In 2000, at the spring chicken age of 21, I take my first big solo trip, spending months camping in hostel backyards, on farms, or in the mountains and hills of Sweden, Norway, Ireland, and Scotland (no one shoots you dead for “trespassing” in this part of the world). In Kristianstad, Norway, after I miss the ferry to Scotland and am about to pitch my tent in a city park (uh, bad idea), a random grandma on a bus stop bench invites me back to her flat, where she gives me hot pizza, an even hotter shower, and my first real bed in weeks. Later that night I help her pick out living room curtains with her granny neighbor and listen to their stories about Nazis burning down their hometowns during the war. From that moment, I’m hooked on solo traveling and its unparalleled way of making me feel at home, and oddly close to complete strangers.
Despite it being far more dangerous and exhausting to go solo, especially as a woman, I take great pride in being almost too good at it. It’s part of my identity even, being a travel writer, climber/adrenaline junkie, and overly curious person who thrives on uncertainty. From sleeping in Walmart parking lots to adventuring with Peruvian clowns, my life is almost never boring, riding this beautiful but sometimes stressful line between Prrrrretty sure I’m not getting murdered and Goooood I love this. Being a woman is actually my advantage. We’re seen as less threatening, and therefore more trustworthy and approachable. So even though this means men bother me more, that’s fine. As a tomboy who’s worked in mostly bro-brah industries, I’ve mastered the “cool older sister” and “don’t even try to fuck with me” vibes quite well by now.
When I take off for a six-week romp around Europe in the summer of 2017, I’m now 39 and smack dab in the middle of a midlife “crisis” (epiphany). Life is more… complicated. Just days before, I find out I’ve landed a dream job teaching English in Spain that fall, meaning I’m about to leave my home country, maybe for good. What I haven’t had time to process yet is the fact I’ll now be farther away from my dad, who’s in a memory care center saying the long Alzheimer’s goodbye. Since I’ve also got chronic back pain due to my current job slingin’ ribs at a “gourmet” BBQ joint in L.A., I know I need both sleep and privacy this time around. You get neither of those when Couchsurfing on a futon in someone’s kitchen or crashing on some janky metal bunk bed in a hostel dorm with 11 wasted 20-year-olds using their outdoor voices at 5 a.m. So I go with cheap Airbnb rooms instead.
But without my usual Couchsurfing hosts, it’s way harder to find anyone willing to give up a day of their lives to hang with some random ass stranger they’ll never see again, especially when I speak toddler-level Spanish. At first, I wander around Barcelona hoping to just stumble upon an adventure like usual. But alas, nothing. So I hop on Tinder.
Luckily, I’ve been on multiple dating apps for a few years already and masterminded a near foolproof vetting system to weed out the angry man babies, freaks, and head-pusher-downers. Why not apply the same test to guys to explore Europe with? Some of my matches outright admit they’re only looking for sex (I appreciate the honesty!), but most don’t seem to expect it and even send cute gifs of bears waving hello. While it’s refreshing to not receive lazy, entitled “dtf” or even violent messages like the kind women back in the U.S.A. get regularly, it does make it harder to weed out who’s actually cool.
My first adventure is with a sweet German expat who picks me up on his scooter, drives me all over the city, buys me a smoothie, takes pics of me in front of that church they’ll never finish, then drops me off before heading to his night job. Like me, he just genuinely wanted to hang out with an interesting person. After him, though, I become overwhelmed with all these matches (foreign chick appeal?) and realize I need more time to properly vet before my next city. Cue Tinder Passport, which lets me do just that for only 20 bucks.
When I arrive at the train station in Lyon, France, my new Tinder adventure buddy, David, is already there with his backpack, an umbrella (he’d checked the weather), and a list of cool shit to do. We spend the whole day strolling around Lyon, sharing funny stories and getting along like best buds. And he speaks perfect English (rare in France!). I’m actually fond of this dude, so I let him kiss me at sunset outside the Disney princess castle looking thingy that overlooks the city. After dinner, we ask my Airbnb host if my new “friend” can stay too (David lives 45 minutes away). Sure, as long as we bring home a good bottle of wine.
David and I spend all four of my days in Lyon together, either alone or with our host, Julien, who sleeps inside a cubby hole above the kitchen, accessible only by ladder. He takes us to a local music festival one night with his friends, then another night invites us to party with them on his roof during the huge July 14 fireworks show. On my last day in France, David and I rent a car, drive to the fairytale-like Alps town of Annecy, stuff ourselves with fondue, have more great sex, and split a super cheap hotel. Honestly, I’ve never eaten better food or been eaten out so well in my life. I’m quite reluctant to get on this train back to Spain, as I’ve fallen hard for the city of Lyon and can see myself here one day.
Over the next week, David’s frequent texts and calls are actually a warm welcome to the complete isolation of being on a solo road trip in the middle of Spain where almost no one speaks Sp-English—a natural consequence of not knowing a language before you arrive in another fucking country. I drive to a legendary climbing area, El Chorro, harness and shoes in hand, but never come across anyone to rope up with. Too hot maybe. Other than waiters, I go days on end without speaking to another human being. These tiny towns are full of mostly old people and maybe too remote for anyone to bother with Tinder.
When I get to the ancient city of Cadiz, I finally get matches again, but hooking up is not at all something I’m even open to, which I make clear. I meet up with a nice enough guy for tapas, but he speaks zero English and we soon realize it sucks too much to pantomime our life stories. I have a couple more friendly Tinder adventures during my stay in Granada (they speak English!), but nothing memorable enough to mention in a travel story.
By the time I get to Valencia, I’m so over Tinder. And sightseeing. I just really just want to sleep. I guess I forgot the downside of traveling alone—never getting a break from being the boss of you, especially as a woman. You’re employed full-time as decision maker, tour guide, translator, concierge, logistician, and personal bodyguard. I do force myself to explore the old town one afternoon but when I hear myself say, “Bleh. Another stupid church,” I head home and sleep. My brain needs a break from talking to strangers and processing unfamiliar things. This includes the news I got a couple of days ago from my stepmom—my dad’s in the emergency room with some crazy toe infection.
My granny Airbnb host watches TV all day in the den with the shutters closed and only emerges from her cave to tell me in Spanish how wonderful The Lord Christ Our Savior is. So I hide in my room, watch Netflix on my phone, and try my best not to think about my dad.
But too much alone time with your thoughts can be dangerous, so by the time I show up in Lisbon, I’m recharged and desperate to have a deep-ish conversation with anyone who doesn’t also hope to stick anything inside me afterward. I book an Airbnb run by three “students, surfers, bbq-addicts” who speak perfect English. I don’t even care that I’m over a decade older than them or that their reviews say things like “these boys are wild,” the place is “not so clean.”
I show up to a BBQ party full of travelers, locals, and a dopey dog with ears and balls so big they nearly drag on the ground. People are drinking and eating outside or taking bong hits in the living room, which has couches made out of pallets, a wall built from empty beer bottles, and stolen crosswalk sign decor. I immediately latch on to a group of cool girls—Dutch, Italian, and Brazilian—who take me under their wing for the night. I haven’t connected with women in my own language in weeks. Dancing and gibble gobbling like turkeys until 5 a.m. with girls is like finally breathing emergency oxygen on a shaky flight that seems destined to crash into the Pacific. And now I have someone other than myself looking out for my safety. When I finally get home at sunrise, I read a message from my stepmom—my dad’s toe might need to be amputated.
The next day I try to distract myself by touring this gorgeous city with trolleys all day and then at night joining my host and new buddies for a techno festival just outside of Lisbon. My host, wearing his usual halfway buttoned up Hawaiian shirt and flip flops, consumes four people’s worth of molly, weed, and beers within the first hour, so I stick with the girls and try to use dancing to escape thoughts about my dad and this crippling back pain that gets worse whenever I stand still.
On our long walk to the parking lot at 2 a.m., I get a text about my dad being in a hysterical psychosis-like state now, peeing himself and yelling about being attacked by his former boss. The stress of it all is just too much and my body can’t hold it in. I run into the bushes, dig a hole, and unload like someone with a bad case of food poisoning. The Dutch girl pats my back afterward and gets us an Uber, making sure it drops me off first because of course she does. Women always look out for me in a way straight men typically don’t.
God, I missed women. They are always my North Star.
I come home to my frat house full of crusty plates, Kibbles and Bits, and cigarette butts scattered about, and people I’d never met sleeping in the other closet-sized bedrooms. All night long I crawl back and forth between the one bathroom and my twin bed made from pallets.
The next morning I nearly miss my bus north due to a shady cab driver trying to run out the meter, Google Maps sucking ass, and the usual hiccups of travel I’d normally shrug off with laughter but today am in no mood for. When I finally arrive by foot where my Airbnb’s supposed to be and find an empty lot, I throw off my bag, stomp it like an old-timey winemaker with grapes, then curl up on top of it, bawling like a little girl who’s scared her dad’s gonna die. Anticipatory grief is a real bitch. Especially when all you really need is a moment of stability and a safe place to process it.
But I pull myself together, find the Airbnb, and show up with a happy stick up my ass, armed with jokes so I can quickly make some friends here, enjoy this “dream trip,” and forget about Alzheimer’s. My Airbnb in Porto was advertised as a chill place for solo travelers, but when I arrive, I’m the only one booked. So I wander around this stupidly romantic city for hours then finally return a call from Frenchie David, my only real buddy in Europe.
This city is just too amazing to spend sitting in my room, worrying about my dad, so fuck it. There’s always Tinder! A nice cello player takes me to a dark pub with a very Pirates of the Caribbean feel to it and talks endlessly about Breaking Bad. Even though I’d made it clear at the outset that hooking up wasn’t on the table tonight, he’s sitting way too close and even inches towards me each time I scoot my chair back. After a couple of hours, I realize I’m not even listening to this guy and tell him I gotta go. “Early flight to Madrid!”
Feeling guilty (codependent) for leaving early, I over explain why it is I’m so fucking tired. How I’d just found out today that my dad might have kidney failure and is in the ICU now. Oh, and his hands are also restrained because he’d punched a nurse and tried choking another one. “My dad’s never been a violent man, but Alzheimer’s does fucked-up things to people.” Once I start talking, I can’t stop myself, unloading all this crap on him like someone looking for therapists in all the wrong places.
“Jesus! That’s a lot,” he says like a real buddy. “Can I give you a hug?”
Ew.
I actually do need a hug! But not from this close-sitter whose motives I now question. And yet… I let him do it anyway because I place men’s needs above my own when I’m overtired. Maybe he’s not hoping I need to fuck this sadness away Monster’s Ball style and is really just trying to be a good person. But that’s the problem with meeting people through Tinder. The sexual question mark over each experience means you have to assume that yeah, dude is still hoping to bone.
I have two days in Madrid before my flight back to L.A. yet zero interest in exploring this place. Before booking an Airbnb I remember that a buddy from NYC lives here now. Bill and his husband, who’s one of the most famous flamenco dancers in Spain (!!!) give me multiple bear hugs, put me up in their sparkling clean spare bedroom with top sheets (finally!), feed me pizza, and nurture me the way that Norwegian grandma had. We stay up late watching a Michael Jackson documentary, chatting with ease like people do when they haven’t just met on Tinder or Couchsurfing. I can finally fucking relax. They need or want nothing from me, which is exactly what I need and want. I guess I can be a tough chick who travels the world alone finding comfort in the unfamiliar and also a vulnerable human being who needs TV, pizza, and hugs from someone who actually fucking knows me.
The day I fly home, my dad gets transferred from the ICU back to the memory care center, toe intact.
I eventually moved to my dream city of Lyon (after David and I broke up) and am even speaking French now (not great, but still!). As much as I loved being rootless and stubbornly independent in my twenties and thirties, always seeking out the unknown through bonkers adventures, I’m fucking tired, y’all. And I deeply crave consistency, intimacy, and the familiar. I’ll never stop taking solo trips, but I quite enjoy traveling with a partner now too, like my French husband.
Who I met on fucking Tinder.
