Pico Iyer on solo travel

It took a recent trip with a friend for me to realize how accustomed I am to solo travel. Don’t get me wrong—traveling with her was a refreshing change with its own perks: a nicer hotel, guaranteed conversation over dinner. But it also struck me that I had less time to journal, I felt as though I stood out that much more, and we had the inevitable need to negotiate which places to visit.

Pico Iyer muses on the subject in “Open to the Road,” an article in Outside’s Go magazine (Feb/Mar 08).

Sure, he’s been known to travel with a friend who has the exact qualities he appreciates in a traveler:

“He can single out the most attractive person in any room and befriend her within seconds; he is never shy about making a fool of himself; and he carries calamity around with him like a security blanket.”

But he also talks about a chance meeting on a bus with a woman who had some interesting life stories to tell—when each of them was traveling alone. He wonders whether a rich, serendipitous moment like that would have happened if a companion had been with him. Chances are that it took an extra-long pause in conversation, an open expression, or an available seat beside him to set the foundation for that moment.

He writes about the sense of possibility and surprise in solo travel:

“When I travel alone, I find myself having one-on-one encounters with people and places that leave my heart shaking and my sense of direction turned around.”

“The real point of travel for me is to journey toward possibility. And you can do this only by leaving behind everything you know.”

And as a side-note: look out for Pico’s upcoming book “The Open Road,” a portrait of the Dalai Lama, which comes out in March. I have to say, I’m curious—since he and his family have known the Dalai Lama for three decades, his perspective should lend some interesting insights.