Opinion: Come together, but go alone

I traveled solo for the first time this spring. I was studying abroad in Aix-en-Provence, France, and we had a week off from the end of April to the beginning of May. I started the vacation by visiting a friend in Dublin, and then went alone to Liverpool in the middle of the week.   

  

The trip was personal. My favorite band growing up was always the Beatles, which came, I have no doubt, out of love for my mom, who seemed to know all the words to every Beatles song. She would glow when teaching my sister and me Beatles lore that had clearly been important to her when growing up. The Beatles came with us on every road trip, and their music became the soundtrack of my childhood.   

  

Liverpool was also home base for Audun Laading and Stephen Fitzpatrick, the indie-rock/dream pop duo Her’s, whose music soundtracked my adolescent years, underscoring my relationships with my high school friends and, seemingly magically, my understanding of myself and my outlook on the world. 

 

Tragically, the Her’s lads were killed by a drunk driver on their second North American tour on March 27, 2019, just as they were starting to break out. While they will never be able to release another song, they hold a small but extremely dedicated fanbase made up of people like me, who are incredibly touched by both their music and their life stories.  

 

So I went to Liverpool by myself to reflect on what once was, listen to my favorite music with a new perspective, interact with the local community and walk the same streets that John, Paul, George, Ringo, Audun and Stephen once had.    

  

I was able to get in touch with another Liverpool-based artist and close friend of Fitzpatrick and Laading, Brad stank, who seemed touched by my love for Her’s and my solo trip to Liverpool. He and I had a nice conversation on Instagram, where he provided me with the names of some sites significant to the artists’ lives and anecdotes about how they would spend their time in town. That night, I found their old apartment and walked around their neighborhood, taking photos of scenes I recognized from their first-ever, unofficial music video, and I wound up having a peaceful solo dinner in one of their favorite restaurants.  

  

The next morning, I went on the quite touristy but equally amusing Beatles Magical Mystery Tour of Liverpool. While waiting for the bus, perhaps emboldened by my solo status in a new country, I struck up a conversation with two 70-or-so-year-old British women, big Beatles fans named Wendy and Vickie. They told me they were impressed with my courage in traveling alone, even more so when I told them that I was coming from France, where I was studying French and living with a French host family.   

  

We continued to talk throughout the tour about little things and our favorite Beatles songs. During the ride, Vickie kept reaching over and slipping me butterscotch candies that she had stored in her coat pocket. We also became each other’s personal photographers, taking pictures of each other by important Beatles landmarks when the bus stopped. I wish we had thought to take a selfie between saying hello and goodbye. 

  

On this short, two-day trip, I did a lot on my own, but I never felt alone. And I learned a lot. Now that I know how valuable that experience was, I want to have more like it. 

  

And yet, back at Grinnell, I still get nervous about going to an on-campus event, a party, the Dining Hall or anything else alone if I can’t find an available friend or two who is interested in coming with me. On a small campus like ours, it just feels like everyone is expected to be in groups, circles of close friends that are, sometimes literally, closed off. I don’t always feel very welcome exploring campus individually.   

  

I think of all the times I stopped short of saying something to someone, of all the people that I recognize around campus whom I’ve never actually met because they run in a different social circle than I do. To me, that’s a wasted opportunity. When we are aware of that, we all become more important to each other.  

  

So, I’ve begun solo traveling on Grinnell’s campus — I’ve been going here, there and everywhere on my own. It wasn’t easy at first to accept the discomfort that can come from showing up somewhere without a trusty sidekick or two, and I’ve talked to a lot of students who share that sentiment. Have you ever wanted to go to something and then ended up deciding not to because you didn’t feel comfortable going alone? 

 

It wasn’t easy for me to decide to go to Liverpool on my own, much less to approach Vickie and Wendy outside the Beatles bus or start talking to my server in a pub about why I was there, but I’m so glad that I did.  

 

While I haven’t yet had solo traveling experiences on campus that rival those of the trip to Liverpool, I have gotten a lot more comfortable being myself, by myself on campus. I’ve also gotten to know some people who I wouldn’t have met otherwise, even if only briefly.  

 

When you go out and do something on your own, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the goal is to end up alone. In fact, by solo traveling you are opening yourself up to so many others, because approaching an individual as an individual is a much less daunting task than breaking into a group of friends.  

 

I want our campus to be a space where people are comfortable heading out on their own more. Wouldn’t a truly healthy and inclusive community ensure that everyone, no matter who they are or what their friends are up to, can go out and meet new people when they’d like to?  

  

If we can find a way to open up our culture to the individuals on our campus who do not always have a group of friends at the ready, we also open it up for everyone by creating a more inclusive environment and more opportunities for exploration and personal growth. I want more solo travelers on Grinnell’s campus — heck, in the world — and more circles of friends who will keep an attentive eye out for individuals they can warmly welcome in, like a Pub Quiz team that goes out of their way to invite single players.  

   

If you want to travel solo, in Grinnell or otherwise, I highly recommend it. If you are afraid that you might be spotted all by yourself and judged by someone else, don’t let that stop you. I promise you that this judgment is this person’s insecurity in disguise, and on the inside, they’re probably curious about what they might learn and experience if they were only brave enough to step out on their own, too.