Travel Wisdom - Travelling Alone : Reasons/Justifications

By Hamza Shafique (Instagram / Facebook)

When I sent a picture of me in front of Hagia Sophia in a family WhatsApp group, first response I got was “It's so much better when you visit with your wife " and then the second one was “Only Hamza will go to Cairo and Istanbul alone leaving his loving wife back in Ajman." Not only in my family, but in fact almost everyone asked me the same question that why I travel alone? And my response to all of them is Why Not.

There are two kind of interconnected primary reasons behind that, first one is to have vacation from being me and second is that I would like to invest my full energy into experiencing the place that has been on my bucket list for a while.

It’s not easy being me, in fact we all have many hats that we wear in our daily life , for example, I am a father, husband, son and brother, these are few titles that I carry in personal life and in professional life there are few more added. All these titles come with their set of responsibilities and expectations. It’s a must to be a responsible adult which most of us are but at times this does get overwhelming. So, if you want to refresh yourself then it becomes important to ignore everything and book yourself a trip, to take a small vacation from being you. This part may sound a bit Imitiaz Ali's " Tamasha" inspired but Ranbir Kapoor in the movie says it very rightly "After so much effort I came here, where no one knows me , I can be anyone, I can do any thing, No body cares ", now that's a feeling worth experiencing . Trust me it works and it’s a must.

Now coming to the second part, I do enjoy traveling with family & friends but when it comes to bucket list travels, I would like to have my full focus on the destination that I always wanted to visit. Best part about traveling alone is the complete freedom and agility to accommodate whatever you want. You have time/opportunity to meet new people and share different experiences as well. Just take the example of my recent trip to Istanbul, I spent only like 10 to 15 minutes in grand bazaar but if I would have gone with the ladies of my household, I guess I would have dedicated one full day there. Also everyone has different physical/mental thresholds, for example I had only 2 proper meals apart from breakfast in 3 days that I spent in Istanbul as I wanted to spend most of my time exploring the sights and food was the least priority, which is something impossible to do when traveling in a group as everyone's stomach works differently. I met a Chinese CEO, an Australian Grand Mother of 15 traveling solo for the first time, a Japanese PR personal and many more interesting people during the trip, I wouldn’t have done that If I wasn’t alone. So apart from taking vacation from oneself, it’s also recommend to travel alone if you are more into exploring the world you visiting, because if you travel with someone then you basically explore them more than the place.