Travelling Alone for the First Time

When I received my confirmation email from Air Canada for my first solo trip, I was scared shitless. I had just graduated from University, and I had wanted to go on a "graduation trip" with a group of friends to celebrate, but no one was able to go with me. I thought about the possibility of going by myself somewhere. This was a whole new avenue that I'd never quite explored before. I did like spending time alone when I was at home, sitting at the coffee shop or reading in the park, but would I be able to spend a whole week alone in a foreign country? And what if I got lost out there, or couldn't print out my boarding pass for the ride home, or got lonely and just ended up sitting in my hotel room waiting for the week to be over?

The trip seemed like a lost cause. I had almost settled on the idea of just relaxing at home for a few weeks before I started my new marketing job. I wasn't overly thrilled about missing out on the "graduation trip," but I felt like I had avoided some risks.

My dad, however, disagreed. He argued that I would regret not going on a trip, and that relying on other people to do things wasn't the best approach to getting what you want in life, and that the feeling I would have after going somewhere alone would stay with me for the rest of my life. He also said that, if I did go through with it, I couldn't spend the week worrying about whether or not my boarding pass would get printed before I came home. I agreed.

Less than thirty minutes later, we had both agreed that the best way for me to feel comfortable and get "my feet wet" with this whole solo travel thing was to stay at a very highly rated resort that would basically take care of everything for me. I should mention that I hate the idea of resorts, but, given the circumstances, I agreed that this was the best option. I booked four days (not a week) for the Atlantis Resort in Nassau in the Bahamas, my plane tickets, and a shuttle service that would pick me up at the airport and drop me right off at the hotel door. I wasn't expecting this to be the most incredible and story-inducing trip of all time, but it was a start.

The stress on the day of my flight, as you can imagine, was all completely unnecessary. I arrived at the airport on time, whizzed through security and was sitting on the plane with plenty of time before departure. I sat beside a man and a woman who had a young child. The child was screaming. As soon as I sat down, the man said, "your beers for the ride are on me. This little guy's going to scream the whole way there." I smiled. Free beer will make anything better.

The man and I talked for most of the flight. He was an engineer from South Africa visiting friends in Toronto. He, his wife and child were going to visit some friends in the Bahamas on their way back home. I told him that I was an aspiring writer and that this was my first trip solo. He told me that his brother was living in Toronto and was a writer for the TV show Suits, that I would have to give him my email address so that he could link me up with him to potentially work with him on a movie project, and that I would have to dine with him, his wife and their child while we were all in the Bahamas. I hadn't even made it to the destination of this solo trip, but I had already met some new great people, and had potentially lined up a writing gig.

A few hours passed and the plane landed in Nassau. The first thing that I saw when I got out of the airport was palm trees. It was also hot as fuck. Panic set in again. Shuttle buses lined the front of the airport. Travellers, bus attendants and cars scattered across the asphalt. 

What if I couldn't find my shuttle bus and I was stuck at the airport?

A lady in a shuttle bus uniform approached me, asked me where I was going and what my name was, and checked her clipboard. "Right over here sweetheart," she said, and ushered me onto the bus. My stress was relieved again. The second part of the solo journey was complete.

On the drive to Atlantis, we passed yield signs that said "Give Way," a car with its trunk open and filled with conch shells, and broken down cars with flat tires parked in front of pink and turquoise stuccoed houses. The bus drove over a bridge. Cruise ships drifted beneath the bridge. Gucci and Versace advertisements hung from the street lights. Atlantis boomed in the distance. I sighed. This to me wasn't travel. It felt like I was going to a luxury mall. Where were the wild animals, incredible landscapes and adventure opportunities? I reminded myself that this was my first solo venture and that this is what I had chosen as a "safety experience" to get into it.

When I arrived at the main doors of Atlantis, the driver handed me my luggage. I stepped inside the sliding doors. Marble columns protruded from the floor, fountains splattered water, and tourists in bathing suits scurried across the tile floor. I walked to the reception desk. The young man behind the counter studied my coifed hair, jean jacket and skinny jeans.

"You don't look like a resort guy," he said. I laughed.

"I hate resorts.""Why'd you come to Atlantis then?"

"To be honest," I said, "I was scared shitless to go somewhere by myself, so I thought this was a good starting point. I really like going places where I can explore.

"He laughed."You know, a lot of people come to Atlantis year after year to sit by the pools, but they never see the Bahamas. Do yourself a favour, and get off the resort as much as you can."I pondered for a moment."How do I do that?"

The man pointed down the marble hallway.

"There's a tour and expedition office down the hall on the left. Go in and see what they've got available. It'll be worth it. The Bahamas has a lot to offer that people don't know about.

"I smiled, thanked him, grabbed my room key and walked to the elevators. After I unpacked a bit, I threw on my bathing suit, lathered myself in sunscreen and made my way outside. Sea turtles, stingrays and hammerhead sharks swam around pools that lined the resorts walkways. Palm trees swayed in the tropical breeze. Families and young professionals lay by the pools. Why do people travel to other countries to sit beside pools when the Caribbean sea is right there? I walked to one of the poolside bars, grabbed a Heineken, and sat on a lounge chair on the beach. The turquoise sea broke in front of me. Large rocks protruded along the sand. This was the first time it hit me. I had done it. I was in another country by myself.

I sat on the beach for the rest of that day and the morning of the next day, and then I got bored. The artificiality of the resort had finally gotten to me. If this was going to be trip I remembered, it would have to be a trip filled with some adventures, explorations and good stories. I ventured back into the main lobby, walked past all of the marble columns and found the excursion and adventure office. A lady in the office told me that there were several different excursions I could go on, including snorkelling, seadoo riding, a bus tour of Nassau and sunset sailing adventures. I decided on trying snorkelling first. I was informed that a bus would pick me at the main doors of the hotel in the morning and would take me to the harbour so I could board the catamaran. This seemed, again, like an easy and safe way to explore solo.

My adrenaline started kicking in, as I stared at the catamaran in the harbour. This is what I loved about travelling. I like adventures, not sitting on lounge chairs. We boarded the boat. Tourists lay on the mesh floor of the catamaran. Turquoise water skimmed beneath them. I studied the rocky islands that jutted out of the middle of the sea. I had been off of Atlantis for all of an hour, and I'd already seen more of the Bahamas than I could have expected. I was in the Caribbean Sea on a catamaran. This was an adventure. This was an adventure that I'd done by myself.We snorkelled around a reef in the middle of the sea for a few hours, I flapped around with a bunch of tropical fish, and I took a few selfies underwater with my GoPro. When I got back to the resort, I knew that I had to somehow do an even better adventure. I was hooked on the solo adventure. I wanted to see how far I could go by myself while I was here. I went back to the excursion office.

I told the lady the I had loved snorkelling and was looking for something similar, but more nature-based if possible. She smiled and told me that there was one tour that catered to just that, and was actually their most popular tour, but it was very hard to get into if you hadn't booked it weeks in advance. It was a day trip to Exuma.

Exuma is almost like a national park in the Bahamas. It's a collection of variously sized, mostly uninhabited islands in the Caribbean sea. From the pictures the lady showed me in the brochure, the water somehow seemed more turquoise there, the islands were more rocky, rugged and lush, and there was somehow a sand pathway in the middle of the sea. I wanted in.

The lady called the tour company. They were booked solid. She told me to come back and check throughout the week to see if anyone cancelled, so, since I was leaving in a couple days, I came back to the office every couple of hours for the next two and a half days. The afternoon before my last full day in the Bahamas, the lady at the tour office called the tour company, asked if they could just squeeze one person onto the boat, and said that I wouldn't take up much space. They agreed. I was going to Exuma the next morning.

The next day a bus picked me up from Atlantis again, drove me down to the harbour, and then I boarded a powerboat that almost looked like a cigarette boat. There were benches facing the bough of the boat. I sat on one beside a couple from Texas towards the front of the boat. The boat's motor roared. We bolted out of the harbour. As we drove across the turquoise sea, Nassau disappeared behind us. After about thirty minutes of boating, there was no sight of land in any direction. We were in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. The boat dropped off of waves. The woman beside me clenched her seat. I grinned. After about an hour, the first islands of Exuma came into view. I had made it there.

We explored Exuma for the entire day, which still today is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, and then we journeyed back to Atlantis. It was my last night in the Bahamas, so I went to the Texas-style sports pub on the resort for dinner, a beer and to watch the Toronto Raptors game. As I sat there, a man asked, "How has your trip been?"

I turned. The man that had signed me in at the reception desk four days earlier sat beside me.

"It's honestly been one of the most incredible trips of my life," I said, "I took your advice and got off the resort as much as possible. The Bahamas are an incredible place.”

He grinned.

"So you saw the Bahamas."

"I saw the Bahamas.

"The next day I grabbed my suitcase, took a photo of myself in the hotel room mirror (which has become a habit that I do on all of my vacations now before I leave), and then got into the bus that had dropped me off at the hotel four days earlier. I never ended up seeing the friend I had made on the plane ride over, but I had experienced a part of the world I had never seen before on my own. It was a liberating feel. I recommend that everyone goes on a solo trip at least once in their life. It's amazing the experiences you'll have when you're placed in a position of vulnerability, but also complete freedom to pick and choose and be spontaneous within your own adventure. If you feel like you can go hangout in a jungle in Costa Rica by yourself for your first solo trip go for it, but, if you're like me and you need a safer route to get your feet wet, do what you need to do, because my dad was right; the feeling I got from travelling somewhere alone is one that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

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