My first solo trip, right at the tail end of the pandemic, was an accident. I was a homes writer back then, enthusiastically cornering patient travel editors with my out-of-the-blue pitches as soon as humanly possible after restrictions began to ease. Finally, it happened: my first commission—and to stay at The Dylan, Amsterdam’s most glamorous canal-side boutique, no less.
I grabbed a friend, booked the flights, and started dreaming of days piling pastries onto plates in cafés, ticking off museums, and spending nights skipping in and out of dimly lit canal-side bars. But then: a logistical disaster. With less than a week to go, my friend realized her passport was too close to expiry for travel to the Netherlands. Renewing it at short notice during the Covid backlog was out of the question, as was finding someone else to come with me with just days before the stay.
I was upset, to say the least. I’d never traveled anywhere on my own before—and, at this time, when we’d all been isolated enough! The idea of eating alone in a restaurant filled me with dread. I imagined other diners pitying me or wondering if I’d been stood up. But I could cancel and look flaky in front of editors I’d only just persuaded to take me seriously, or get on the plane by myself. So I packed.
And then I was sitting by the water’s edge at a café, watching the houseboats bob by, when I realized: I was literally totally fine. No one stared, no one cared, and I had the whole afternoon ahead of me to be used entirely at my leisure.
It wasn’t lonely, I realized, but peaceful. Come to think of it, I was having a far better time than I’d expected. Better, perhaps, than I’d had on certain trips with company.
Like the ill-fated trip to Iceland with a boyfriend, which was so disastrous we never spoke again (for the best). Or a jaunt to Los Angeles with a newer friend who, as it turned out, was a serious complainer, finding issue with everything down to the stencil on the cappuccino foam at the Beverley Hills Hotel. And who could forget the Edinburgh weekender for my 30th with another, more serious, partner, where I booked the flights and Airbnb and he booked… a catch-up with his cousin and small child who lived locally. Whom I’d never met. On my birthday. Surprise!