In Defense of Traveling Solo

About a week ago, I took a short trip to Zambia to visit my friend Diana (more on that soon!) and then a quick solo trip to Cape Town, South Africa. Don’t get me wrong, I really love a good trip with friends or family. But to me, it’s like comparing apples and oranges—both are quite nice in their own individual way. Since becoming a single adoptive Mom, there’s something that I find particularly refreshing about traveling by myself. In my everyday life, I’m often focused on my to-do list, and other people’s wants and needs, from my team to D’Assise. Most days I’m lucky to get a few minutes to myself before I fall asleep at night.

On a good solo trip, I’m not thinking about anything but myself and my own wants and desires. I can take the time to savor my meals, wander around different neighborhoods aimlessly, go on adventures, catch up on a bit of journaling at a café (ok, a lot of journaling…), and just have the space and time to think. I have to make zero compromises. I can do pretty much whatever I want, whenever I want, and there’s something really freeing about that to me. 

In explaining this concept of being able to do whatever I want on a solo vacation to some friends at work, the example I gave was that I could eat dessert whenever I want. A colleague gently pointed out that as a full-grown adult, I could technically do that whenever I want in real life, not just on vacation, but I digress.

No parents! Double Dessert!

At several points during my vacation, I found myself questioning why I was traveling solo (or perhaps, that I was questioning myself after other people first questioned why I was traveling solo). The first time this happened was in Victoria Falls. My friend Diana had to get some work done, so I headed to the Zambia/Zimbabwe border myself to see the falls from the Zimbabwe side.

The Zambia side

At the border crossing, I handed over my passport to the Zambian immigration official on the other side of the glass.

“What’s your purpose in going to Zimbabwe?”

“Seeing the falls from the other sides, sir,” I replied.

“Where’s your partner?” he said, gazing up from my passport.

“Excuse me?”

“Why are you alone?”

“Um, I don’t know, I’m just traveling by myself?” I replied, flustered by the question.

“So you don’t have anyone with you? A husband? A friend?”

“No sir, just me.”

He gave me a skeptical look and gave me an exit stamp. I headed across the bridge spanning hundreds of feet above the churning waters of the Zambezi river on to Zimbabwe, pondering his questions.

Made it!

A few days later, I was having dinner for one at a restaurant in Cape Town. At this particular restaurant, a small dining room is filled with long tables, which you share with other people if your party isn’t big enough to fill them. As I pored over the menu with a glass of wine, deciding what I wanted to order, another couple sat down on the opposite side of the table as me and spoke together in a language I couldn’t understand. Once my food came, the man wearing a Yankees baseball cap asked me a question about what I ordered, and we slowly struck up a conversation. I learned that they were Dutch and just finishing their two week holiday; their flight was in a few hours.

Once again, I got the question, “Who are you traveling with?”

“Just me.”

“Really? All by yourself in South Africa?”            

“Yep.”

We talked about why I find solo traveling so refreshing, my life in Rwanda, their life in the Netherlands, and they asked if they could buy some shots for me because they felt bad I was traveling all alone. Soon some sort of South African apple liqueur arrived at our table and we all took them together. A few more of the apple shots later, I had invited them to come visit me in Rwanda, and we’d exchanged contact information.

A couple nights later, I was thrilled to have found a last-minute reservation for the Potluck Club in Cape Town, which often requires bookings several weeks in advance. I took the elevator up to the top floor of the Old Biscuit Mill, which has spectacular views of Cape Town. I ordered a cocktail and waited for my table to be ready, taking in the twinkling lights of the city stretched before me.

My table was finally ready. The waitress asked me if I wanted to face out towards the window overlooking the city, or facing in towards the restaurant. I chose facing in, and as I sat down the waitress quickly removed the extra set of dinnerware at the tablet that had been set for two. I know a lot of people say they hate eating alone at a restaurant (especially when you can’t be pre-occupied by a book or scrolling through social media), but I sometimes find it kind of nice. I ordered a few dishes, ordered another cocktail, and then did what I often do when dining alone: just took everything in.

The restaurant was on the smaller side, but lively, with an open kitchen and bar. I noticed the chefs in the kitchen moving about at breakneck speed, almost in an elaborate dance, preparing the tasty small plates to go out to the diners eagerly awaiting them.

I began to look out at the other tables while sipping my drink, listening to the din of conversation filling the room.

There was a couple that looked about my parents’ age who had moved their chairs together right at the corner of their square table so they could hold hands and gently lean their shoulders together. I couldn’t hear what language they were speaking but inferred that they were American from the man’s belted pleated khakis and polished white New Balance tennis shoes and the wife’s vaguely safari-esque ensemble.

There was a younger Asian couple, who had brought their three or four year old child with them, which probably wouldn’t be a move I would make, but more power to them. The mother and father hurriedly ordered a bottle of wine to share, wrapped a napkin around their son’s neck, and lovingly cut their son’s food into pieces.

To my right, there were two South African girls who looked about my age, dressed to the nines in sharp dresses and stylish black heels. They chatted away about their work, discussed a possible girls’ trip to Mozambique, and then toasted with champagne to a new relationship one of the girls was in.

I was interrupted from my observations (some would say creeping, I like to say “observing” J) by the waitress at my table holding a very large book.

“Would you like something to read, miss?”

I was a bit befuddled by the question.

“This is a book about the restaurant and chefs here, I thought you might be interested in reading it while you wait.”

She placed the hefty book on the table, and I flipped through it, still sort of incredulous that the underlying assumption was that I needed something to distract me, or that I must be uncomfortable eating solo.

The book brought to me by the waitress. Seriously.

My food arrived, and it was truly amazing (highly recommended if you visit Cape Town!). I took the time to savor each bite and admire the artistry on each plate. I ordered extra dessert and another drink (because #solotrip). In between courses, I again gazed out at the other diners, disregarding the book beside me.

There was a married couple who looked completely miserable a few tables away. The wife seemed to be trying to engage her husband in conversation, while he barely looked up from his phone. When the food arrived at their table, the man would launch into a flurry of photos from every angle possible, and then would quickly return to his phone’s screen, his face aglow in the pale blue light in the dimly lit restaurant, while his wife looked like she might cry. This continued on the entire meal, the woman looking more and more dismal as the evening went on. My heart really broke for her, and at one point, I thought about offering her the sizable book on the chefs but ultimately decided against it.

I paid for my meal and on the elevator down I thought about how strange it was that this was the third time in about as many days that people assumed that I must be traveling with someone, or be unsafe/bored/unsatisfied in my own company. It was funny to me that the waitress had assumed I needed a book while I waited for my food, but that it would probably be socially unacceptable for her to have brought that chefs book out to the woman whose husband couldn’t be bothered to look up from his phone, even though she probably needed it a lot more than me.

And thus concludes my defense of traveling solo. Highly recommended, especially for the free pity shots at restaurants while dining alone.