Answer by Srinivas Kulkarni:

Before I answer this question, one movie, a travel documentary that I’d reccommend everyone to watch is A Map for Saturday! Will be one of the best movies you’d have watched if the travel bug has bitten you.

Also I recommend Riding Solo To the Top of the World by Gaurav Jani & Dirt Track Productions. These two movies will put things into perspective 🙂

Now here’s my answer:

“To traverse beyond the limitations of my mind, I travel to look upon the journey within myself.”

This is one of the reasons I travel! Rather one major reason why I started travelling.  Most of  the times I travel alone. I’ve been an avid traveler for a while now and a majority of times I take off on an impromptu and on the spur of the moment trips going off wandering into the wilderness all alone. One of the reasons why I chose to travel alone a lot of times is that you get a lot of time to introspect. Introspect about many things in life. A lot of times you feel that you have within yourself a great amount of potential at a lot of things that you can achieve be it in professional or personal life. But a clutter of mindful journey that you take day in and day out with the people that you are around kind of restricts you sometimes in your way of thinking. A lot of times Traveling solo is more about the journey being experienced from a perspective of a focus that you won’t get otherwise.

Many times people say that traveling solo helps you discover yourself much better than when you would travel with your partner, friends or family or with a group of new people whom you have just met. While that gives a lot of opportunity to ensure that trip doesn’t become mundane or boring as you have company, it also pulls you down on your own journey. Depending on what all of you prefer or what certain peoples capacities are it may become difficult for the traveler who wants to explore certain things otherwise.

More often than none these are the benefits and this how I feel while I travel solo.

1. Feel liberated in terms of freedom, freedom from a lot of aspects of life that we go through when we live a mundane 9-5 kind of life.
2. Feel happy to have the flexibility to generally interact, talk meet and learn from various travelers on the road.
3. Since I get a lot of time to basically be on my own, it gives me a lot of time to catch up on my reading, watching movies on my phone, sometimes to write as well.
4. A lot of times it is good to travel alone as I don’t have to worry about managing things for others and if need be just hitchhike whenever needed. Stay at cheap places, even sleep in waiting rooms on railway benches, underneath the stars on the beach. Lots of flexibility that ways.
5. It gives me great opportunity to vary my schedule if need be. Altering schedules can be painfully tricky if there is a fixed plan to travel then things become more convenient.

But most of all traveling solo has taught me to overcome a lot of fears in life, metaphorically as well as practically. If you don’t know a direction in life, and you are one of em solo travelers you’ll always find your way… That’s my belief. Eventually enriching the way I live my life and of course grow as I broaden my horizon in life…

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