I’ve mentioned here before that I am often a solo traveler. I would estimate that my travel for the past decade has fallen almost entirely in 3 categories.
- Solo travel
- Visiting someone in my friend or family base.
- Travel for work/education - often venturing alone.
This spring though I deviated from my typical pattern and traveled 3,000 miles from my current home to spend time with people who live very close to me … and in one case, I was traveling a quarter of the way around the world to spend time with my upstairs neighbor. The experience was entirely foreign to me. In fact, I think the first thing I said when I got off the plane and saw my three friends waiting for me at the end of the gangway was something like, “This is so weird. I shouldn’t know you people. This is a layover. I should be alone.”
Traveling with other people creates a whole new set of experiences in addition to those provided by the venue that you’re visiting. Want to get coffee? Cool.
Solo traveler: Stop at the next acceptable shop and buy yourself a coffee according to your needs and whims.
Group traveler: Check in with the group. Do we also want food? Coffee to go or sitting preferable? When you say coffee, do you mean pour-over or espresso/latte drink? Oh sure, iced coffee …. ummmm that may take some more work. 20 minutes later 75% of your group may have what they were looking for.
Reading through that it seems so much harder, but it’s also a great challenge. During past layovers my greatest challenge was to find a place where I could either sleep in relative security, or figure out a way to stay awake until my boarding time. With a group that’s not really an issue. If we’d wanted to, we could have cordoned off an area and slept with security in numbers. In reality our greatest concern was not spending so much time joking and making fun of each other that we ended up leaving a trail of belongings behind us.
Things in jeopardy of being left behind: one fitbit, two wallets, an entire carry-on bag, and one passport.
It is possible that jetlag played a part in this as well.
The beauty of traveling with friends is that you see a side of them that you otherwise might not. It’s not like these new traits are wholly unexpected or in any way out of character, but everyone is out of their element and does not have access to typical coping mechanisms.
Easily distracted? Well, there’s no normal routine to keep you mostly on track.
At one point, we were on our way to dinner, wandering through a section of a city where I used to live. Two of the people in our group were a little bit ahead of the other two. I was part of the group in back. When we passed an alley that led to where I used to live, I got distracted and led the two of us in the back off on a parallel street to check out my old home. Of course, after venturing off, it DID occur to me that the remaining companions may miss us, but I also knew that at the end of the block the two streets converged again. Worst case scenario, we were all headed to the same restaurant and would meet up there. By the time we met up again at the restaurant, there were stories of searching for lost travel mates, meeting points set and plans for how long to wait before calling the police (only about 20 minutes had passed).
There were also several instances involving people who are exceptionally prone to losing things. The assumption was always that if you couldn't immediately locate an item it MUST have been left behind. This assumption wasn't without merit, however large amounts of time ended up being spent to locate phones, wallets, fit bits and an errant parking ticket that was usually in the person’s pocket the whole time.
The best part of all of this is the stories. We have a huge list of inside jokes which only we will ever understand, but an equally long list of stories that are entirely relatable to anyone who’s ever been away from home and outside of their usual surroundings.
It was such a good experience that I’ve decided to do it again in June. Next stop: Island life!
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