….So, where was I?
Part One of this post became an elongated Trip Advisor review of (a) the airport taxi service (b) my hotel room, and (c) a traditional Turkish hammam. It seems I needed to get things off my chest.
But now I come to what was meant to be the main purpose of writing about my trip, namely did I learn anything about solo travel?
Just three days and nights alone in Istanbul was never going to yield an existential journey of self-discovery, but it did give me a small glimpse into what solo-tripping (travelling that is, not getting high on your own) can provide.
“Use the Force Luke, let go!”
So said a well-known ageing British actor to an unknown young American actor. That’s extremely versatile advice as it happens; it works both for solo travel and for blowing up extremely large imperial space stations (should the need arise). It’s about letting go and going with your gut.
Family holidays demand pre-planning. Lots of it. You can’t rely on other people’s energy and patience during a trip whilst you improvise and make one course correction after the other. I once orchestrated a group weekend tour in the north of England with three generations of family in tow. My scheduling needed to be as watertight as a mermaid’s brassiere (© Blackadder).
On my own however, detailed scheduling was dumped faster than….. I guess faster than a customer in a Turkish taxi looking for a boutique hotel.
Not feeling that I had to control things like a foreman in a widget factory was liberating. Whilst it meant I didn’t always have the optimum experience, I was happy just going with my own flow.
The taxi driver abandoning me, and the Lilliputian hotel room, did not faze me because I knew that there was no one else to worry about or reassure.
I got up and went to bed when the mood took me, dropped things from my (loose) schedule at will and picked them back up randomly. There was no need for the “are you okay if we…” or “do you want to…” etc. that goes with travelling with others.
That’s not to say there wasn’t any conversation going on. There was always a silent and lightning-quick dialogue in my own mind, between Larry Limbic and Chris Cortex. A conversation that, if slowed down and typed out, would read something like this:
Chris: “We should visit the Museum of Architecture because we might learn something that would be good for us.”
Larry: “Yeah, of course, absolutely, no question, ….hang on, see that café? Wouldn’t it be nice to, you know, just pick up a few pieces of baklava and a coffee and go and sit on a bench in that park and watch the world go by?”
In the brain, Larry is positioned below Chris. In the outside world, Larry usually comes out on top.
Feeling like you should always prefer Chris’ view can lead you to become a box-ticker, especially with tourist sites, because you feel it’s right or expected for you to visit them and not because you really want to.
One day I pounded the pavement and, because I wanted to, visited several major tourist sites in old Istanbul city (most of them excellent); then I deliberately took my foot off the gas. I should have visited the modern part of Istanbul too; I had the time and I had heard a lot about Taksim square. I was on the verge of going but I stopped myself when it occurred to me that it was only because I felt I should, not because I particularly wanted to. This isn’t about showing a lack of curiosity. It’s about being true to your authentic curiosity.
Alain de Botton, a British philosopher, suggests that solo travel allows you to really be yourself, and just yourself, rather than an agreeable travelling companion. He puts it this way:
“It seemed an advantage to be traveling alone. Our responses to the world are crucially moulded by the company we keep, for we temper our curiosity to fit in with the expectations of others…Being closely observed by a companion can also inhibit our observation of others; then, too, we may become caught up in adjusting ourselves to the companion’s questions and remarks, or feel the need to make ourselves seem more normal than is good for our curiosity.”
I know what he means. Both in mind, and in body, I wandered, quite happily, wherever my curiosity took me.
“Only God can judge me”
So said the t-shirt slogan of one-hit wonder and erstwhile rapper from Leicester, Mark Morrison, as he appeared in court on tax evasion charges. (In case you’re wondering, his slogan turned out not to be the incontrovertible legal defence he had assumed.)
But whilst Mr Morrison seemed to be admirably clear about who could judge him, the scourge of negative self-judgment was something that crossed my mind whilst alone in Istanbul.
A key realisation I embraced as a first-time solo traveller is that you should avoid feeling guilty about your choices, even about your mistakes. So I never, even for a moment, engaged in any “Why didn’t I just..?….It would have been so much better if…….I should have known that….”. Maybe it would have been better if I had x, y or z-ed, but that’s not the point.
If you are the kind of person who is quick to self-judge about all the little wrong turns and small disappointments you’ll probably encounter on a trip, as if each one contributes a line to an eventual chorus of disapproval about your self-worth, then a solo holiday may be played out to a self-sabotaging musical in your own head. And the problem is there’s no one else there to quietly gesture to you to get up out of your seat and leave your own theatre.
But looking at it another way, if you don’t like how adept you are at penning a soundtrack of self-criticism, solo travel could be a challenge that should be taken up. Go as an experiment. Go with the avowed intention of rolling with it and not putting yourself down, whatever happens. And see what happens.
Sixty thousand thoughts a day
Apparently, on average, we have sixty thousand thoughts a day (I guess that’s one of those that everyone will just take at face value, I mean who’s going to start counting?). Most of these are I assume just “auto-pilot” moments, but alone and abroad I noticed a constant hum of thoughts running through my mind. Sometimes I caught myself navel-gazing, especially as there was no one to distract me and be the proverbial deer to cut across my mental road trip. Take the following example of classic solo “over-think”.
I’m dining outdoors at a Turkish restaurant called “Lekker” (ottoman cuisine tailored to subconsciously appeal to the Afrikaners demographic?). Some remarkably well-behaved cats appear; one sits beside me beseeching silently for scraps.
I think:
Is it just the meat that the cat will eat or will one of the potato wedges do?
If I give it something will it start to behave more entitled (you know, like teenagers: give an inch, they take a mile)?
Will it whistle for its cousins to step out of the shadows and I’ll be faced with an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical?
A lady at a table next to me just shooed a cat away – will I incur her ire if she spots me conveying pieces of contraband Adana Kebab to one?
Just then another diner nonchalantly throws a scrap to a cat. That’s my green light. I cut up some meat into very small pieces like I’m preparing food for a toddler (because now I’m thinking about the size of a cat’s throat and don’t want to trigger a cat-choking spectacle). The cat pounces on my repeated offerings. No swagger, no cousins, no ire.
Later, my plate is cleared by the waiter who, with enviably casual instinct, just throws some large leftover pieces meat off it to the same cat who gobbles it up. So much for my meticulous feline food prep.
Conclusions
After three nights in Istanbul, I could’ve easily done another three nights. But more than a week solo-tripping? I think that’s the real test. One for the future maybe.
And what of my protestations in a previous post that travel with a companion is what enhances the experience? I haven’t changed my mind. Travel with one or more individuals of the right mind-set is still my preferred choice for all the reasons I wrote about before.
But the crucial bit is the “right mind-set”. Going on a trip with someone who doesn’t have similar interests and temperament just because you don’t want to be alone is a waste of an opportunity. It is to hem yourself in within your own social hang-ups and squander your time and money. It would be far better to travel alone.
So the part that has changed for me is that before, in the absence of a travel companion, I would have probably sat at home. Now, solo travel no longer holds any concerns for me. It’s something I can slip in and out of at will. Like a bath towel at a Turkish Hammam.
Solo travel also has some benefits that might recommend it on its own merits. One of these is its effect as a kind of social detox.
It’s said that intermittent fasting can have real health benefits because it means you’re not always stoking the fires of your metabolism; you give the digestive machine a break now and again and it will serve you longer.
Similarly with boredom. We seem to have an innate fear of getting bored for any length of time, that to be bored is to be unproductive and wasteful, so we constantly reach for stimulus. But now we read that out of boredom can come creative insights. The under-stimulated mind wanders in a more lateral direction, which leads to connections and insights that wouldn’t be achievable when the cerebral cogs are whirring at optimum speed.
In the same way, a solo trip disengages you from the usual, unrelenting social interaction, especially with people you know, people who you are constantly “adjusting” to, consciously and unconsciously. Instead you get a sense of you.
So, once in a while, it’s worth allowing a closer glimpse at yourself and the paths your mind naturally wanders down when uninterrupted; something that can only happen when no one else is with you.