interview by Prime Sarmiento
 
  I have read several memoirs written by solo female travelers, but one thing that stands out for me is that, too often, women go traveling on their own to recover from failed relationships. This bothered me a bit, why does it seem like a woman can’t travel on their own unless some loser broke her heart?  
I discussed this matter with Cara Lopez Lee, solo female traveler and author of a newly-published travel memoir. For Cara, traveling on her own allowed her to heal from failed relationships, discover herself and find “profound beauty, as satisfying and healing as my greatest moments of love and joy.”
 
Q: I don't want to generalize but I noticed that several of travel memoirs penned by women focus on how traveling solo helped in getting over a bad relationship. My question is, how can solo travel help in a woman's healing process?
 
A: Before my trip, I felt incomplete without a romantic relationship. Not getting married by 35 seemed to verify the negative judgments laid on me in the past by others: "You're weird," "You talk too much," "You have to be right about everything.” But on my solo trek around the world, my only consistent partner was me, so that was the only person whose opinion I had to live with.
Fellow travelers sometimes shared my path, but we simply joined as long as it was comfortable and separated when it wasn't, without worrying that it meant something about us. As I relaxed into a life that held no obligations to conform, I noticed that the people attracted into my sphere were only those who were OK with me as I was.
 
  The challenges of solo travel taught me self-sufficiency, which increased my self-esteem. Traveling the world also gave me a greater sense of how many people six billion really are.
The truth this suggested had never been clearer: not everyone I meet will love me, but there’s no shortage of love out there. The more I traveled, the more my attitude shifted, until love was no longer something I searched for, but the place I came from.
 
Q: What is it about traveling solo that helps a woman get over a major heartbreak?
A:  Because traveling takes us among people we may never see again, we often feel freer to be ourselves, or to explore facets of ourselves we didn’t know existed.
In the past, I often tried to twist myself into whatever shape a man wanted me to be. Since I was the only common denominator in my failed relationships, I assumed the failures were mine. It didn't occur to me that the only thing I was doing wrong was holding on. If I had to become someone else to hold onto a relationship, it wouldn’t be me who kept the relationship, but an impostor.
 
  While traveling, I discovered that, although being myself didn’t always yield the results I wanted, I felt much better about myself, and the results. As I say in my memoir, “The purpose of my life is not to get what I want. The purpose of my life is to become who I am.”
Traveling helped me discover who I am, and that person is strong. If I could survive a three-week trek in the Himalayas without a guide, then surely I could survive a broken heart. In one chapter of my book, I wrote about a praying mantis that shared my bungalow in Ao Nang, Thailand. I asked a German guy if he knew whether it might bite me. He replied, “…I don’t think so. They only eat their husbands.” I asked myself what she would think if she knew how much time I’d wasted trying to catch one. This “single female with no regrets” gave me something to think about: no, not cannibalism, but detachment.
 
Q: But isn't it lonely to travel on your own? (Or, do you even feel lonely while traveling?) How do you cope with the loneliness? How do you distinguish between "loneliness" and "aloneness?"
 
A: I didn’t intend to travel solo, but I couldn’t find anyone to share my dream of a trek around the world. It's not easy to find people without serious obligations: careers, spouses, lovers, children, mortgages, dogs, cats. I decided not to “let my solitary state dictate the pursuit of my dreams.”
Was I lonely? At times. But as I ask in my memoir, “Why do we value one emotion over another? On this journey, in my deepest moments of loneliness and sorrow I’ve found profound beauty, as satisfying and healing as my greatest moments of love and joy.”
Often the difference between aloneness and loneliness is simply a difference in desire. When I want to connect with others and can’t, I feel lonely, whether I'm alone or not. When I want to connect with myself, solitude is an opportunity for contemplation, learning, and growth. On the days I traveled alone, I sought activities that taught me about culture, history, or myself.
 
  Sometimes I simply paid closer attention to things like patterns in the ocean, the colors of flowers, the sounds of a city. During downtime, I journaled or read books. I find it easier to meet people when traveling alone, both because people assume I might be up for company and because I’m more likely to seek company.
In Cuenca, Spain, an elderly gentleman took me to see some natural craters in the forest. One was named the Torca de La Novia, after a young woman who threw herself into the crater to escape an arranged marriage. I wouldn’t have learned the story if I hadn’t met that old man, and I might not have met him if I hadn’t been traveling alone.
 
Q: Is there such a thing as love (or perhaps lust?) on the road? What's your take on this? What's your advice to women who think they found "The ONE' while traveling?
 
A:  On my world trek, I met three men who tempted me – with inklings of love and bodice-ripper fantasies of lust. I didn't act on those impulses, and those guys didn't make the final edit of my memoir.
 
  In both the book and my travels, they were distractions: my book already had plenty of steamy romance in the story of my life in Alaska, and my travels were a personal journey of self. So I set romance aside – though not completely. There was sex during my travels, but it would be a spoiler to explain.
Suffice to say, I made myself a rule while overseas: no travel romances. I’ll admit my travel romance rule was based on a mistake I made during my initial drive from Anchorage to LA. On the Pacific coast, I ran into the same nice guy at several hostels. If I’d made a checklist for the perfect guy, he would have fit. Tops on the list: not an alcoholic. We kayaked, hiked among giant redwoods, and made spaghetti together. We kept in touch via email, and I said it would be fun to travel overseas with him. I didn't expect him to take me up on it!
 
  Still, I was scared to go alone, and I thought I could fall in love with him, so "why not?" I’ll tell you why not: when we met again, at my father’s house in LA, I realized I felt nothing for this guy, just a puzzled “what was that all about?” I’d mistaken my excitement over travel with excitement over him. I told him I couldn't travel with him after all. He was very understanding. It’s fortunate I barely even kissed him. I’ve met women who thought they found “The One” while traveling. Usually, after the trip, those relationships dwindled to nothing.
 
  But I understand the temptation, so to women who can’t resist, I can only suggest: use a condom. If you can resist, you’ll probably be glad you did. My memories of the two guys I never even kissed are sweet and unspoiled by disillusion.
 
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Cara Lopez Lee is the author of “They Only Eat Their Husbands: A Memoir of Alaskan Love, World Travel, and the Power of Running Away,” published by Ghost Road Press. She blogs on her experiences as a solo female traveler at Girls Trek Too.