good.” I believe this to be true, and I’ll continue to believe that women who globe trot alone are brave and brilliant and inspirational, but I’m not one of them. I’ll settle for a rerun of Romancing The Stone.

Marie Kelly, August 2020.
Do you travel alone? Tell us in the comments below (we’ll start!)…