thoughts on why you should travel alone

I sit here, 8000 miles or 30 hours of travel time away from home sitting in the Adelaide central bus station contemplating the events over the last 96 hours or so. Thinking about our/my position in life, why I have yet to meet another American? Why travel? Why spend the resources to get all the way out here, when the differences are few and not really cultural, but unimportant bureaucratic societal logistics. What is to follow are some of my preliminary thoughts and experiences on why it is imperative as your growth as a human being to travel alone.   All of this stemmed from thinking about why I had not met any other Americans, and why none of the people I had meet had interacted with any Americans.  A very brief but vulgar descriptor of US impressions from the internationals I wrote down to maybe be posted later. Lets just say for the time being it’s a work in progress and aside from the occasional curse word I’ll keep this blog within acceptable Parental Guidance.  I’m still searching for the root of American void, perhaps Adelaide is just not high on the travel list, and maybe mine and their paths just did not cross. (I know of some adults who travel here for work) My only real thought on explaining it is that many American youths backpack (or say they plan to backpack) through Europe instead. Where do Europeans go when they want to take a sabbatical year? The US, some, but I think a lot choose the beaches and deserts of Australia.  This somewhat led me to a simple but non-obvious epiphany as to why travel alone.  Sitting here, in a typically government funded bus station, 8000 miles away from friends and family In California, 1.5 hours from the nearest major airport, A 2 hour plane ride not to mention all the other travel arrangements in-between from the nearest people I would consider friends, I am truly independently alone.

Epiphany #1: “I can be whomever I want be.” Nobody knows who I am, nobody knows what my personality is, where I came from or even why I’m in this place.  The only thing obviously in common with the people around me are our current longitude and latitude and hopefully the English language.  We in the United States of America hold going off to college most often on someone else’s dollar to be our right of passage.  But how many of us really went off, we all went with friends, people we knew, social connections to back home.  Im not saying that’s a bad thing at all, I have one of the best groups of friends and family anyone can ask for, I wouldn’t trade that for anything. What I’m getting at is that when you truly get out of any connection to your normal and accepted society, small and large, the person you are then is the person you truly are. There is no way to fake who you are with people you just met void of your previous social life, why would you. Simply “faking it” is proof enough that fake you is the real you.  A haunting thought for some.  Epiphany #2: “Nothing exposes your flaws more than putting your communicable personality to the test by meeting (or attempting to meet) foreign people in a foreign country”.  This ties directly into Epiphany #3: “Those family and friends closest to you can be the worst enablers of your personality flaws”.  Think about it. They are your biggest support system, but is that always a good thing. Both of my immediate communities (family and friends) show traits of being relatively balanced. (note: I am by no means calling any of you individually balanced, that would be offensive to you)  The direction, likes, and dislikes of both groups are going in their respective direction. But you may possess certain strong traits that I lack, thus I deferring to you in those situations further engraining my flaws.  Its not a conscious thing, but accepted over time when people cement their rolls within there community. When you Travel all alone, only you and your skills to get by, those small cracks appear much bigger. 

If you read all the way to the bottom of both posts, congratulations, this is the most I’ve written/expected any of you to read in a while. It would be nice to hear some sort of of response. However, hold back from correcting grammar error