No One Is Coming

There’s a point in solo travel where you start talking to yourself.

Not in a concerning way. Not “arguing with a parking meter in public” territory. Nothing that requires intervention from local authorities.

I mean the low-level running commentary that creeps in after enough time alone.

“Well, this seems like a terrible decision.”

“We are absolutely not climbing that hill.”

“Excellent work. Lost again.”

And eventually, somewhere along the line, “we” quietly becomes “I.”

That’s when things get interesting.

Because for most people, life is one long negotiation with other humans. Partners. Friends. Family. WhatsApp groups full of people saying “we should definitely do something” before vanishing into a fog of scheduling conflicts, childcare, work stress, and vague emotional fatigue.

Trips are the worst for it.

There’s always someone who can’t get the time off. Someone saving for a kitchen extension. Someone who says they’re “totally up for it” before immediately remembering they’ve got a cousin’s engagement party in eighteen months they can’t possibly miss.

And so the trip gets delayed.

Then delayed again.

Then quietly downgraded from “absolutely happening” to one of those conversations that only resurfaces after two glasses of wine and absolutely no real commitment.

“We should go to Italy sometime.”

Yes. You should.

But statistically speaking, you’re more likely to die in the same postcode you currently live in while watching Netflix and discussing air fryer recipes.

That’s the brutal truth nobody likes admitting.

No one is coming.

Not your flaky friend who takes four business days to reply to “shall we book flights?” Not the mythical future version of your life where everyone magically has money, free time, functioning knees, and identical holiday priorities.

That version does not exist.

Meanwhile, time just keeps moving.

That’s the part that sneaks up on you. One minute you’re thirty saying things like “we’ll definitely do South America one year,” and the next thing you know you’re researching anti-inflammatory insoles and making involuntary noises every time you stand up too quickly.

And the whole time, the list grows.

Places you nearly went. Things you nearly did. Experiences trapped forever in the planning stage.

That word comes up constantly in the messages I get.

Nearly.

“I nearly booked a solo trip after my divorce.”

“I nearly did the Camino.”

“I nearly went to Greece on my own last year.”

Nearly is a horrible word. It sounds harmless, but it’s full of tiny abandoned versions of your life.

Eventually, though, you get sick of your own bullshit and book the thing.

That’s how I ended up on the Camino de Santiago, voluntarily walking across Spain like some kind of medieval pilgrim with worse footwear and significantly more complaining.

Now, people love romanticising the Camino. They picture soulful sunsets, meaningful conversations, personal growth, all wrapped up in some cinematic European glow.

What they don’t mention enough is the sweating.

The endless, biblical sweating.

At one point, I was walking across the meseta in forty-degree heat under a sun so aggressive it felt personal. The landscape looked like the surface of Mars if Mars had occasional sheep shit and tired Germans in zip-off trousers.

Hours of walking. Nothing moving except heat.

This is where solo travel gets weird.

Because eventually, after enough silence and dehydration, your brain starts trying to entertain itself.

I became fully convinced little gnomes were popping out of bushes beside the path.

Not terrifying gnomes. Cheerful little bastards. Darting around in the corners of my vision like woodland crackheads.

At one stage, I’m fairly certain I had an entire conversation with a pile of poop.

Not a metaphorical pile of poop. An actual pile of poop sitting in the middle of the trail.

I remember stopping, staring at it in the heat haze, and thinking, “You and me both, mate.”

And somehow, this felt completely reasonable at the time.

That’s the thing nobody tells you about travelling alone. Eventually, your internal dialogue becomes so active you start treating yourself like a mildly unstable travelling companion.

“Well this is new.”

“We’ve lost the plot entirely now.”

“Honestly, talking to shit on a stick path in Spain feels like a low point.”

And then, weirdly, you start laughing.

Proper laughing. The kind where there’s no audience, no performance, no one else to reassure or impress. Just you losing your mind slightly in rural Spain under a murderous sun.

And it’s brilliant.

Because once there’s nobody else around to validate the experience, everything becomes more honest. The highs are yours. The disasters are yours. The weird little moments become funnier because there’s no one there helping you narrate them into something sensible.

You stop trying to optimise the experience.

You stop asking whether you’re “doing it right.”

You stop waiting for someone else to arrive and make the moment complete.

And somewhere in all that walking, sweating, hallucinating, and arguing with inanimate objects, you realise something important.

You’re actually fine.

More than fine.

You can get lost. You can make mistakes. You can end up in situations that would sound deeply concerning if explained out of context.

And the world keeps turning.

That’s the real freedom in travelling alone.

Not bravery. Not empowerment. Honestly, most of the time empowerment looks a lot like carrying damp laundry through a foreign town while eating crisps for dinner because you missed the supermarket closing time.

The freedom is simpler than that.

You stop waiting.

That’s it.

You stop waiting for friends to commit. For timing to improve. For life to become perfectly organised before you allow yourself to live it.

Because eventually the truth becomes impossible to ignore.

No one is coming.

And once you finally accept that, it stops feeling sad.

It feels like the beginning of something.