¿Vas A Viajar Sola? Oh Noooooooo!: Travelling Alone

Last week I was having a conversation with a couple of the teachers at my school. I was telling them about all of the places that I still planned to visit in Europe before I return to the states. One of those places was London.

One of the teachers had studied in London before so she began to talk about all of the things to see and do there. I told her that I believed London to be one of those European cities that you just had to visit just because. After talking about the city for a while, one of the teachers then asked, “¿pero si vas a Londres, con quien vas? (If you go to London, who will you go with?). That’s when I shamefully admitted that I would go “sola” (alone). I then told the teachers that although I had friends to travel with, most of my friends are in Europe for the second time now, and that they have either already been to London and wanted to spend their time exploring other European destinations or that they just didn’t have the desire to go there. Besides, London would be one of those cities that I wouldn’t mind going to by myself, because I speak and understand the language (almost) perfectly.

After telling them that I would probably go “sola” they immediately gave me a look of shame. ¿Pero, por qué ir sola? They asked. (But why go alone?). That’s when I told them that I was not going to not go to London just because I didn’t have anyone to go with. One of the teachers told me that she would never want to travel alone, and the other one agreed. That’s when both of the teachers told me that if I found some cheap tickets and went to London for a weekend then they would join me. They said that they would both love to go. At first I was thrilled at this idea; I thought that a trip to London between us three would be very fun. Then, as I was about to leave school that day one of the teachers reminded me to look at tickets when I got home. I said that I definitely would. She then said that if I find tickets she will definitely go, and so will her boyfriend. “What a minute,” I said, “And if the other teacher goes, will her fiancé come as well?” She said, “Yes, I’m sure he will.” That’s when I looked at her with a “seriously?” expression on my face. Then she said, “Who would you rather go with, the four of us, or alone?” Well... The first thing that came to my mind was that I would much rather go alone instead of being the fifth wheel, but I just smiled instead.

The truth is, it really isn’t that uncommon for people like me to travel alone. And now that I have made so many trips since I’ve been to Spain, I not only feel comfortable enough to travel alone, but I have also realized that when you do travel alone you can have such a wonderful experience and meet so many cool people from all over the world.

Hostel in Madrid

In my opinion, one of the best things about Europe, besides all of the wonderful cities you can visit, is that it is fairly cheap to travel and there are so many great types of accommodations available, like hostels for example. A hostel is an establishment that provides cheap accommodations for young travelers. The typical hostel has shared living quarters. There are normally a bunch of rooms with several bunk beds, and a traveler can choose between whether they would like to stay in a mixed or same-sex room and they can also choose between the numbers of beds they want in each room. Of course the price of staying in each room varies; a person staying in a 14-bed room would be paying a lot less than someone staying in a 4-bed room or a private room. In the hostels there are normally community bathrooms, a kitchen area, a living-room area, sometimes a computer lounge, and lockers for you to store your things in. A one-night’s stay at a typical hostel normally costs between 10-20 Euros, of course this price varies depending on the country you are in and the room that you choose.  Nevertheless, this definitely beats hotel prices, which are ridiculously high in Europe.

I would lie if I said that I absolutely loved hostels, because I am a bit germaphobic and I don’t necessarily love sharing living quarters with people that I don’t know. However, I have had great experiences staying at hostels in Europe. I have stayed at hostels during my stays in Madrid, Barcelona and Granada and I have nothing negative to say about them.



Hostel in Barcelona

I stayed at a hostel alone in Madrid for about 5 days during my first week in Spain and I had a great time. The hostel that I stayed in was very clean, tranquil, and I met a lot of really cool people that I went out with during the day and at night. Actually, going out in Madrid with people that I had met in the hostel was one of the best nights out that I’ve had since living in Spain! When I stayed in Barcelona, I was with friends, and we were normally only at the hostel at night but that hostel was also clean, the staff was very friendly, and we met a few people. One of the best times that I had staying in a hostel was in Granada, because the hostel that we stayed at was really neat and it had a family-like environment. The first night that my friend and I stayed there, we had a huge paella dinner cooked by one of the staff members and we sat around a big table in a “tree-house” and talked with different people from England, Australia, Italy, Brazil, Germany and other places around the world. We also played games and we hung out outside of the hostel with two of the girls that entire weekend.

I would definitely encourage any young person travelling to Europe to stay at hostels. Hostels are designed to make people feel comfortable and introduce them to the city. For example, most hostels provide free-guided tours and many also provide discounted tickets to shows, museums and bars and clubs. In Madrid, I went on a great tour of the city that was conducted by one of the hostel workers, and I also did a pub-crawl at night. In Granada, we also went on a tour of the city and we got discounted tickets (and our own reserved table) to a Flamenco show. These events were a great part of my trips to these places.



Hostel in Granada

Europe is a place for travelers, both young and old. And almost every big city that you stay in has a great number of different types of hostels. Some great websites to use to find hostels throughout Europe is www.hostelbookers.com and www.hostelworld.com. On these sites, you can see the overall rating of the hostel, check out reviews from people that have stayed at these places, look at pictures of the hostel and look at their location in relation to other places in the city. Also, you can see whether or not the hostel provides other services, like a free continental breakfast (most of them do), WIFI, or guided tours. I have used these sites to book every hostel that I’ve stayed in.

For someone who would like to have a more authentic experience staying in a foreign city, they should check out the website www.couchsurfing.org  and register.  Couchsurfing is where people agree to lend their couch (or extra bed) to someone travelling to their city. When I first got to Spain, I wasn’t too keen to this idea. To think that someone would feel comfortable staying at a stranger’s house really scared me. But the people on Couchsurfing have to be certified, and they also each have profiles and reviews from people who have stayed with them or from people who they have stayed with. And a person wishing to stay on their couch should not only check their reviews, but they have to also have good reviews as well.  I know a lot of Fulbrighters who use couch surfing and really love it. One guy in particular has said so many great things about all of the people he has met through Couchsurfing, and he’s talked about the great experiences he has had.

If you are still not comfortable with staying with someone you don’t know, as am I, you can still use Couchsurfing for a variety of other things. For example, if you see that someone is coming to or lives in your city you can meet with them to chat or have a cup of coffee. You can also use Couchsurfing to organize language exchanges. I think that it’s a great website and I would definitely use it to meet up with people.

So the point that I am trying to make through this conversation about hostels and Couchsurfing is that travelling alone doesn’t have to be as scary as it sounds. Whenever I mention the idea of travelling alone to my dad he immediately thinks about the movie Taken, which he has seen more times than I can count with twenty fingers. In this movie, in case you aren’t familiar with it, a young girl (about 16 years old, maybe younger) travels to Paris with one of her friends, with the intent on backpacking throughout Europe and following a band around. When the girls finally arrive to Paris, they are greeted in the parking lot by a “hot” French guy talks to them and invites them to a party. They tell the guy where they are living and also mention that they will be alone. Later that day, the guy, along with other men, abduct the girls, drug them and traffic them. The girl’s father, a former CIA operative, then travels to Europe to find his daughter.

As much as I try to convince my dad that this will most likely not happen to me because I actually have a brain and I am very conscious of the things that goes on around me and the things that I say to people, the idea of me travelling (even with other people) absolutely scares him. He didn’t want me to go to Costa Rica (I went), he didn’t want me to go to the Dominican Republic (I went) and he really didn’t want me to come to Spain (and here I am). The truth is, I totally understand his thinking. Today the world is more dangerous than ever and things are happening to people every day, and every second of the day. But whatever I do, I always keep my family in mind and I would never do anything so reckless like walking around by myself at night in a foreign city, tell everyone that I meet that I am travelling alone or even travel without having some type of weapon on me. This might seem a bit dramatic but I always carry either pepper spray or anything that I can use as a weapon around with me in Spain and I am always conscious of my surroundings. I would never travel to a city without doing extensive research about the place and the area that I will be staying in and without looking at any recent news stories.

As far as the Spanish teachers are concerned, I think that it is a cultural norm for Spaniards to be so dependent on people, and I don’t mean this in a bad way at all. One thing about the United States is that people are a lot more independent. Americans are always travelling and moving away from their families, and that is just a normal thing to do in the States. In Spain and many Latin American countries; however, a lot of people don’t move out of their parents’ houses until they are married, and people typically live in the cities that they are from for all of their lives. Even most of the students attend universities in their home cities. In my opinion, this idea is kind of depressing, but to Spaniards and people from other cultures, this is what makes them happy. Take my roommates and other teachers at my school for example; they go back to their towns EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND. At first I thought that this was just because Jávea is such a boring place to live in, but I’ve soon realized that after four days of being here during the week, they really miss their families and friends.

Every week I get teachers at my school asking me if I miss my family. I normally say “yes” just because I don’t want to sound like a selfish American, and I really do miss my family, but I’m not ready to pack my bags and go home just yet. They sometimes look at me like they don’t understand how I can be here for so long, and some people have even said it to me. One of the teachers told me that when she had studied in London she missed her family so much, and she couldn’t have imagined being there any longer than she was. I asked her how long she was there and she told me "one month."

Because of this dependence that most Spaniards have I wouldn’t expect them to want to travel alone or understand why I’m more okay with it. But I am American. I have a more independent mindset and, because I am so far away from home, I am more inclined to want to meet and socialize with people from many other different cultures. And because of this, I feel more comfortable doing things by myself.

To cut a long story short, travelling alone has a bad rep because of movies, different cultural norms and naive people making bad decisions, but I think that travelling alone can be such a great experience. The five days that I spent alone in Madrid was wonderful for me. I went to different museums, cinemas, explored the city, and I could wake up whenever I wanted to or I could spend as much time as I wanted to spend doing things. I also met such cool people from different places throughout the world who were young, adventurous and intelligent like me. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love travelling with other people, but I don’t believe in missing out on such great opportunities to travel within Europe just because I have to go “sola.”

After all, I moved to Spain “sola,” I had to get settled in Spain “sola” and I practically live in Jávea “sola,” so travelling “sola” is basically what I’ve already been doing.