When was the last time you were truly bored? I don’t mean sitting in a doctor’s waiting room and scrolling on your phone, or zoning out during a Zoom meeting and scrolling on your phone, or accidentally watching an extra hour of reality TV and scrolling on your phone. I mean actually having nothing to do and nowhere to be.
I don’t think I’ve had that feeling since I was a kid … until I took my first solo trip. I’ve been traveling my whole life and traveling professionally for the last decade, but I’ve somehow made it to age 35 without ever traveling alone. Sure, I’d spent a few days alone before or after my friends or family joined me on a trip, but I’d never actually had a solo trip from start to finish. Until I visited Bali.
I know, I know: A middle-aged white lady on a quest in Bali isn’t exactly novel. In fact, I was so ashamed of the trope that I felt sheepish telling anybody but my closest friends and family about it. But I had an invitation to visit one of Bali’s newest luxury hotels and no amount of embarrassment could stop me from going on a trip that ideal. So that’s how I found myself at a five-star jungle hideout, totally alone.
At first, I didn’t realize what a golden opportunity I had. But slowly, it dawned on me: I was in a time zone 13 hours ahead of my friends, family, and colleagues in New York. While everyone was asleep halfway around the world, my phone was silent and my inbox was blissfully empty.
Ask any travel writer and they’ll assure you that most reporting trips are far from relaxing. Awake at dawn and up past midnight, zooming through sites and monuments while constantly meeting new people. It’s exhilarating and unfathomably rewarding, but it can be exhausting.
And yet, my first instinct was to do as much as possible. I researched a sunrise hike up a volcano and considered taking a trip to a remote temple on the other side of the island. But then I stopped to consider that this trip was different. For the first time in my life, I was traveling without an agenda and without the weight of my travel companions’ expectations. It made me realize how often I take on the role of vibe custodian, using subtle cues to check the pulse of my travel companions, wary of exhausting them—or worse, boring them.