Travels

I think it’s safe to say that traveling is more or less appealing to everyone - and best believe that I am no exception. This past week I traveled solo to two of my favorite cities, Boston and New York. It was a very impromptu trip as in I bought all my flights the day before I left (all for under 450 bucks, say yay.) I feel like sometimes I get a strong urge to change my environment. While I enjoy doing that with people I also love the idea of doing it alone. Whether it’s going to the mall or choosing to stay in, sometimes I just love being by myself. In those moments I have the liberty to spend my time exactly the way I want. So I wanted to share my three biggest takeaways from this trip. Unfortunately, It started a little rough. I think that the story I am about to tell you all is so stupid I will probably tell my future kids about it too. Basically, there are two airports that are near my house, and I live in the middle of both of them. SFO is 30 minutes north and SJC is 30 minutes south. My flight to Boston was from SJC at 10 pm. I would like to emphasize that I do not recall a single time I have flown from SJC because the one up north is so much bigger. With this in mind, I didn’t think to check my boarding pass and blindly called the uber to SFO at 8:30 ish. I walk into the airport at around 9:15 still having no clue about the mistake I just made. I go to scan my boarding pass and it says “Wrong Airport.” What. I ran to the United Airlines center panicking asking to get on the next flight out. The only available flight for the night was at 9:45 pm (it is now 9:25). She tells me to run and I ran faster than I ever had before. When I get to the gate it is completely empty, and I am like internally freaking out. Somehow I made that flight with absolutely no second to spare, but I would say that everything was okay after that. So number 1: Things don’t always go as you intended but they work out even better. This new flight got me there earlier without any stops and a much better seat. The view from my hotel in Boston was so pretty that I honestly spent a lot of my time just staring outside. I spent the majority of my first day by myself. Because BC is so detached from parts of the city I never felt like I had seen enough of Boston (but I changed that this time!). I roamed around new parts and met people that I otherwise wouldn’t have ever met. And even though I was alone it felt like I was around really comfortable company the whole time. Although I had spent the remainder of the trip with people, I knew that it was because I genuinely wanted to see them and nothing else. Number 2: You get to learn more about a place and yourself when you’re forced to process it alone. Especially when it is at your leisure. While I hadn’t considered it before going to Boston showed me how pretty of a place it is to live. Then there was New York. If I hadn’t shouted it loud enough already, I will definitely live there one day. Preferably sooner the better because I adore it. I know many people over fantasize about NYC being this perfect city, and even though it isn’t there is still so much to love about it. I hadn’t been there in so long and it made me second guess why I wanted to live there in the first place. I think that NYC is just so much more exciting than any other city I have ever been in. There is always something going on and everything is so accessible. It’s also such a young city as most people there are early in their careers which I think is cool. Even though it’s brutal walking around everywhere I loved it! The key is to pretend to know where you’re going and always look straight ahead. I remember venturing out to find a smoothie with no idea where I was going, but because I looked like I did no one bothered me. Something as simple as getting that smoothie by myself gave me so much serotonin, so I don’t know maybe more solo trips are in my future. Number 3: A trip alone shows you how much you’re capable of which is often a lot more than you think. Truthfully, I was a little scared that I’d feel unsafe in the city, but forcing myself to do it made it easier. While I can’t tell you what to do I strongly recommend taking a solo trip of yours. Just remember to check your boarding pass before you leave for the airport okay? :)

- With Love, Fiza Usmam