SIT’s Alone vs Loneliness: (full)

FIT traveler's are, by definition, alone. But ‘alone’, is not an emotion. It merely means “no one is nearby.”  ‘While ‘loneliness’ is the mind’s self-perceived emotional state of feeling unattached or worse, 'unwanted.'  

Anecdote: traveling alone -- GREAT IRONY!: At 28, having won a free TV Dating Game trip to Italy, I extended my trip to other countries, but after a couple of weeks, I realized I was 'lonely'; I thought my experience was too shallow without someone to share it with...

   Then, at 46, an ex-girlfriend & I planned a camping road trip to Vancouver, BC's "1986 World Exposition", but, alas, she stood-me-up at the last moment. Let down, I indignantly vowed to go alone in spite of my feared 'loneliness.'      I visited the Exposition, several national parks, historical sites & realized how fascinating were the thoughts in my own brain AND how exhilarating was my  'solo' experience.

                                                       I've mainly traveled alone since then.

   Generally, I prize being alone; prizing it’s solitude, freedom & privacy, yet I am quite capable of engaging with others. While FIT solo travel is the main theme, FIT traveler's constantly have social opportunities from cooking meals in a hostel kitchen, common room gab fests, cooking classes, even group 'pub crawl', impromptu or organoized detours, etc.

                              Hoi An, Vietnam Hostel's cooking class

Personally, I enjoy being alone ‘in-my-thoughts’ while wandering in an Asian crowd of thousands OR wallking a rural Laos back streets alone.

I am a contented introvert or extrovert when it pleases me.  

I relish my thoughts as I stroll down a small village path trying to be attuned to every little thing I see & hear:  an Inle Lake,  Myanmar bush ... covered with butterflies, 2 Normandy, France ladies working in their garden waving back, or luscious luncheon aroma & haunting music wafting out of a Syracuse, Sicily’s back street home.

I am an anonymous speck in the flow of humanity’s river.

OTOH, my gregarious friend Lauren invariably meets another woman traveler and they travel together then and sometimes on future trips.

 

Alone in early morning for miles on the sparse Camino de Santiago trek's Maseta

 

 

 

 

            Inle Lake, Myanmar's butterflies