Solo travel, an overused hashtag on social media, is something that the internet constantly nudges you to do in your twenties and definitely something to try at least once in your lifetime. Spend some time with yourself on the road, hiking in the wilderness, swimming with the dolphins, living with remote farming communities, all to find a new and better version of you.

I am an occasional and amateur solo traveler who fantasizes about emulating the most adventurous explorers the world has ever seen, but often falls into the conformity trap of touristy travelling. While ‘The TOP 20 Solo Travelers of Any Year’ would probably mock my kindergarten solo travel experience, I definitely love to travel alone and agree that it is one of the best ways to romance life. However, like most love stories, it is not always a smooth ride and is not always as fun or life changing or introspective as it is made out to be. Most of the time, luck, bad planning, and elements of nature and society turn into villains who spare no effort to spoil the romance.

Long spells of monotony and boredom during an unending journey in a ramshackle bus or a train which was supposed to reach your destination a week ago; when on a trek through a forest in torrential rain, you see three similar winding paths through the bushes, having no idea which one to choose; when you are starving and can’t find a dhaba or a restaurant for miles or when you are served something too unpalatable for you to suffer alone; when being alone on a train or a flight gives fellow passengers an excuse for asking you to adjust and say things like ‘Please give up your comfortable lower berth and move to the crammed upper berth somewhere else so that I can spend some time with my wife whom I otherwise cannot tolerate at home’ or ‘Please give up your window seat so that my adolescent kid can see the clouds’. These are times when I curse my fate, circumstances or my unwarranted solitary wanderer attitude, that I don’t have someone to share the devilish pitfalls of travelling.

Decent hotels mostly don’t like solo travelers and backpackers. They don’t like them because they can’t make any money out of them. They know these vagabonds who haven’t washed in ages are going to make a mess of their room, will not order food from their in-house restaurant, will not book the routine sightseeing tours from their travel desk, and all they care about is the free Wi-Fi. Often when I step into a hotel with a backpack, disheveled hair and soiled clothes and ask for a room, the reception staff give me the sarcastic eyed welcome greeting with ‘Aap akele ho? Only single person?’ Then they make some mutterings of ‘It will be very difficult, let me have a look, Sir, nahi ho paega, all rooms booked’. When I push a little, in hushed tones they agree to send me into the deepest, darkest corners of the hotel, near the cleaning closet or the staff toilet. That room with cockroaches snuggling under the pillows, rats playing hide & seek in the bathroom, fans groaning with centuries of rotations, and bed sheets and blankets cleaned in the previous decade, will be ideal for this alien. Don’t forget to charge presidential suite prices for it so that he dare not enter a hotel alone again.

Entering alone through the doors of a restaurant too doesn’t elicit much enthusiasm from the staff. It is not an uncommon experience that when I enter a restaurant, the staff after exchanging looks of disdain, politely tell me ‘Sorry Sir, as you can see, half of our restaurant is empty but we can’t find a table for you.’ When I do find a table, it is generally a makeshift one in the corner near the kitchen or washroom. As waiters rush around serving exotic dishes made from last week’s leftovers and curries recycled since previous month, I sit under dim flickering lights, waiting for someone to take pity on me and take my humble order.

However, the most frustrating part of solo travel for me is when it comes to getting my own photo clicked. I am old-school so hate selfies as it distorts my average features into grotesque shapes. So I seek potential targets who can help me get that Instagram pic which will make others feel that I am living the good life and they are wasting their life at a desk. Seeking out such noble strangers is however not easy. Locals anyways dislike tourists crowding their surroundings or they simply can’t figure out why do people pay to visit that ugly monument, statue, street, seashore or mountain which they pass by every day. If and when I manage to convince any such disinterested local to take my picture, invariably I am out of focus or the background gets tilted in strange angles, or someone’s ass gets in the way. With a grudging smile I still thank my stranger for his photography skills and don’t ask him for a second shot as for him that would be equivalent to asking him to give me half his money. Seeking other tourists is the more viable option so that we can help out each other. Here too, experience has taught me to not seek families, groups or couples, as in exchange for one photo of mine, I end up doing full family or couple photo shoots with different combinations of members, postures, backgrounds, hugs and kisses.

These are just a handful of scenarios when solo travel isn’t as fun as I thought it would be. What also doesn’t help is the inability to find female solo travelers on the way with whom I can go for diving or salsa; whom I can later charm with my banal humor over a dinner of grilled fish and red wine and then hope for the best. Instead I am always sitting with myself in a corner having cheap beer observing pretty girls cuddling up to guys who I always think are not worthy. As the guys show off their gourmet taste by ordering vegetable spring rolls or pav bhaji, I sigh, look out the window and drink to the solitary wanderer’s life.