The solo trip has not been my dream from recent, it's been something I had been wanting to do for a while now. The journey went beautifully and was brilliant.
Why go solo? Why not take a few friends? Why now? Why are you risking your safety? - Some of these were very common questions asked while I was only procrastinating about the trip. To be honest none of this really influenced me, haha.
All I was thinking about during all these questions were - I want to do a solo trip before I turn 21, I want to see Kerela, I have been planning this from 2 years now, and it's time. I am independent, this journey of life I am doing by myself, if anyone dares touches me I ll break their bones and I will prepare well for my safety. With all this planning, I only landed in Chennai. (I live in Chennai, it's been my home town forever now)
I sat there the entire day in bed, chilling and relaxing! What! I was home now, and only to begin my procrastination on how I wanted to do a solo trip to my maa. After one point of continuous grumbles, my mum lost it and I got the dose for it. She said if you want to go, the tickets aren't automatically going to be booked so if you do, sit search and practicalize.
At this point, if I wouldn't have gotten up and sat to search, I probably would have experienced broomsticks, chappals, rolling sticks, and just a few slaps and some verbal abuse with a pinch of salt. This was a tiny bit over-exaggeration, my mum stopped all this when I turned 15, or let me say made it more occasional. By the way, this is very common in Indian Households, so there's nothing to complain about.
Anyway, date - June 25th, Tuesday, time - 7:30pm, half an hour into searching we left to eat dinner, what are the odds, once back home at 9pm, we sat again. "Why don't you call gudiya didi, neena didi, guddi masi, anuj", and a whole lot of other relatives, so that I can get 10,000 opinions when I plan to fly the next morning! Anyway, I managed to make a bargain with my mum and only called one person up. Gudiya didi - she's more like an elder sister cum unpaid personal advisor. She said why don't you look at homestays? That sounded like me winning a lottery online after a click in my head. That's all the advice I needed. In the next 1 hour, I booked my stay, my flight, met a friend - 'Beep - Priorities' and packed of course.
You're like wait a minute, she skipped the important part. If I want to do a solo trip, how do I book? What do I look at? This is mostly the difficult part for anyone, and I figured that out - you need to ask your self a few questions that I asked myself. Definitely a little helpful. How many days do you want to go for? What are you looking for in your stay? Comfort, Luxury, Relaxation? Mode of transportation? What are you looking for in your trip? Adventure, sightseeing, touring? Do you want to travel only to that place, or close by other places as well. Not like inside the town, I mean literally hop on to a train and go to another city -"insert the last train to Clarksville"
Once you have answered these questions, then it is easier to find something that you want. 2-3 days, comfortable stay - a good place for me to sleep basically, Flight travel - faster mode, adventure, see one place - once I had answered all these questions the next few things became easy for me. I checked for the cheapest flight for the next morning, searched online for homestays - the first thing that I came across was Zostel and it was love at first sight and then they lived happily ever after, not kidding the website looked brilliant - I looked for reviews on google ( found like 50 and all had 5 stars - like this place got me starstruck) and the benefits, ya Allah, mashallah! "Book now, 24 hours cancellation, pay on sight" perfect - so if it didn't look nice or was empty I would find myself another place after reaching! I didn't plan anything after this. I packed my bag and slept.
26th morning 4:30am - Chennai, no alarms rang, just a hit from the sleep and I woke up, I was late- my flight was at 6:30am, I washed my face and left in the local train to reach the airport. After this - the rest was all chill. No stress, no tension, no anything. I just knew I would go there and decide what to do, see the place. Didn't plan anything.
For me - I always plan things, whether the plans get executed or not is something else, but I love planning. So this was amazing to let whatever was about to happen, happen. Now let me stop talking so you can witness my journey on this small screen that I literally shot on my phone.
It was the three best days of my life, and I am glad and grateful to have experienced it. Everything was beyond perfect. What not having any expectations can do.
I am now a soul/solo traveler for life. I want to do many more cities and countries. Let's always live with courage and do things we would do if we weren't afraid.
Believe in miracles, work hard for them to happen, make your choices right and your destiny will change the way you want it to.
Why go solo? Why not take a few friends? Why now? Why are you risking your safety? - Some of these were very common questions asked while I was only procrastinating about the trip. To be honest none of this really influenced me, haha.
All I was thinking about during all these questions were - I want to do a solo trip before I turn 21, I want to see Kerela, I have been planning this from 2 years now, and it's time. I am independent, this journey of life I am doing by myself, if anyone dares touches me I ll break their bones and I will prepare well for my safety. With all this planning, I only landed in Chennai. (I live in Chennai, it's been my home town forever now)
I sat there the entire day in bed, chilling and relaxing! What! I was home now, and only to begin my procrastination on how I wanted to do a solo trip to my maa. After one point of continuous grumbles, my mum lost it and I got the dose for it. She said if you want to go, the tickets aren't automatically going to be booked so if you do, sit search and practicalize.
At this point, if I wouldn't have gotten up and sat to search, I probably would have experienced broomsticks, chappals, rolling sticks, and just a few slaps and some verbal abuse with a pinch of salt. This was a tiny bit over-exaggeration, my mum stopped all this when I turned 15, or let me say made it more occasional. By the way, this is very common in Indian Households, so there's nothing to complain about.
Anyway, date - June 25th, Tuesday, time - 7:30pm, half an hour into searching we left to eat dinner, what are the odds, once back home at 9pm, we sat again. "Why don't you call gudiya didi, neena didi, guddi masi, anuj", and a whole lot of other relatives, so that I can get 10,000 opinions when I plan to fly the next morning! Anyway, I managed to make a bargain with my mum and only called one person up. Gudiya didi - she's more like an elder sister cum unpaid personal advisor. She said why don't you look at homestays? That sounded like me winning a lottery online after a click in my head. That's all the advice I needed. In the next 1 hour, I booked my stay, my flight, met a friend - 'Beep - Priorities' and packed of course.
You're like wait a minute, she skipped the important part. If I want to do a solo trip, how do I book? What do I look at? This is mostly the difficult part for anyone, and I figured that out - you need to ask your self a few questions that I asked myself. Definitely a little helpful. How many days do you want to go for? What are you looking for in your stay? Comfort, Luxury, Relaxation? Mode of transportation? What are you looking for in your trip? Adventure, sightseeing, touring? Do you want to travel only to that place, or close by other places as well. Not like inside the town, I mean literally hop on to a train and go to another city -"insert the last train to Clarksville"
Once you have answered these questions, then it is easier to find something that you want. 2-3 days, comfortable stay - a good place for me to sleep basically, Flight travel - faster mode, adventure, see one place - once I had answered all these questions the next few things became easy for me. I checked for the cheapest flight for the next morning, searched online for homestays - the first thing that I came across was Zostel and it was love at first sight and then they lived happily ever after, not kidding the website looked brilliant - I looked for reviews on google ( found like 50 and all had 5 stars - like this place got me starstruck) and the benefits, ya Allah, mashallah! "Book now, 24 hours cancellation, pay on sight" perfect - so if it didn't look nice or was empty I would find myself another place after reaching! I didn't plan anything after this. I packed my bag and slept.
26th morning 4:30am - Chennai, no alarms rang, just a hit from the sleep and I woke up, I was late- my flight was at 6:30am, I washed my face and left in the local train to reach the airport. After this - the rest was all chill. No stress, no tension, no anything. I just knew I would go there and decide what to do, see the place. Didn't plan anything.
For me - I always plan things, whether the plans get executed or not is something else, but I love planning. So this was amazing to let whatever was about to happen, happen. Now let me stop talking so you can witness my journey on this small screen that I literally shot on my phone.
It was the three best days of my life, and I am glad and grateful to have experienced it. Everything was beyond perfect. What not having any expectations can do.
I am now a soul/solo traveler for life. I want to do many more cities and countries. Let's always live with courage and do things we would do if we weren't afraid.
Believe in miracles, work hard for them to happen, make your choices right and your destiny will change the way you want it to.
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