Tomorrow, I am travelling alone to Himachal Pradesh. I have never travelled alone like this before and the thought fills me with an unlikely mixture of satisfaction and excited curiosity. Satisfaction, because I have honestly acted on an impulse after a very long time and excited curiosity, because despite spending hours poring over websites, books, maps, blogs and talking endlessly to other travellers, my mind is a beautiful, snowy blank when I try to conjure feelings or images about the next fortnight of my life.
This trip is a thing of my dreams. When I thought about my itinerary, all I could think of was, "I want a river nearby." I know what I'm going after on this trip - it's that river. But what happens before, during or after - I don't know. And to know that this trip is such a mystery fills me with happiness. It is humbling and comforting to know that I desire things, but I can't design anything beyond that feeling.
I don't know everything about why I want to travel alone. A few reasons come to my mind like snapping fingers:
The freedom to go where I like, when I like, how I like.
The freedom to be lost somewhere, the freedom to go after something.
The space to choose within the choices that I create, and not choose between what I want versus what a fellow traveller wants.
The freedom to make personal, quirky travelling traditions and break unrelatable, rusty ones.
The freedom to be careful about something, and carefree about something.
The relief of being responsible just for me, the challenge of doing most things on my own.
Knowing me, other reasons why I want to travel alone at this moment may keep revealing themselves to me throughout my life. That thought makes me smile and it is a part of why I am writing this right now. I read this post recently and I was filled with a beautiful, blossoming nostalgia - a longing to be there once again, but a happiness to know that it happened, and that I was a part of it too.
Goodbye Bombay, goodbye to Vini in Bombay, and hello to the mystery that awaits me two thousand kilometres away.
This trip is a thing of my dreams. When I thought about my itinerary, all I could think of was, "I want a river nearby." I know what I'm going after on this trip - it's that river. But what happens before, during or after - I don't know. And to know that this trip is such a mystery fills me with happiness. It is humbling and comforting to know that I desire things, but I can't design anything beyond that feeling.
I don't know everything about why I want to travel alone. A few reasons come to my mind like snapping fingers:
The freedom to go where I like, when I like, how I like.
The freedom to be lost somewhere, the freedom to go after something.
The space to choose within the choices that I create, and not choose between what I want versus what a fellow traveller wants.
The freedom to make personal, quirky travelling traditions and break unrelatable, rusty ones.
The freedom to be careful about something, and carefree about something.
The relief of being responsible just for me, the challenge of doing most things on my own.
Knowing me, other reasons why I want to travel alone at this moment may keep revealing themselves to me throughout my life. That thought makes me smile and it is a part of why I am writing this right now. I read this post recently and I was filled with a beautiful, blossoming nostalgia - a longing to be there once again, but a happiness to know that it happened, and that I was a part of it too.
Goodbye Bombay, goodbye to Vini in Bombay, and hello to the mystery that awaits me two thousand kilometres away.