The Guide for the solo traveler backpacking Europe

• Budget hours for people watching. Pass your time doing it in a restaurant, do it at free breakfast in the hostel, do it mid break in an art museum and do it to pass the awkward time between late afternoon and early evening. Observe the tourists, try spotting the locals. Realize they're all tourists and begin to wonder where the real residents actually go. 

• Engage in conversation with those in your hostel room. Realize they may only speak three words of English. Breathe a sigh of relief given the conversation turns into one with just you. And really, every solo traveler needs some time to talk.

• Head to a bookstore and scan the collection. Notice that all their "new" international books mean new back in 2005. Ask for the Hunger Games. Laugh a little when they ask if you're looking for the one in English. Um duh, what other language does it look like you're planning on reading? Opt for a sappy Nicholas Sparks novel when told Hunger Games is out of order. 

• Never rely on Italian tourist information spots. They, without fail, will be closed.

• Realize your converter doesn't fit into the smaller than normal electrical socket holes. Accept that your iPhone won't charge (no free wifi for you!) and that your hair straightener won't work. Decide to sneak using one of your roommates when she leaves the room. See sparks fly when you plug in your straightener. Go for the camp- style, braided pigtails. Disregard the strange looks you will receive while wandering the streets. 

• Realize mid-wander that your hostel map leaves out the majority of streets.  Refer to the five-page map out of the hundred pages of info in your chunky Europe, student travel book. 

• Welcome the extensive wait to enter museums. See it, rather, as a pleasant way to pass time. 

• Pretend Euros are fake money and stop trying to save. Take yourself to a sit down restaurant, lunch and dinner. Stop thinking others are staring at you. They probably are and for a split second, are wondering why a young one like you sits alone. Feign confidence and ambivalence. Open your book and read. 

• Smile as you watch tourists video recording the surroundings. Think back to the times your father once did the same, recording each family holiday you took... back in the 90s.  Smile even more as you notice the few using an iPad as a camera. Which, like, has yet to make it to the socially acceptable list.  

• Glance over and realize the man at the end of the bench sits alone. Look around and notice that out of the many, others too wander by themselves. Like you, they too travel alone. Accept that it gets lonely, experiencing Europe by yourself. But take comfort that others around you are doing just the same. And then pinch yourself, a reminder that you’re having these thoughts while sitting in Europe, while living the college student dream.

• Turn back and carry on. Europe awaits your adventure, and you, alone or not, are here to seize it.

Unless, you travel alone

Florence. April 22, 9:30 pm.

They've seated me at a table for four, opposite an empty chair and directly next to a young couple. He tops her glass of red wine as he speaks to her gently, a trace of a British accent amid the deepness of his voice. I feel their gaze, as they turn to stare at me, aware that my presence adds an unwelcome touch to their romantic date night out.

A year and a half ago, I believed I wanted to travel to see- to see the reality of what I knew in a photo, to soak in culture and life away from my own.

But you pass through as a traveler, merely taking bites of the newness around you. And no matter the length of your travels, you remain an observer, if you understand the culture or language. An onlooker, if you don't.

It’s taken me a year and a half, but I finally understand that the purpose of traveling isn’t just seeing; the observations are not the limit to the experience. Rather, they form the basis to expand from, one to share with another as a way of creating that personal connection.

Unless you travel alone. Because alone, you observe without the ability to share. Alone, you experience a new, with no partner to remind you of the old. Alone, you loose yourself deep in your thoughts as you travel in the company of the fire swirl of your mind.

Alone, you travel to think. You pick up on thoughts you many not have known you had, thoughts you may not understand, but thoughts, by the end of it all, that finally, will make sense.

I left Australia, last summer, after a period of deep self- reflection. I came out of it sure of where I wanted my career to take me and more aware of what I wanted out of future relationships. And so I left last summer, convinced that would be the end of that.

But our self-discoveries never end; we constantly change. It forces us to get in touch with ourselves-- to understand what the change means and how it effects our sense of being. It’s this way that we make the most of our lives, our relationships and our choices that have the potential of shaping the happiness we know and the fulfillment we seek.

I’m on day three of solo travel. I’ve sort of grown used to going to dinner alone, seated at a table for one. I bring my book, and when not reading, I observe those around me. I miss sharing these experiences with another, yet, in some ways, I’m grateful that my time alone has given me a sense of understanding that it’s not seeing I seek out of travel. When alone, thinking consumes. But when together, experiencing in the form of sharing takes shape. And it’s safe to say, that experiencing together is my favorite of all.