Requiem for solo travel

A trip through my trips, and why it may no longer be right for me.

Bittersweet ode to “solo travel”

I got my first passport after freshly turning 21. I was spending the summer in rural Connecticut, interning for my first adult tech job while living in an extended stay hotel with three roommates.

I had planned to drive six hours to Niagara Falls, Ontario, joining the roughly 40% of Americans that held a passport. Though the trip ultimately fell apart, the document became no more than an addition to the manila folder my mom had sent me away to college with. Nevertheless, its intention—and that summer spent two days' drive from home—sparked a new sense of independence within me. It was, up until that point, life's grandest adventure.

Years later, in Austin, TX, my desire to wander had only grown. I found myself in a city of transplants, surrounded by metropolitans, which contrasted starkly with my upbringing in a town of cornfields, surrounded by locals.

On a whim, I found a tattoo artist in London (Matt Bailey) and booked a red-eye flight. My family and friends thought I had certainly become unhinged, and I was exhilarated by their concern. I spent that entire flight awake drinking coffee, convinced I couldn't miss a second.

The tattoo was just an excuse to go, a reason to justify the trip, a life-long souvenir. However, what I really got out of the trip was an unending desire to see more. I spent every minute of that four-day trip walking block after block—like I was exploring another world. Every minute in cold and rainy London felt new and suspenseful, like a good film that keeps you on the edge of your seat, unaware of what is around the corner.

Similarly to my red-eye, I stayed awake the final night of the trip. This time drinking one too many pints with a group of lads who adopted me from one of London's many pubs. Dropped my fish and chips in the hallway of my hotel. Showed up blisteringly hungover to my tattoo appointment.

The day after returning from London, the company I worked for closed its doors, and I was on a path back northeast, this time to New York. Four weeks later, flush with cash from a generous severance payment and a desire to escape the realities of being unemployed in a melting tech job market, I reached for that same manila envelope and took the passport back to Europe. I used the excuse of a tattoo once again to chase the dragon I'd discovered in London, this time in Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands. However, like most highs, it didn't quite match the intensity of the first experience.

Note: Emiel Steenhuizen in Amsterdam is both an incredible artist and human being, whom I’d highly recommend working with.

Upon reaching New York City in January 2023, I spent every holiday and spare dollar turning long weekends into adventures. These spontaneous trips took me west across the Rocky Mountains for the first time and south of the Rio Grande into Mexico. In contrast, I also began—for the first time—taking flights with new friends and family to explore places I hadn't yet seen. I found myself collecting experiences with others instead of doing so alone.

While I continued to travel alone, occasionally for the odd tattoo, the light from a new destination, no matter how exotic or different from my upbringing, started to fade. For whatever reason, sitting alone in a mediocre restaurant slowly stopped feeling like I was Anthony Bourdain in Parts Unknown.

Tattoo appointments became marathons and red-eye flights lost their luster. Maybe this is a sign of growing up, but I will always look fondly on these trips as they allowed me to formulate a view of much of the world through my own two eyes, at my own pace, on my own two feet—an unfamiliar experience to most Americans.

That first passport unfortunately passed away after sending it through the wash in the pocket of an old pair of jeans, and with it the urge to go see the world alone. As I created deeper and deeper roots in New York, I now wished to bring the people I loved along for the flight.

All of the film here is from my last solo trip to Japan for the 2025 Tokyo marathon.

Thanks for reading—have a great week.

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