If I ever do go on that cross-country road trip, I have a feeling it’ll be alone. For me, the call of the distant horizon is a lonely one. Loneliness isn’t always a bad thing though. You can learn a lot about yourself when you’re alone. You can also learn and appreciate many things about a place when there isn’t someone you know to distract you. Wandering around a cathedral freely and praying quietly in an empty pew brings a strong feeling of quiet and peaceful intimacy.
There is a good feeling in knowing that you are self sufficient enough to travel far off and unfamiliar places by yourself. I didn’t really think of it that way at the time, but going to Ireland alone was a bit of proving ground. Not just to others, but to myself as well. I proved that I not only knew how to travel and deal with various challenging situations, but could implement that knowledge successfully. In getting lost, you can find yourself. But of course, the goal of successful traveling is to not get lost.
I don’t know that I could travel for very long with just anyone. It seems that travelling with another person would either require a strong bond or would force one to develop. After all, being able to depend on them implicitly would be important. When you are alone, you know your own strengths and weaknesses. When something goes wrong, you know exactly where to place the blame. You can’t turn to the person next to you and blame them for a mistake. If you took someone along, your team would theoretically be stronger than a single person. However, you don’t know them as well as you know yourself. When something inevitably went wrong, who could help but blame it on the other person? Unless you knew them and the situation well enough to recognize that it was either nobody’s fault or it was your own. That’s where the grace of friendship would come in; the ability to simply forgive and move on.
That’s one thing about adventure and travelling that is always true. Something will go wrong at some point. There’s not any way to tell what it’s going to be or when it will happen. It just does. Of course, you can limit extremity and number of incidences by being well prepared and planned out. One needs to know where they are going (destination), how they are getting there (route), and what they are taking (supplies and gear). However, planning should never be done in too much detail or too strictly; otherwise there is no room for true adventure or flexibility.
Companionship is the tricky part. Do you want to take someone with you? Or should you just go it alone? In the event you decide to take a companion, you must be careful to choose the right person. Obviously, you aren’t going to just drive down the street and pick up the first person you see.
Choosing from amongst your close friends or family is probably the best place to start. Then you must consider what personality you want to travel with. If you are a calm laid back person, you probably don’t want someone who is completely energized and hyper all the time. At the same time, you don’t want someone too quiet, unless you enjoy extended awkward silences. You probably want someone of moderate energy who provides interesting conversation and has similar interests to yourself. Some of my favorite memories are of strolling around Killarney just soaking up my surroundings; the mountains in the distance, the interesting little book shops, the live musicians on the main street, the interesting people (native or foreign). Not everyone would enjoy that as much as I did. My brother probably would’ve been itching to hike the Gap of Dunloe in record time.
By travelling in Ireland alone, I discovered certain resilience within myself. Perhaps it was just determination. But I did much more than stroll down the main streets of small towns. I walked back and forth all over central Dublin searching out the sights and discovering many I hadn’t read about. In Cork, I jogged uphill with a 40 or 50 pound backpack to catch the train to Killarney even though moments before I was taking note of the burning in my legs. While in Killarney, I walked the 3 or 4 mile round trip to Ross Castle on Lough Leane at least twice, refusing to hire the horse-drawn carriages. Not to mention the 10 miles I rode around Muckross Lake, skirting the mountains on a bicycle and reveling in their fog-shrouded glory. The beauty and sheer awesomeness of each place more than made up for all the effort and expense required to get there. I learned that if I wanted to see something bad enough, my legs could carry me there.
The other side of the coin is to know your limits. While it is generally true that with enough determination and good directions that you can get to your destination, there are other aspects involved. You must know when to rest and let your body restore itself. You also have to provide it with good food and plenty of water. You can’t hike the Gap of Dunloe or do much of anything if you haven’t rested properly the night before, eaten plenty of protein, and drank plenty of water. It is much more difficult to appreciate your surroundings if your body is completely exhausted and your mind can’t focus.
However, something tells me that despite all these advantages, having a good travelling companion could make it even better. If I do decide to go on a road trip for my next great adventure, it would probably be nice to have someone to fill all those empty hours on the road. I remember driving through Oklahoma with my brother once and trying to find something on the radio. He’d set it to seek and it would just keep cycling through all the frequencies, not picking up a single station. After this happened a few times, we both started laughing.
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