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| Sometimes just need to be alone and breath |
Jamie Bradley, a 25-year-old advertising manager, quit her job
to travel the world for a year.
After just six weeks, she returned home having realized how
lonely it gets while traveling without a companion.
Bradley also learned how hard it is to connect with others while
traveling and the annoyance of having to constantly plan your day.
When Jamie Bradley quit her full-time job to travel
the world alone, she expected a life-changing experience,
similar to "Eat Pray Love." She expected, at least, to have exciting
adventures in beautiful places like the ones she's seen in the pictures that
crowd her Instagram feed from fellow world travelers.
Instead, she experienced what very little people talk about when
they travel alone:
The constant loneliness that can often ruin the entire trip.
Bradley, a 25-year-old advertising manager in New York,
was confronted with this reality after she quit her job and decided to travel
around the world for a year back in 2017. But after just six weeks, she
returned home.
It started when Bradley began to feel unfulfilled at her ad
sales job and decided to consider other options.
"The thought of searching for
another job, one where I would have no friends, no established leadership, and
a lower salary, it all sounded too daunting to know where to begin,"
Bradley said. "That fear, coupled with being very fortunate to have saved
a lot of money while working, helped me make the decision to travel the world
instead of jumping right back into the job market."
This wouldn't be Bradley's first time traveling alone, though.
Bradley did it briefly after college and fell in love with South East Asia.
This time, however, she planned to travel for much longer — at
least a year — and decided to start in Africa on a wildlife reservation.
This time she also planned to move out of her apartment in New
York and get rid of almost everything she owned. In a few short weeks, she condensed her entire life into a backpack.
"I was euphoric the entire time. I
relished in the opportunity to tell people what I was doing — the look on their
faces, the sheer jealousy and wonderment they had was reason enough to
go," she said. "I felt brave and strong and indestructible."
But Bradley said she could remember her attitude shift during
her 20-hour flight to Africa.
"I remember being on the plane halfway to Africa and a huge
wave of loneliness washed over me," she said. "It seemingly came out
of nowhere but it sat in my chest like a weight and wouldn’t let up."
When she landed in Cape Town, the time
difference only added to her unusual feeling, leaving her "lethargic and a
little depressed."
"I was so shocked by these
feelings, and I remember shaming myself for feeling so negatively,"
Bradley said. "Where was that euphoria I had been feeling for weeks?"
Almost instantly Bradley said she knew
this trip wasn't going to be picturesque Instagram posts or anything she
thought it would be.
"I would say that even before I got
off the plane, I realized it was a much more complicated decision than I had
initially realized," she said. "I saw how immediately lonely it could
get. While I was meeting new people and experiencing a new culture every
second, there was also nothing and no one familiar around me."
Aware that these feelings might be culture shock and lack of
adjustment, Bradley said she journaled a lot to make sense of her feelings and
even turned to books "to satisfy my churning mind and fill my time.
At one point, she even flew from Africa
to Europe in a last minute decision to meet up with friends and avoid the
loneliness. Though that did help, the feelings crept back in when her friends
left and she arrived in Budapest, alone.
"There were times that I wouldn’t
speak to a person for multiple days at a time," Bradley said. "It was
partly my fault since I was isolating from the Hostel culture, but I was tired
of having the same conversations over and over about where I was from, what
places we travel to, and us all secretly competing with one another about who
is the more worldly and adventurous."
Bradley mentioned it was difficult to
connect with people who were only passing through countries, allowing her to
only form temporary connections. This left her, she said, feeling even more
isolated.
Bradley also struggled with the daunting task of having to
plan something new and exciting every day.
"I was very upset, extremely lonely, and I felt a wave of
depression take hold on me so deeply that I spent five days in Budapest and
spent four of them inside my Airbnb, knitting," Bradley said. "I
found it exhausting having to figure out something to do every second and find
a new place to see — figure out where it is, how to get there and then once
you’re there, look at it and leave, all without sharing the experience with
anyone."
It was then that Bradley made the decision
to return home for her mental health — just six weeks into her trip.
"One of the worst parts of the
decision was the shame I felt," Bradley said. "I felt ashamed of
myself for not being able to last. For not doing what I initially set out to
do. I was embarrassed by all of the fuss I had made over me leaving. I felt
pathetic, like a failure."
When she finally returned to New York
and slowly acclimated herself back into work life, Bradley felt like herself
again. Even though she didn't achieve what she initially set out to do, Bradley
said she wouldn't call her trip a mistake.
"It gave me the strength to leave my job and jolted me into
a new stage of my life where I’m unafraid of excessive responsibility and long
term commitment."
But she learned that happiness comes
from challenging yourself and stepping outside your comfort zone.
"All of my life I have been so
concerned with living an extraordinary life, and I thought I had to do that by
myself," Bradley said. "This trip taught me that it’s OK to need
other people. It’s brave and powerful to hold yourself accountable to other
people and allow yourself to be vulnerable with them."
Although her solo journey through Africa
and Europe wasn't exactly how she planned, she said it was all worth it in the
end.
"I would never change going on this
trip for the world," she said.
This woman traveled alone and said it was one of the worst decisions of her life was first published here
