By Miranda Waters

In December a family friend of mine and I began planning a trip to Hubli, Karnataka, India to stay with some friends of hers in May. I ordered my visa, a requirement to enter India as an American, about a month before our departure and it arrived within a week.  

May came along and I stuffed my backpack, sorted my travel documents, and hopped on a plane for the first leg of a three-day journey. Eleven hours later, my travel companion and I landed in Paris, France where we were supposed to catch our flight to Mumbai, Maharastra, India, stay the night, and catch our final flight to Hubli. But there in the Paris airport, the trip took a turn for the worst.

While standing in line for our flight to Mumbai, security started checking passports and visas. When the agent came around to me, I got that gut feeling that something was going to be wrong with my paperwork, and unfortunately, my gut was right. He pulled me off to the side to inform me that there was not one, but two typos in my passport number on my visa. 

He told me that had there been one typo on my visa he could maybe let me go through, but two were unacceptable as the police in Mumbai were very strict. Him and the gate assistant were very kind in their efforts to try and help me, but it became clear that I was not going to make it to India this summer. After hours of trying to contact the visa company, find a place to stay for the night, track down check luggage, get our money back on hotel reservations and flights, and book new flights, my travel partner and I became exhausted and left the airport to rest and try and think of a plan. 

To me the solution was clear as soon as I left the airport; I didn’t have time to get a new visa, make it to India, and then make it back to the United States in time for my sister’s graduation. But Paris is by no means a crumby place to be stuck. A ten-day Parisian vacation before heading back did not sound like a bad time at all! I took the money I saved for India and put it towards Paris to try and make the best of a not-so-great situation and thanks to my wonderful mom, got my return flight switched to leave out of Paris. 

My travel partner was (understandably) tired and just wanted to get back home to Los Angeles after all the running around we did, so she took a flight home the following day. And that is how I ended up on my first solo backpacking trip, stuck in Paris! I learned two crucial things from this trip:

1. When you are backpacking, you have to take advantage of a situation.

When traveling on a budget, you have to know how to roll with the punches and make the best of a bad situation. Things go wrong all the time when you travel and it is in the spirit of backpacking to be able to just go with the flow and work with what is presented to you – also sometimes you don’t have the time or the money to fix your situation the way you might want to, like in our case. I had a good cry over the fact that I was not going to make it to India on this trip, but then I pulled myself together and started thinking about all the amazing things I get to do while I’m in Paris. 

I had been to Paris before on my previous European backpacking trip, but it was towards the end of my four months traveling so I was very broke and very tired. This time proved to be the perfect opportunity for me to take in the city with fresh eyes and do all the things I didn’t get to last time.

I took day trips out of Paris to go see Le Mont-Saint Michel and to Giverny to see Claude Monet’s house where he curated the garden that served as his muse for his Impressionism era. I saw Moulin Rouge in Montmarte and I even managed to get cheap tickets to see Taylor Swift open the Eras Tour in Europe! It was nice to slow down and really enjoy the beautiful weather and the beautiful city (they cleaned it up significantly for the Olympics) and see areas of Paris I didn’t even know existed last time I was there.

2. Solo backpacking gets lonely.

 The second thing I learned was how to enjoy my own company. I’ve always had a strong spirit of independence and this past year I have even focused on taking moments to slow down and take time to be with myself. But this trip I experienced something new.

After two overwhelming days of trying to get all the travel details sorted and make sure my travel partner got home safe, I enjoyed relaxing and not having to talk to anyone for a couple of days. Then day five rolled around and loneliness hit me like a ton of bricks. There were just so many families and couples on their summer vacation who I’d see walking through the park, and it would make me sad that I didn’t have anyone to share these great moments with or anyone to talk to about the amazing concert, beautiful flowers, or extraordinary painting I had seen. 

It helped me to write in my journal and have a conversation with the paper. I must’ve driven my mother crazy calling her twice a day just to tell her about any exciting updates. By days six and seven I had learned to cope with the feeling and I stayed so busy that I didn’t have much time to think about being alone. 

By that point in the trip I had also regained what I call my “travel confidence” and had mustered up the courage to talk to a couple of Australian girls in my hostel who provided great company and conversation for the next couple of days. I also would just spark conversation with my waiter or someone who was working at a shop I was in. Even if it was just to clarify how to pronounce something in French, it satisfied my itch for conversation. I went on a couple free walking tours too to meet other people and it gave me an opportunity to talk to guides who love history as much as I do. 

Even with my regained “travel confidence” and my tricks to find conversation it was still difficult to make those first steps. I am someone who is far more outgoing when I am with my friends; they’re my safety blanket when I’m in public but traveling solo forces you out without that protection and there is so much value to that and I feel that I have deepened my “travel confidence,” and my day-to-day confidence, even more.  

Solo traveling is bitter-sweet. I get to work on my own schedule and timeline, but I don’t get to share my experiences with anyone. It builds character and allows you to learn so much about yourself. My family always said you don’t truly know somebody until you travel with them, and I have found that to be true even when you are your travel companion. It is difficult, but it gets easier. The reality is that there are so many more places that I want to visit and likely a lot of my trips I will be on my own. So, thank you Paris, for giving me a surprising and eventful — but oh so beautiful and rewarding — first solo backpacking trip.