The Importance of Traveling Alone

By Judy Lee ‘17

Traveling alone is often glorified yet not given the respect it deserves. It is also often not taken as an opportunity. However, in my opinion, it is critical and absolutely necessary for everyone to travel alone at least once. It doesn’t matter whether this entails a trip of 20 minutes or 20 months–only that you have time to be alone with yourself and figure out how you can literally live with yourself.

In a world that demands many different faces from us, it’s hard to keep track of how to stay true to yourself. When you’re in the chaos of it all, even the retreat of your own room may not seem like truly being alone. However, when traveling and having to rely solely upon one’s self, that is where you start to uncover pieces of yourself that you didn’t know was still there after so long.

It’s not a secret that I am studying abroad in London this semester. I did it for the same reasons many people study abroad: I wanted to see new places, meet new people, eat delicious food, but most importantly, I wanted to find out who I could be outside of the context I found myself in every single day. Growing up in a bubble is comforting, but comfortable is not where you begin to find yourself. Only through traveling can you be in that particularly introspective mood that will open up a lot about yourself that you didn’t know before.

This isn’t to say that one even needs to travel far. As I said earlier, it isn’t about the where and when necessarily, but why you choose to do it and how you’ve come to grow during and afterwards. Taking a small day trip can do the trick just as well as a study abroad program. As long as it’s new, you’re the good kind of uncomfortable, and you’re feeling like you’re discovering a you that you love that much more for it.

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