Suzanne Moore is a prolific – and at times controversial – journalist, columnist and feminist, with more than 45 years in the newspaper industry. She has worked for everyone from The Guardian to The Telegraph, and has a popular Substack, Letters from Suzanne. Here, she explores her lifelong love affair with solo travel.
‘I was called brave for travelling in India alone. But I just felt immensely liberated at not having to deal with anyone else’s demands’
“Tell me, what is that you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” said no Careers Advisor ever (this is actually a quote from the wonderful poet Mary Oliver).
The one thing I always knew I wanted to do was to travel. At my girls’ school, this prompted the hardly radical suggestion that I join the Navy or try to become an air hostess. Um..no.
I read One Hundred Years of Solitude and was inspired to explore South America. At 24, I read Midnight’s Children and set off for India. I have been going back there ever since, alone, with partners, with my kids, with my friends. That’s four decades.
Books, man, they give a girl ideas.
It is lovely to be with others, and I am lucky in that I have some fine friends who are brilliant companions. My kids have been dragged all over the world, and are all the more capable because of it, but still sometimes I want to take off.
Alone.
People tell me I am “brave” for floating around South India by myself. What they really mean but cannot bring themselves to say is: “Aren’t you lonely?”
Let’s address that head on. At times you MAY feel lonely. You will also feel immensely liberated from not having to deal with anyone else’s demands. You will learn the difference between loneliness and solitude, and that is something worth knowing.
You can have holidays in paradise with a partner, but when a relationship is in trouble, no amount of azure sea or chocolates on the pillow will mask the deep loneliness of such an escapade.
What I have learned over the years is both practical and emotional. If you want to travel alone, be realistic. Imagine the worst-case scenario: no other human being speaks to you – this won’t happen, I guarantee, but go with it. How long would you be okay with that? Three days? A week?
Work out what you want and identify the things that you might be frightened of and how you would deal with them.
My plan for a trip in India, for instance, was to spend the whole three weeks in Tamil Nadu, but once I was there, I decided to go to Cochin in Kerala and catch the art Biennale. I met many people all along the way.: families, kids, Indian tourists from other states. The great secret of meeting other people? Talk to them!
Don’t be over-ambitious about what you can do in a day, especially in very hot countries. Some days spent sitting in cafes people-watching can be more valuable than any amount of sight-seeing, believe me.
Make sure you can carry your own luggage easily. Pack as little as possible. A Kindle is your friend. You don’t need special “holiday” clothes. You do need a shawl to cover your head, if you want to visit shrines, temples, mosques. A kaftan is your friend..similarly shoes that can be slipped on and off are best.
Listen to the stories from the people you meet along the way as they help contextualise the place you are in. My new favourite country, Uzbekistan, is, I discovered, layer upon layer of Zoroastrianism, Islam and Soviet rule. I am absolutely drawn to the complexities of these places. Do not be afraid to hire a good guide. Who would have thought that I ended up at wine tasting in Samarkand? That’s because my lovely (female) guide wanted to take me off the standard tourist route.
The wonders of the world are not always the official ones. Instead, go to Petra in Jordan or the Silk Road cities for their amazing histories but don’t ignore the modern buildings you will see there are as they are as mind blowing as the temples. The airport in Samarkand is built to look like the leaves of an open book, for example. Brutalist Soviet masterpieces are everywhere.
Your solo trip may be a weekend in Liverpool, or three days in Belfast. Both are fantastic cities and I guarantee you will never be lost for someone to chat to in either place.
Sexual harassment exists everywhere. Much of what you need to do is what a woman in any big city does anyway. Keep your wits about you. Make sure your phone is charged. too. If something feels wrong, it is wrong. Trust your gut instinct.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help, especially if you are not sure about what to eat. In South India, it is pure joy to eat with your fingers off a banana leaf; if others laugh at you, join in the joke. After all, why shouldn’t they?
Just show simple respect for the sacred space of others. Play with kids who find you and your clothes hilarious, because they probably are.
Say yes to everyone who wants you to be in their photo: why not? Once, in Calcutta, I featured in every couple’s Valentine Day photo.
And, if you really don’t want to engage, it is very easy to signal via body language that you don’t want to talk, without being aggressive or rude.
Throw away your preconceptions. I once assumed that the guy trying to talk to me on a train in Uttar Pradesh was hassling me when it turned out he actually wanted to talk about the differences between Camus and Sartre and was full of wisdom.
As Daphne du Maurier wondered, “Why [is it] that places are so much lovelier when one is alone.” Who knows? Is it the intensity? Is it that all travel leads inwards as well as outwards?
All I can say is that there are moments in my life, little Polaroids of perfection, that are forever remembered just because I experienced them on my own. Baked feta and a glass of rosé in Athens. A thali in Mahabalipuram. Waking on a bus above the clouds in Peru. Sleeping in a monastery in Ladakh. Being alone in a Jain Temple. Espresso in a square in Sicily watching the old men argue. Falling in love in New York.
Be one of those women who isn’t scared to sit in a good restaurant and order a glass of wine and precisely what you want to eat. Do you think everyone is looking at you? Why would they? They have lives, you know.
So live yours. It is a beautiful thing to travel with loved ones and a family. Solo travel does not preclude any of those experiences. It’s not a binary. It’s a choice and we can be lucky enough to do both. All I am saying, is that some times, the best thing in the world is being with company, and sometimes it is being on your own. Roll that taste of freedom around your mouth and see how it tastes.
It is the taste of pleasing yourself.
