A few weeks ago, I picked up a book that had been sitting on my to-read stack for a couple of months. The book is part memoir, part travelogue, and it’s written by an author I had never read before. I was intrigued by the title and the content that it promised, and in that particular moment it appealed to me, so I decided to read it. Parts brought me joy and reignited my desire to plan some trips, parts left me hungry for more stories from the places the author visited. By the end of the book, however, I was surprised to catch myself scoffing at the underlying premise of the read, which reflected the all-too-familiar theme of an existentially lost woman who sets on “a journey to find herself.” 

At first I thought that I felt that way because I had already read a few books thematically similar to this one, and I had certainly watched entire movies shot at “exotic” destinations, yet always reshooting that same idea. Over the years, I have found this theme repetitive, dull, and incomplete. And then I remembered that I, too, had certainly taken trips that I would vaguely announce as “trips to find myself” when friends and family would ask me why I had decided to go on yet another solo trip. There were times when I felt as if I needed to even justify my trips, to find a significance for planning them, and I thought I should say something deep so that my people would show that they understood and approved. In reality, my people had always been supportive of my ad hoc adventures with or without my “existential justifications,” and the trips “to find myself” were more accurately trips to escape from myself and the overwhelming stress of my life. 

There’s an almost hopeful romantic ideal behind the “journey of finding oneself,” something akin to a hero(ine)’s journey. It evokes a sense of finality, a destination to be reached, a place holding the promise that once we are there, the chaos of our lives melts into harmonious clarity in which we never have to reconcile the parts of ourselves that we find confusing or unlikeable. And it is all the more appealing when the journey involves or overlaps with an actual trip to a place, a destination preferably as far as possible from our ordinary and familiar setting. Even in the stories we read, the more distant and mysterious the setting, the deeper the impact on the character and the plot. Imagination is powerful, and so is belief.

I took my first solo trip in July 2021. Since, my relationship with travel has been a continuous stream of evolving loves, excitements, joys, frustrations, anxieties, ponderings; none less valuable than the other, all of it raw and real and mine. I have come to love it all. There’s something uniquely powerful and transformative about solo trips. That stream of emotional chaos is heightened when you are away by yourself and by choice. You feel it so deeply, and to not let it engulf you fully, you gradually figure out how to hold it with grace. It requires guts and determination to hold it, on the road, in the mountains, in life. And as you are holding it all, you still bring in the discovery, the excitement, and the joy. It’s glittery and gutsy. It is only recently that I have accepted that to not just go, but to decide to enjoy a place, its nature and its people solo, is an act of boldness unmatched. I now finally see myself as bold.

But bold is not my only self. It is perhaps the foundational self that lets all the ohers be seen and accepted, especially on my solo adventures. The flowy and open self in Hawaii. The curious and playful, but also the confused and burnt-out self in Puerto Rico. The adventurous and anxious self in Argentina. The people-loving self in Guatemala. The grounded self in Croatia. All of these in all these places. All of these, everywhere, not all at once, and not all the time.

Then which self does one hope to find?

Which self does one search for on a journey?

In truth, my journey becomes more fun when I forget about the self and start to witness the others. When I turn into a selfless observer, I am pulled away from my own trap of self-obsessive analysis, improvement, polishing each gap and flaw to the point where I forget that living with the imperfections is the only living there ever was. I become present. It’s incredibly astonishing to witness how we forget about ourselves when we admire a wonder of nature, or we notice the habits of people who go about their lives in cultures that are so distant from the ones we inhabit, when sunsets prove to us that people are still able to pause and admire beauty within reach. It’s elevating to see how the beliefs that the world is an awfully quarreling ground get shattered when strangers offer you food and flowers, homemade goodies and drinks and gifts, when people share with you sacred spots in their countries where you see yourself as a visitor, but they treat you as a friend. 

To only witness your self is arrogant and blinding.

To only turn to your self breeds shrinking.

The solo trips ahead of me are not trips driven by a major existential purpose. I now feel confident and bold enough to drop the justifications. I go because I want to. I go because I love the world and the people of the world, and I have this insatiable curiosity about others and the beauty they carry and create. I go because every time I go, I reconnect with the belief that humanity is still kind enough and creative enough to find a way out of the self-created rut of destruction and alienation. I go because going is beautiful, and coming back with the stories and the memories is hopeful.

And because of all the stories and the memories that I have collected on my trips and I carry with me, I now wonder…

What if 
travel offers a loss of the self, 
a possibility of what one could be, 
in a place unknown 
of confinements freed?

What if 
travel allows an oblivion of the self 
chiseled by structures and routines
in a place so different
from what we know and
from how we live?

What if 
we travel to mute the scrutiny,
the voices that tell us
that the selves we are
need to be better,
more healed
and more perfect
and more everything
we haven’t even wanted?

What if
the most beautiful part of travel
is what we crave
yet are often scared to be?

A shared story.
Of the selves
and of the others.
Imperfect,
loving,
free.