Solo Travel success starts long before you pack your toothbrush.
Even before you pick your travel destination.
Because it’s not about where you are going. It’s about why.
Here’s what I learned from my worldwide, solo travel adventures…
Having a sense of mission was always critical to my solo travel adventures.
At the end of the TripTik drive (remember those AAA maps, predecesor to Google Maps and GPS?) there was something I wanted. Or something I wanted when the wheels touched down on the 747 and I found myself in China, alone.
How My Solo Travel Adventures Began
Solo travel for me started as soon as I learned how to drive. I would take road trips with my camera. There would be some waterfall, or trail, or building I wanted to photograph.
For a while, in my 30’s I was doing tallest towers. I went to NYC pre-911 and took in the view from atop the 1368 ft tall Twin Towers. Once in a lifetime. Since their tragic fall, it can never be done by anyone, ever again.
The taller 1380 ft Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai took me to China. Although, technically, I went there to meet a young lady I had met online. Both very strong missions. Very strong reasons why.
“He who has a why to live for, can bear almost any how.” said the famed German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche more than 120 years ago.
He who has a why to live for, can bear almost any how.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Having a big enough reason why, empowers us to do many things we ordinarily might not.
Just think for a moment, taken to its extreme, almost every criminal will tell you why they committed their crime. To them, at the time, their mission, their reason why was worth the risk. Even the risk to lose their freedom. Maybe they needed money to eat? Maybe they were addicted to drugs, or booze, and needed money for that. We can all disagree over the morality or validity of their why, but no one can argue that it was the driving force which empowered their actions.
When our reason is strong enough, we’ll do nearly anything!
More recently, James Clear in his best-selling book “Atomic Habits” put it this way,
“With a big enough why you can overcome any how. If your motivation and desire are great enough (that is, why you are acting), you’ll take action even when it is quite difficult. Great craving can power great action- even when friction is high.”
This is an excellent book by the way, if you’re looking to change any of your habits. (procrastination, perhaps?)
President John F. Kennedy’s mission was the Moon. Why? To demonstrate to the world (mostly the USSR) our superior US technological capabilities.
Elon Musk’s mission is Mars. He revolutionized rocket technology with his why.
Why do you want to go, anywhere?
Your reason doesn’t have to make sense to anyone but you.
Here are 17 ideas, potential missions for travel:
- To collect a vial of sand, or sea shell from every beach in America. Or every famous beach.
- To Drive Route 66
- To visit the ten tallest buildings in the world
- To visit the 7 natural wonders of the world
- To visit every National Park in America
- To visit the country of your ancestors
- To make a religious pilgrimage
- To visit the ten biggest cities in the USA
- To photograph one thing in each of the 50 states
- To visit all 50 states
- To get 1 tattoo in each of the 50 states
- To meet 1 person in each of the 50 states
- To camp in all 50 states
- To learn a foreign language and visit that country
- Or, reverse it. Visit a foreign country and learn the language through immersion
- To see a famous landmark. Eiffel Tower, Taj Mahal, The Pyramids, etc
- To follow your favorite concert band
There can be as many reasons why as there are people walking the planet. It’s unique. It’s YOUR mission.
People collect the oddest of things. And we admire them for their passion.
I first discovered the wonderful richness and diversity of Pittsburg, Pa when my dad was transferred to a job in West Virginia. Pittsburgh was the half-way point from my home in Buffalo, NY. I didn’t want to drive the full 8 hours to my dad’s place in West Virginia, (the mission) so I spent the night in Pittsburgh. If I had not the reason why (visit my dad) I would have never traveled that route – and found my new favorite city!
For me, whenever I undertook bigger missions, like China, it helped me to think like a journalist. To have a higher calling, a higher purpose than just, “I want to”.
Start with a higher purpose than just, I want to.
-Elderbob
It’s a subtle mind shift, “I’m on a mission to __“, but it makes a world of difference to your motivation level.
Let your mission inspire your action. For long missions, like to visit every state. Or for just for one mission. like visit Yellowstone.
When i was younger and single, visiting the 10 tallest buildings in the world was my inspiration. It got me to travel, with purpose, a mission.
I never finished my quest though. Only 2 tallest buildings, Twin Towers and Jin Mao Tower. But I’m OK with that. My priorities changed to my family. But I did get those two because I had a mission. You can always change missions.
The important thing was, and the main point is, that having a compelling reason why, got me to travel halfway around the world, to a foreign, communist country, where I didn’t speak the language, all by myself.
And I had a great time. Seeing different cultures, different people. I got to experience being a minority for the first time in my white American life while in China!
Why You Must Travel
Travel adds so much richness to our life. New perspectives. New people. New experiences.
Imagine you lived on an island near the equator. Every morning you got up and it was hot. Terribly hot. You would sweat every day, and so would everyone around you. “This is how the world is, hot!” You might know in your brain that people live in Alaska where it’s cold. But you could never truly understand what that’s like, unless you went there.
There are so many human experiences you’re missing out on, unless you travel.
There are so many human experiences you’re missing out on, unless you travel.
-Elderbob
How could you explain what it feels like to have a snowflake land on your nose to a tropical islander? You can’t.
We live in our comfortable homes, with shops and stores, filled to capacity, just a short distance away. We drive our reliable cars everywhere. And complain there is never enough.
Meanwhile, there’s a fellow in Thailand getting by quite nicely on his minimum wage of $195 US equivalent dollars – per month!
How is this possible? Go see!
Travel lets us feel what it’s like to be one of the other billions of people living on this planet right now, with us.
Mission, a big reason why, lets us make that journey to more fully experience life.
So often we think long and hard about where we want to go, but often never get there because we failed to lay the foundation for exploration.
WHY!
1950’s radio man turned self-improvement giant, Earl Nightingale, of the Nightingale-Conant audio education empire, had this to say about why:
“The people who live the longest, are the people with something important to do.”
-Earl Nightingale
He didn’t mean “important to the world”, but important to you. Having a sense of purpose, a mission, is the driving force in our life.
That mission could be collecting baseball cards, or sand. It could be volunteering at a shelter. Or sitting on the Board at Tesla.
It could be caring for your grandchild while your children work. It could be arranging the flowers each week at your church. It could be growing prize tomatoes. Or making the finest art from driftwood.
Or it could be traveling halfway around the world, to see the greatest structures ever created by man or God.
What will your mission be?
Let me know if I can help you define one. Or see the P.S. below for ideas
“Bene Vivere!”
Bob Elderbob Schwarztrauber
P.S. Did you miss my previous 4 Part Series on the best senior solo travel destinations?
No problem. Here’s the link!
