I am currently trying to psych myself up to travel solo.
We used to travel a lot as a family back when we homeschooled, but now that my not-yet-an-adult kid is in public high school, we’re stuck adhering to the academic calendar, and since he’s not old enough (chronologically or developmentally) to be left alone overnight and we have no family or close friends nearby, this means that my spouse and I don’t get to travel as a couple, either. This doesn’t stop my spouse from traveling on his own, both for work and for pleasure—he has guy friends, who apparently have much more freedom to travel than my women friends, many of whom are these guy friends’ wives, which is a dynamic that would be perfect to talk about on a friends’ trip, if my friends could get the time away from family responsibilities to participate in a friends’ trip. And this is why we can’t shake the patriarchy.
At any rate, all of this staying in one place while my spouse gallivants is starting to piss me off, so I’m trying to get myself to travel on my own. Trouble is, after nearly 20 years of traveling with my kids, I don’t have a clear idea how to plan travel for just me.
Planning travel for just myself is challenging because there are so few limitations. I don’t have to think about other people’s sleep schedules or eating preferences or tolerance for museums and book shops or interest in hiking more than 5 miles in a day. This would, on the surface, appear to be freedom, but I have much more difficulty planning things without other people’s needs and wants to plan around.
I’ve tried several times to make lists of places I’d like to visit and things I like to do and start from there, but I keep thinking of places I’d really like to save to visit with my spouse and/or kids. And after so many years of intentionally enjoying the dregs of time I get in between what everyone else wants/needs to do, I have a really tough time thinking of things that I want to do. (And after so many years accidentally cultivating a 1950s-style home life, I also worry that if I go out of town, it won’t be relaxing time away because my spouse will just need to contact me to handle everything kid-related, like figuring out how to contact the school or knowing who our kids’ doctor is or what activities our kid has scheduled (even though they’re on the calendar). He suggested that before I left, I could just make him a list. Of everything about our son. He clearly doesn’t watch the same Instagram Reels as I do or he’d know that the only way he should suggest that I make a list is if it’s a joke.)
In many ways, it would be easier just to scrap the idea of traveling by myself, but I am determined to make this solo travel thing happen.
I do have a couple of leads on what to plan. A couple of weeks ago my spouse went on a guy trip and met up with one guy friend who suggested that my solo trip should be to visit his wife at their house while she’s still working full-time and taking care of their kids. I might have trouble figuring out what I want my solo trip to look like, but I know it’s not that. Give that woman a week away, and then we’ll talk.
At the base of all of this is the realization that planning solo travel wouldn’t be so challenging if I hadn’t let so many flaws and unhelpful patterns creep into how our home life is set up. Planning a getaway is less fun knowing that it involves facing those things.
December, with its many concerts and family engagements (and my spouse’s travel, which I need to plan around), gives me lots of excuses to procrastinate planning solo travel, so it is a great time to read new books and to reflect on what I read in November!
November Completed Books:
My favorites from this bunch:
- Life Without Children by Roddy Doyle
- Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
- The Book of George by Kate Greathead
- The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker
- Dinner for Vampires by Bethany Joy Lenz
- City of Bones by Martha Wells
Currently Reading:
- Devils Kill Devils by Johnny Compton
- Forgotten Sisters by Cynthia Pelayo
To-Read for December:
In addition to my StoryGraph, you can see my Litsy profile for status updates throughout the month and my Instagram (@ImperfectHappiness) for mostly not-book-related photos.
Imperfect Happiness 