Rollerbag Goddess Global Communications

Last night, I read article after article by solo female travelers who have recently traveled to Saudi Arabia. As the country only recently opened up to leisure tourism–in 2019–there are a lot of unknowns. I’ve seen the looks in people’s wide eyes when I say I’m going there and to other parts of the Middle East, and I’ve heard their reservations. I’ve had long conversations with several people about this upcoming trip, the cultural nuances I need to keep in mind, and how I plan to navigate these uncertainties. Last night, their reservations about my journey drilled into my brain and the fears started to slowly seep in. My default coping mechanism is always to overprepare, so I dove down into the wormhole of solo female travel blogs and articles from trusted travel sources.

Nothing about this is new. It is, in fact, a part of my travel preparation. I’m often terrified before and during my travel experiences. I’m terrified to fly, or I used to be, most often based in a fear of mechanical malfunction or weather-related problems rather than human interference. I’m a terrified car passenger–something tested to the limits in many places in the world where drivers take unnecessary risks on the road. I’m nervous walking with someone behind me, particularly men. My anxiety spikes whenever I’m separated from my luggage or passport. I get nervous when an ATM swallows my cash card, or when my plastic money doesn’t work for some reason–a common occurrence. And though I might look calm externally, I’m often riddled with angst over whether I’m going the right direction on public transport, or whether I’ll miss my stop. I’m well aware of the risks of travel in this world, and should I ever deign to forget, well-meaning people (let’s assume they are) are quick to remind me.

But let’s be honest, I’m no safer here in the states. There are natural disasters and the dangers of wildlife to consider; I recently saw a Mojave viper while on a local hike, and on another occasion a rattlesnake reared up, rattling and hissing at us on a morning walk. Tucson has its own particular risks; it’s known for swarms of bees, dangerous heat, sand storms and drought. In the Midwest where I used to live, you can freeze to death on a walk home, fall through the ice on a lake, or perish in a boating accident. Though I know people who’ve been victims of petty theft abroad, the only time I’ve had my purse or anything stolen (purse, wallet, camera, phone, passport all in one night; and mail from my mailbox, including a large check) happened here in the U.S. I hear gunshots outside my home every night here in Arizona, including two drive-by shootings within 100 feet of our bedroom window. My neighbor carries a handgun and an automatic weapon to pick up his morning coffee, and I’ve seen him pointing the gun angrily, pantomiming an exchange with the ether, his shape backlit by street lights. On a quiet Saturday downtown, a man retrieving his car keys from his pants pocket accidentally fired the weapon he carried just feet from us, as well as the woman and child with him. My husband’s workplace had a deadly shooting within the past two years. A member of my family has been held at gunpoint twice. A gang of girls threatened to beat me up when I was in high school, and I have a relative who was so badly beaten by strangers he almost lost an eye. I saw a man pull a knife on an elderly man on the New York subway, it happened right in front of me, so close I could have touched them. Drivers are so aggressive here in Arizona, it’s a nightmare. After dark, cars drag race on the main road near us; the roadside is filled with crosses and makeshift tributes to those who have died on this thoroughfare; there are four roadside memorials within a mile of our house. Beneath all of this is an uneasy undercurrent of knowledge that I have enormous privilege as a white person, because I never had to fear being shot and killed with a subsequent cover-up because of the color of my skin. As a woman, I face other particular risks at home and away, and of these I am also well aware.

Yes, there are risks in the world. But shame on anyone who dares to tell me I shouldn’t travel because of the risks. It’s risky being American.

I am afraid of many things. I’m probably afraid of more things than the average person. But the thing that scares me most is giving these fears power and as a result, living a hollow life.

What I always come back to is this. Travel is actually one of the few things that restores my faith in humankind. And it does that every single time I leave home.

Why do we assume people will treat us terribly when we travel their countries, anyway? Why do we assume kindness and respect and coexistence are the exceptions outside our borders, rather than the rules? Particularly when we’ve never been to these places! Is it because travelers from these countries would encounter such treatment if they were to visit our country? Doesn’t that say more about us than them? Assuming the worst you’ve read in the news about any country will happen to me, is no different than reading today’s terrible news headlines in America and assuming they will happen to any foreigner who comes to the U.S.

When you venture out into the world you find that people are people. There are good people, and there are bad people, and there are people who must make unfathomable choices in order to survive. Everywhere. You learn quickly that countries are not nearly as scary as we’re often made to believe. You see that people are living their lives with their hopes and dreams and hungers, just like we are. When I’ve traveled, I’ve been humbled by the ability of the people I meet to separate me from the decisions made by politicians in my country, and I strive to recognize in return that citizens are not their governments. People who do not have sufficient food or financial security have opened their homes to me, prepared the best meal they could, toasted my health and offered unimaginably warm hospitality. A tuk-tuk driver who told me he had one meal a day during the height of the pandemic brought me fresh fruit from his yard and medicine when I fell ill. Some hosts have given me their beds and opted for less comfortable places to sleep so that I might have the best they can offer. Strangers and guides have helped me find my way when I’ve been lost, which has happened nearly everywhere I’ve traveled in my life.

Sure, hard things happen and bad things happen. That’s life. The inherent messiness of being human will find you, even if you never leave home. Were I to meet an untimely end, I sure as hell hope it’s doing something extraordinary that my heart called me to do in this life, leaping into the mesmerizing madness of this world, rather than staring at screens and simply rigor mortis-ing in the cubicle or on the couch at home.

I often wonder if I’m crazy to travel as I do. Especially when my grey matter is chewing on those pervasive, leathery doubts. But I know in my soul this planet is an ocean of love, fresh and salty and beautifully brackish. I know this because when I arrive on new shores and dip my toes in, a stunning transformation happens. Trepidation becomes joy. Strangers become companions. Trust sprouts and grows. Empathy blooms. The winding vines of universality begin to weave between us, tethering our hearts to one another. We aren’t supposed to hate and fear one another, not for the differing languages we speak or the opposing things we believe or for our nation’s polarizing politics or for the colors of our skins. And the more we travel, the more we meet the “stranger” on the road, the less justifiable it becomes to perceive someone as the other. What we formerly feared, we can then befriend.

Life is a total freefall, my friends. And we have a choice in the matter: we can freefall into our fears, or fall into the open arms of the world.

As for me, I choose the world.

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