Traveling In The Digital Age

I don’t know if I actually read it somewhere or if it just came from my unreliable mind. Sometimes it likes to jump to its own conclusions and invents things. For centuries, women are not supposed to be seen in public without a companion or a chaperone for their reputation, security or to make them less conspicuous. Traveling alone was rare and almost unthinkable.

Even I, up until college, felt uneasy going anywhere by myself. I remember feeling this weird vulnerability just walking to the restroom alone. It’s almost funny now.

For the longest time, I liked to believe I was an old soul born decades too late because of my taste in music and my affinity for vintage fashion. But during my solo trip to Thailand, that idea dissolved. I realized how lucky I am to be alive in this era. To exist in a time when a small screen can tell me where I am, where I’m going, and what to do if I get lost.

It hit me unexpectedly that I made happy noises in a hotel room that I booked by myself, for myself in a foreign country where nobody knows me. The world I once romanticized would’ve never let me move the way I do now. It wouldn’t give me the courage to cross borders by myself. Walking alone through airports and unfamiliar streets feels almost ordinary but compared to the past, it’s actually extraordinary. The fact that I can listen to Mozart every night, on flights, on walks, anywhere is like a miracle.

Thinking about it, I’m actually born at the perfect moment. I was born early enough to have known life without the internet, to wait for a song on the radio, to flip through books… and also just in time to experience the freedom that technology offers now that I’m an adult. The timing feels almost deliberate.

Being able to step into the world alone. Trusting that I’ll be okay, and knowing I can find my way with just a little signal makes me feel incredibly lucky. I don’t want to take that for granted. I’m deeply grateful to be alive in a time that allows me to grow into this version of myself.