To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.
—FREYA STARK
GROWING UP, I wanted to be an archeologist. My grandmother would give me books on unexplained phenomenon—the kind that talked about ancient aliens, Atlantis, and psychic encounters. Along with a steady diet of Indiana Jones movies, those books helped me craft an image of myself on wild adventures around the world. From my comfy, middle-class life, I dreamed about discovering something new and living the interesting life I read about or saw on TV.
Now, in 2006, on my first adventure in a foreign land without a tour guide or a friend to help shoulder the burden of navigating an unknown country, I was scared shitless. No amount of research and planning could quiet the world’s oldest traveling companion, fear.
Almost immediately upon arrival in Prague, fear began to whisper worries into my ear. Entering the busy arrivals area of Prague’s international terminal, I looked around and saw signs in a language I didn’t understand. This time there was no one to greet me. No driver to pick me up who already knew where I was headed. It was just me, and I had to figure out how the hell I was going to get to my hostel.
It was a simple enough task, but now that it was more than just a plan, fear arrived to resow the doubt of my friends and family into my fertile and frightened imagination. How was I going to do this alone?
“Where’s the bus stop to town?” I asked at the exchange counter while exchanging dollars for Czech Koruna.
“It’s outside to the right. Just follow the sign for the bus. There’s a picture,” the attendant said, as if I had asked the dumbest question in the history of the world.
Exiting the arrivals hall, I turned right and found my way to a bus stop. This had to be it, I thought. Why else would people be standing here with their luggage? I pulled out my guide and reread the instructions on how to get into Prague until a bus finally came. I got in line. I told the driver where I wanted to go. He said something in Czech. Was that a question? Did he understand me? Unsure of what to do, I simply handed him the biggest note I had. He looked at me, gave me change, and waved me to the back of the bus.
“Train station, right?” I asked a little slower, in the way all Americans do when they are confronted by someone who doesn’t speak English. As if, just by slowing down and enunciating the same words that were foreign to his ear, he would magically understand me.
He simply looked at me and waved me back again.
I took a seat near him, hoping being in his view would remind him I was a confused tourist, and he’d tell me when my stop arrived.
The last passengers boarded and the bus rumbled to life and set off. As we rolled through the countryside, I tuned out the chatter of the passengers and the roar of the bus and stared out the window, watching the countryside unfold in front of me. Outside were rolling green hills dotted with farms as little medieval towns and their church spires peaked up on the horizon. It was a rural, ancient land steeped in history. The sky was blue and the few white clouds scattered about made everything seem like a painting. This was the Europe I had imagined in my mind so many times.
I stared wide eyed and unblinking at this new and exotic place. This was it. I was here. I smiled and took an obscene amount of photos.
Slowly the countryside gave way to suburbs, which gave way to a bustling city center. As the bus stopped, the driver turned and pointed to a large building across the street.
“Train station. Metro,” he said in heavily accented English.
From Prague’s main station, I followed the directions I had printed out from the hostel’s website. I took the subway to my stop, exited the metro and, for the first time, I took in Prague.
When the bus came into town, I was so worried about getting off at the right stop, I didn’t really notice the city. I had imagined Prague as a city of beautiful cobblestone streets, medieval architecture, and ancient buildings. There would be tiny little squares and bustling cafés with waiters gliding among the tables serving wine to trendy Europeans.
But when I took in the scene outside the metro, my bubble burst. In front of me was a communist architect’s wet dream. There were large ugly, grey rectangular apartment buildings with no outside décor except for the graffiti that now covered them. They were carbon copies of each other. There was a large ugly radio tower in front of me, the roads were paved with concrete not cobblestone, and there was trash everywhere.
As I searched for my hostel, the streets narrowed, graffiti proliferated, and the run-down buildings made me wonder who, if anyone, lived there. Fear crept back into my mind. Would I get mugged? Would drug addicts appear in doorways? Was this area going to be safe at night?
Eventually, I snaked through enough alleyways and turned enough corners to find my hostel in a small, dilapidated building with a nondescript sign hanging out front. Inside, there were a few computer terminals in the entranceway and a chatty Australian behind a desk.
I checked in and walked up an endless flight of creaky stairs. I had imagined European hostels as dirty, old, and cramped places with tiny showers covered in mold that looked as if they were last cleaned by the hippie backpackers who first founded the place. I wasn’t far off.
My room smelled like the inside of a sneaker that someone only wore barefoot. In the summer. I cracked open a window to let in some air. The room was a square with six beds. Two bunk beds on one side and one (mine) on the other.
There were no lockers so I dropped my bag on the floor. As I sat on my lumpy bed, I smiled, and tried to put the shabbiness of the room into perspective.
I was here.
I made it.
AS AN INTROVERT, talking to strangers makes me nervous. I’d think of all the ways they might judge me and convince myself that, if we did talk, I’d stumble and stammer and wouldn’t have anything interesting to say. Of course, I’d made friends on my previous travels before. But even then I was faking it. Deep down I was still the shy kid who could never fathom walking into a bar and walking out with a whole new group of friends. From time to time, I’d find ways to overcome my shyness—and then, when I least expected it, it would come crashing back.
My first night in the hostel was one of those nights. After a couple slices of pizza by myself at a place next door—I didn’t know Czech food and day was turning to night by the time I checked in—I headed downstairs to the bar in hopes of meeting people.
As minutes passed like hours, I sat there alone watching the bar fill up with people interacting, laughing, smiling, and enjoying themselves. Too awkward to say anything, I used my jetlag as a self-justifying excuse for why I couldn’t talk to anyone and went to bed early, hoping the next day would be a little better.
The next morning I wandered around Prague and found that my first impression was way off. Prague was a beautiful city. The city center had been wonderfully preserved. Like the location of many hostels in big international cities, it was just my neighborhood that was a rundown shithole.
I wandered Letenské sady, the gigantic park with an outdoor beer garden, where I stared out across the city from a lookout as couples posed for photos and an art student drew the skyline. I meandered through the nearby Královská zahrada, where the noise of the city fell away as the nearby St. Vitus Cathedral rose above the trees, and all that could be heard were the whispers of travelers talking about the park’s beauty.
I crossed Charles Bridge, famous for the baroque statues of saints and heroes that line the sides. I later found out that all of the statues are replicas, and that the centuries-old originals had been placed in a museum for safekeeping. But at the time, I was just awed by the centuries of history on display. This was the city of Kafka and Kundera. Swept up in the excitement of it all, I made the mistake of paying one of the many artists on the bridge for some paintings of Prague, only to realize that I’d have to leave them behind in Europe: carrying them for a year was impractical, I didn’t know anyone who could hold them for me, and mailing them home was more expensive than my budget could bear.
When you first start traveling solo, there’s a sense of excitement about being alone. Unhindered by other people, you’re the hero of your own story. You fantasize about all the people you’ll meet and situations you’ll get into as strangers take you under their wing and wonder with curiosity and excitement about your trip. There’s no one to get in your way, no one to compromise with or negotiate with. There will be friends when you want them, but also solitude when you need it—a chance to unplug from other people and take time to think about what matters.
Just like well-laid plans, it’s a romantic, reassuring idea that helps you get on the road but falls apart once it runs into real life. Few things push a person so completely and unceremoniously out of their comfort zone like solo travel. When you are with a tour group or friends, you can rely on someone else to do all the heavy lifting. Someone else can make the plans, talk to people, find the train station, navigate, keep track of money, or tend to you when you are sick. When you’re solo, you have to do it all. You only have you. You have to figure out how to talk to people if you want to make friends. You have to figure out how to get to the airport, or your hostel, or how to find the right bus, or a good doctor. You have to figure out who is trustworthy or who is going to scam you. It’s all on you—and that forces you to learn about people and places in a way you simply don’t when you travel with others. Traveling solo, you learn who you are and what you are capable of. You learn how to be comfortable with only your own thoughts for companionship. In this sense, solo travel is a wonderful teacher, because it teaches self-reliance.
And that self-reliance is valuable even when you return from your travels. Self-reliant people know better than anyone what they can contribute to the world, what kind of life they want to lead, what kind of people they want in that life. Self-reliant people know that their confidence doesn’t depend on the judgments of others. They know that they can make it anywhere—that they can be plopped down in the middle of nowhere and still figure it out. They know that they can face down their fear and anxiety. When I think of the self-reliance I learned on the road, I think of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous words on the same topic. “Trust thyself:” he wrote, “every heart vibrates to that iron string.… Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.” It’s one thing to sense that those words have truth to them—it’s another to try, as I tried, to live by them.
But, on the other hand, as richly rewarding as traveling alone can be, it has its costs and its downsides, as well. As you wander, eat, and sit in bars alone, you come to realize that traveling with no one but yourself for company can be its own kind of trial. Eventually the thrill of solitude wears off. Your mouth becomes dry from lack of use, and you forget how to have a good conversation. You turn to share experiences with someone only to realize there is no one there. Your aloneness has become loneliness.
Wanting human contact, I went back to the hostel bar on my second night in Prague hoping I’d work up the courage to say something to someone.
The bar was dimly lit, with well-worn tables and sticky floors. On the walls were names and sayings from travelers long since departed. They had all come here looking for adventure. I wondered if they found it.
Like the night before, the bar filled up with travelers chatting together, talking like they were old friends, and I sat there in silence trying to find the right time and group to walk over to and say “Hey, mind if I join you?”
Fortunately, someone did the work for me.
“Hey! Want to join us?” said the short girl at the table next to me.
“Sure,” I answered trying to hide my enthusiasm at the offer.
I moved over to their table. There were four of them and, when I sat down, they asked me the typical backpacker questions—where are you from? When did you get here? How long are you traveling for? Where are you going to next?
Boston. Today. About a year. Milan.
From the looks of us, the five of us could not have been more different. The girl who invited me over was a short, brown-haired, brown-eyed American girl who’d just come over from an under-the-table waitressing job in Greece after scaring away her traveling partner by peeing in their tent every time she got really drunk. Next to her was a tall, blond, thin-faced guy from Melbourne, Australia. Next to me was a bearded, bushy-haired, flannel-wearing chef from Oregon who, if he told me his name was L.L. Bean, I would have believed him. And then there was the quiet Canadian guy trying to travel for as long as he could make his money last. (One thing you learn with time is that every group you meet in a hostel has at least one Canadian.)
As we talked more, though, we discovered that we all shared a similar backstory. We were young, underemployed, and spending our summer in Europe seeing the sights, taking in the culture, and getting drunk before we went home and got real jobs. The only real difference between us was that they were all more experienced at hostel life than I was. I’d already encountered a few on my travels, but to that point I’d preferred cheap hotels and (even better) free lodging on friends’ couches. But this—the crowded bar, the creaky stairs, the shared bathroom and musty bedroom with bunks—was the real hostel experience. Staying in uncomfortable places like this is a central part of the backpacking experience.
Centuries ago, young European nobles would take a Grand Tour through the Continent before settling down to their adult responsibilities back home. Now, with travel cheaper and more democratized thanks in large part to an international network of hostels, I looked around and realized we were all on our own modern, stripped down version of the Grand Tour.
Easy conversation and cheap beer spun the rest of our night into a blur. Stumbling upstairs much, much later in the evening, I entered my shared room, dizzy and triumphant. I’d done it. I had made friends. Everything was going to be all right. I was sure of it now.
A HOSTEL WITH FIFTY-CENT BEER, a crowd of twentysomethings, and precious little privacy means that a good night’s sleep is never guaranteed. I entered my room to the sound of moans from a neighboring bunk. Was that…? Yes, yes it was. I could sense movement on the bottom bunk, and made sure to clear my throat and shuffle my feet to announce my presence. But that didn’t stop them. All I could do was put my pillow over my head and wait to pass out. Fortunately, the fifty-cent beer did its work, and in a few minutes I fell into a quick, drunk sleep, oblivious to whatever was happening in the other bunk.
Around dawn, as light began to shine through the thin curtains, the Kiwi girl staying in the bed across from me burst into the room with two guys. They clearly had a very wild night on the town. In epic disregard for others, they ripped the curtain down, letting the morning light pour in and waking everyone up.
“Shut up!” shouted the guy in the bottom bunk. He was American. I had seen him in the hostel but only briefly said hello to him. There was someone else still in his bed.
With lightning speed, the two guys turned around and asked if the girl in his bed was a dude.
The guy in bed quickly got out and, towering over the others, began to escalate the argument. “That was fucking rude,” he said pushing one of the guys as the girl ran out of the room crying.
“Hey man! I’m just saying she didn’t look too hot,” one of the drunk guys said.
“Dude, I am going to clock you if you don’t apologize.”
The other drunk guy snickered.
“It’s all good, mate,” slurred the interloper.
“It’s not fucking all good,” Mr. America said stepping closer to him. “Apologize.”
As a fight seemed imminent, the Kiwi girl stepped in.
“What he said was rude, but let’s all calm down. We’re super drunk. Let’s just sleep,” she said dragging her friend away from the red-faced American and into her bed.
The American grabbed his towel and walked out of the room. “Fucking assholes.”
The other drunk guy, seemingly unsure what to do, went up into the empty bunk and passed out.
“Just relax. I have a flight in a few hours. Let’s get some sleep,” she said to her new bedmate.
As I tried to fall back asleep, I heard a noise from the bunk. Passing out as two people go at it in the next bunk under cover of darkness is one thing—but now I was trying to sleep as the Kiwi girl and her new friend started fooling around in full daylight, and I soon realized it was hopeless for me.
As the moaning grew louder, I knew there was no going back to sleep. I grabbed my towel and went to take a shower.
Fucking assholes was right.
By hostel standards, it wasn’t an especially crazy night. I’m sure our hostel’s owners and staff have had to break up dozens of drunken fights over the years, and launder more than their share of defiled bedsheets. And I’m sure hostel owners all over Prague, and all over Europe, could share similar stories. It’s not that their establishments attract an especially rough crowd—it’s that traveling without strings attached turns hostels into reflections of that unbounded freedom.
A hostel like mine in Prague is full of young people experiencing freedom from obligations and responsibilities for the first time. Of course they’re liable to get a little carried away with the excitement. When a bunch of kids want to get their ya-ya’s out, a hostel is where they put them. But more to the point, it’s the transitory nature of nomadic life that makes hostels the occasionally out-of-control places they can become. You don’t rip curtains open and wake up a room full of sleeping people if you have to deal with them the next day, and the day after that. You don’t have sex while your roommate is trying to sleep in the next bed if you’re going to be roommates for more than a night.
The promise that we’re going to interact with the people in our lives day after day keeps us civil—we don’t break the rules today, even if we want to, because we know we’re going to have to deal with the consequences tomorrow. But on the road, there’s no guarantee you’ll see that person tomorrow (or ever again), so the only thing keeping you civil is whatever self-restraint you happen to internalize. I love the freedom of travel, but I also realize that, while it can bring out the best in us—our sense of adventurousness, curiosity, and creativity—it can also sometimes bring out the worst.
Despite all that, I still came to love hostel life. That transitory quality helped me feel like a new me every time I checked into a new place. No one knew who I was until I stepped into that common room or bar. I could always fake it until I made it. I could be anyone I wanted to be—and so could everyone else. I could be a party guy on Monday, an introvert on Tuesday, a stoner on Wednesday, a loudmouth on Thursday, a jokester on Friday. I could cultivate any one of these selves on any given day.
The trick is learning how to value hostels for what they are—cheap lodging, a ready supply of new friends for the road, and a ready supply of fresh chances—without getting sucked into the same pattern of drinking, hooking up, and passing out night after night. That’s just another kind of routine—and I went on the road to get away from routines.
And if I screwed up—if I made a joke that didn’t land, or found myself alone at a table while everyone else hit it off—tomorrow was always a new day with a new set of people. Every day was a fresh start, a second chance to be that kind of ideal self—confident, secure, inwardly happy—I always wanted to be.
Of course, travel doesn’t let you escape your past. Your demons will always find some space in the bottom of your backpack. But travel does give you multiple fresh starts to deal with them, multiple ways of experimenting with the new self you want to become.
EXCEPT FOR A BRIEF MEETING with my new Australian surfer friend a few years later, I never saw those travelers from Prague again.
Yet, for a moment, we were the best of friends. They gave me hope that I would be all right. Sitting at the hostel, I fretted about being able to make friends. I was scared to talk to people. Yet here I was two days later, hugging people who were just recently strangers, feeling like I was leaving my best friends behind.
All those fears I had when I landed in Prague—the worries about being lost, not making friends, and ending up alone—melted away as I got on the plane to Italy. The seeds of doubt that my insecurities, family, and friends had planted in my mind had proved false, or at the very least remained dormant.
I felt like I aged a million years in Prague. I came to the city with equal parts delusions of grandeur and fear that my parents and coworkers would be right, but we were both wrong.
It turns out that everyone else in the hostel is just someone trying to see some of the world and find a friend along the way. They hold the same fears and seek the same joys as you. They, too, are looking for someone to say, “Hey, want to join us?”
Hostel life forces you to confront the years of conditioning so many of us have endured about what we “need” from our lives: fineries, nicer stuff, better shoes, bigger TVs. Hostels can teach us just how little we need to be really happy.
When you’re in a hostel in the middle of nowhere, and you’re sitting on a couch that can barely hold itself together, and you’re drinking cheap wine, and only really picking up every other word of a conversation—when you do all that and you’re happy!—you realize how much artifice and nonsense gets accumulated in your brain.
You begin to realize that everything is going to be all right. That the world isn’t the scary place people told you it would be and that danger doesn’t lurk around every corner. That there are wonderful people out these. People with the same wants as you.
And that some of them are going to have a profound impact on your life—whether you’re ready for it or not.