Traveling By Yourself Isn’t As Hard As You Think

When I was younger, I would’ve thought traveling alone was a “loner” thing to do. (Heck, just read my old article when I tried to defend myself.)

But now I know better.

Now, I’m used to traveling alone. For example, I just got back from a month-long solo trip to three of my favorite places: New York City, Toronto, and Montreal — I even noticed that quite a few people I talked to admired and even envied how I could go solo and enjoy myself. But the truth is I was never really alone: I benefited from the generosity, kindness, and curiosities of random strangers.

So here’s my ode to them. Like the crazy nerd I am, I noted all the interactions I had (with people who weren’t paid to talk to me), what I we talked about or what I learned, and just how easy it is to have the time of your life while traveling.

Good luck.

Friday, June 6

• On the bridge-thing that connects the gate to the plane. A young woman, originally from Shanghai, who was moving to New York to go to film school. She was fascinated that I could speak Chinese and, actually, found it very strange that a stranger was talking to her. “Well, I can stop talking to you, if you’d like,” I said with a smile, but what she really meant was that she typically didn’t do that type of thing. Oh well. We kept talking.

Saturday, June 7

• Heading to New York. I stood on the platform of Lyons Station in New Jersey and talked to two girls (I think of Indian descent) about New York, New Jersey, and what it was like to live there. One of the two actually spent time in Los Angeles, and really enjoyed her time there. Then I asked about Jersey girls.
• In Manhattan. I sat on a bench next to the famous Flatiron Building when two black women joined me. They were both holding a fan with the New York Rangers logo on it (the Rangers were giving them away by Madison Square Garden) so I asked if they were fans. They proceeded to give me an inch-by-inch breakdown of New York City that beat every Frommer’s Guide ever. Damn. They were also from The Bronx and I made a comment about their accent: “I like the way your say ‘very.’ [They pronounced it like “VEH-ree.”]” They laughed. “It makes it sounds like what you’re about to say is VEHry important.”
• That night, I sat on the NJ Transit train back to Basking Ridge and started talking to a family on the next row of chairs. We talked about travel and how their daughter was ranked internationally in fucking riverdancing. (I can’t make this up.) The husband was a Rangers fan so he joined me on my bench to listen to my radio feed of the Stanley Cup Finals game from my iPhone.

Monday, June 9

• In the PATH train to Jersey. I started talking to an older woman from Azerbaijan who was reading an interesting-titled book (can’t remember what it was). She told me a little bit about growing up there and why she came to New York.

Tuesday, June 10

• In line at a coffee shop in Midtown. I talked to the girl in front of me and she was a lovely woman from the south of France with a healthy accent.
  “Where are you from?” she asked.
  “Guess.”
  “Hmm… California!”
  “Holy shit. How could you tell?”
  “You have a California vibe to you.”
• That evening, I went to stood on a pier in Jersey City facing Manhattan and admired the tranquil skyline. I talked to a girl who was from California too. She was an actress that moved to New York and was doing really well for herself. She asked me about my reason for traveling and responded by using a SAT vocab word I had no idea meant what. After we parted ways, I looked it up and it meant something like adventurous (it started with a “p”).

Wednesday, June 11

• I sat in a cafe overlooking Columbus Circle. Some girl and I started chatting and I said something like, “It’s a beautiful day.” Then she said, “You mean cold and rainy?” Uhh, conversation over, haha.
• Headed downtown to meet with the guys at American Media and sat in a small coffee shop to get loaded on caffeine before I went. I decided to brainstorm some ideas just in case they asked and some woman there looked at me and asked if I was drawing something. (Her, perhaps?)
• Sitting in a coffee shop waiting for dinner with a friend. Two girls next to me were talking about and studying Economics and we started talking about opportunity cost, supply and demand, and all other kinds of Economics BS. That was an enjoyable conversation.
• Just made the NJ Transit train enroute to Newark after running through Penn Station. I stood in that area between train cars and talked with an older gentleman who looked a bit like Eric Thomas who was from Bedford Stuyvesant (in it’s heyday). I asked him about growing up there and he talked about how everything to him was about survival. We sat down and he shared a few stories. Now that he was older, he spent his time giving back to the community.

Thursday, June 12

• At a bagel shop. A girl shared seats with me and we talked about her the wedding shower she was going to.
• Went to lunch at some healthy place Midtown. The woman next to me was a fashion designer who shared a few stories and what it was like to live in New York.

Friday, June 13

• Read about it HERE.

Monday, June 16

• Sat in a coffee shop and talked to a girl who just became a doctor and just moved to Toronto from Hamilton. A little self-absorbed, haha.

Tuesday, June 17

• Ate breakfast at a small cafe. The woman next to me had just taken a day off (to study, no less) and we joked a bit about that.

Wednesday, June 18

• Went to get a haircut in The Annex. The woman cutting my hair was a hilarious and spunky woman from London. Ontario, that is. She said I had an American accent. I said she had a healthy Canadian accent and she played that up.
• Met up with a super cool girl from my business/entrepreneur organization. We sat at a nice restaurant in the Annex and chatted about all types of things including travel, goal setting, and career plans. Very refreshing.

Thursday, June 19

• Moving day! Drove from Toronto to Montreal and, of course, got lost in the streets of Montreal looking for gas and navigating through the French-only street signs. I got gas at this one place (right before the fucking tank ran out) and the guy couldn’t stop talking about how much he hated Montreal. Good start.
• That evening, I joined my new roommates and walked to Les FrancoFolies de Montréal, a music concert just a few blocks away. Apparently, it featured some beaucoup famous French artist named “M” who only sang in français, of course. The concert wasn’t half-bad and some woman nearby noticed me. “Can you speak French?” she asked.
  “Haha, no.”
  “Oh, okay. Wow, where are you from?”
  “Los Angeles.”
  “Wow! You came all the way here?!”
  “Haha, yeah!”
  “Why?!”
  “Oh, I’ve never been to Montreal and I wanted to visit. I always heard great things.”
  “That’s great! Did you come by yourself?”
  “Yeah. Well, I’m here with a couple that I’m staying with.”
  “That’s great!”
  Then, she proceeded to explain, word-for-word exactly what M was saying and singing. It was awesome. She explain about love, togetherness, and generosity and I could really feel it through her words. It made my night that much more interesting.

Friday, June 20

• Walked over to Rue Rachel to a bomb-ass cafe for breakfast, Café Neve. Then, two college girls and I started chatting (partly because one of them kept staring at me). One was from Vancouver the other was from South Korea. Of course, the Korean one couldn’t stop asking me about my experience teaching English in Korea. Then, I noticed the pregnant woman next to me looking at me. Well, she was actually a host at Airbnb, which was the exact site I used to find my place. She was very pleasant and from France (just like my hosts). More interestingly, she was a freelance editor so we talked about how much we enjoyed being able to work all around the world and set our own schedule.

  After the French woman left, a father-daughter pair sat down on that table. Well, the cafe gets crazy crowded during lunch so one of the waiters asked if she could join me at my table. Yeah, no problem. She was in college and had a nose piercing and lip piercing. We talked for a while as she told me countless bars and clubs to go to, which I couldn’t remember for the life of me.

• I still had two assignments due that day so I went to a cafe closer to my place called Kitsune. (It was hipster as fuck.) I shared a MacBook charger with the girl next to me who was from the Caribbean and had a nice accent. She was practicing for her TEFOL because — surprise, surprise — she wanted to teach abroad (in Peru). The woman across from me was an actress and a bartender who was handwriting letters to her penpals. About an hour later, the Caribbean girl’s friend from New Jersey joined us and he said a very clever line about the wintertime in Montreal: “You know it’s cold when the temperature is the same in Celsius and Fahrenheit.”
• Then the night got wild. Read about that HERE.

Saturday, June 21

• It was the longest day of the year so I decided to stay out all day even though I slept only four shitty hours and was nursing a raging hangover. The funny part was eating dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant and talking with a girl who was reading the French-version of Psycho-Cybernetics. Unreal. We talked for a while and took a walk around the block. I learned a lot about the cultural dynamics of Québec. I even pinpointed why Québécois English sounded so distinct — they slur their words, pronounce “T’s” like a “D,” and draw out their “O’s” (like in the word “so”). Once I stopped seeing it as an accent and as almost a dialect, it made more sense.

Sunday, June 22

• Went hiking up Mont Royal to see the chalet. Once I entered the park, I couldn’t find my way through the maze of trails and met a mother-daughter pair from Germany who felt the same. They adopted me as their son and we hiked (and, at some points, crawled) the rest of the way up the mountain, together. They were cool. It was right before the USA/Germany game in the World Cup so we shared some friendly shit-talk even though they had a lot of respect for the Americans (mainly because of Klinsmann).

Monday, June 23

• Long day. After visiting the AskMen office in The Plateau and visiting the Olympic Park (which was a bust), I went way off the beaten path to a Francophone area in Eastern Montreal to a cafe that was well-rated by Yelp. Unfortunately, that was the day before St. Jean Baptiste Day (Quebec’s national holiday) and it closed in 17 minutes. Oh, and the Wi-Fi didn’t work. Before it could reach a clusterfuck level, I had a conversation with a beautiful woman next to me who was on the Canadian national speed skating team. How random was that?

Tuesday, June 24

• Fête du Saint Jean Baptiste. Finished my workout and stepped into a Burmese restaurant for my post-workout meal. There was just one problem — it was closed. The owner had only unlocked the door to set up the restaurant for a private party a few hours later. “Is this your first time here?” she asked. “This is my first time to Montreal, in general,” I said. “Okay. Sit. I’ll make you the exception today.” Then, they cooked a wonderful, spicy dish with chicken, rice, and veggies.

Thursday, June 26

• Went to Chez Jose for breakfast. Sat next to three travelers. One was from Pasadena and was actually going to grad school in UC-San Diego. The other was from Norcal and the last girl was from Germany, but living in Boston. Great girls.
• After a long fucking day at the canals, I went to Outremont. Stopped off at a famous gelato place for some refreshing lemon-thyme sorbet. I talked with an older couple who’ve been to the States a few time and were walking (and feeding) their black labrador. Very friendly and talkative bunch.
• Found a nice little bar/cafe for a iced coffee drink and 5 à 7 (happy hour). I sat there, typing away, when a family sat on the table next to me with their baby girl. “Do you want to put your pants on?” he asked his daughter. “When you get older,” I said to her, “that isn’t an option.” He laughed.

  Two much-older married couples sat down in the table next to me. They sounded from California so I chatted with them. They were from San Francisco and we talked about their travels and where else they’ve been. They asked me for a few recommendations and, as always, I recommended Mont Royal.

  “Are you traveling by yourself?” one of the gentlemen asked.
  “Yep.”
  “That’s great! I envy that you’re able to do that.”
  I smiled. “Well, thank you sir. That nice of you to say that.”

  After they parted ways, I started talking to the group with the little girl. They asked me where I’ve been and we started talking about ghettos in Montreal.

  “I think I found the not-so-nice areas.”
  “Haha, where?”
  “I was in some place. Uhh… Horchalaga?”
  “Oh man. What were you doing there?”
  “Man… I don’t know.”
  “Yeah man, that’s kind of ghetto. Not as bad as America, but it’s not good.”

  Then his friend starts laughing and talking to me about something. I couldn’t understand much through his accent, but he seemed very excited.

Friday, June 27

• Got horribly lost on my way to Casino de Montréal. I saw this super-old couple who were walking very slowly and I asked them if they knew the way. The gentleman said, “That’s where we’re going! Just follow us.” He couldn’t speak much English so he just talked to me in French. I think he was saying something about what to do in the casino (or not).

Saturday, June 28

• At Chalet du Mont Royal overlooking the city. Fun fact: they have an upright piano for public use so anyone with skill (or, sometimes, no skill) can step right up and get their Liberace on. This one Chinese guy was killing it with a couple of nice, jazzy tunes that received a healthy applause with each break. After he finished, he sat on the steps a few feet away from me, and I started talking to him.

  Turns out every single song he played was improvised. Originally from China, he moved to Montreal 13 years ago and currently worked as a part-time bartender and a part-time musician.

• A few minutes later, I talked with a woman from Vancouver who moved to Montreal to be a professional ballet dancer. I thought that was pretty cool, but she seemed unhappy with, like, everything about life. She was a bit of a drag so I started saying silly things to get her to leave. “What if they turned ballet into a contact sport?! I think that would be cool.” Or, “You must’ve watched Billy Elliot.” (Which she did, of course. Then she asked if I liked it.) “Well, it was okay. I liked the intro… T-Rex is awesome.”
• That night, unbeknownst to me, was the first night of the International Fireworks Festival. That’s why the chalet was so crowded — everyone wanted the perfect views to watch the event. While standing by the edge, I struck up a conversation with a Korean woman and her friend from India. Her English wasn’t great (she spoke French), but she was amazed that I taught English in Incheon (she was from Bucheon). She then told me that the fireworks went along with music. She let me listen to one of her earbuds as she tuned to the public radio channel that had the event. “I sink it’s better wit da mujik,” she said. She was right.
• On the way down from the pitch-black hill, I chatted with a dude named Robin. Super cool guy. Then he taught me something I would’ve never known if I didn’t come to Québec. CÉGEP (Collège d’enseignement général et professionnel). In Québec, you only go up to eleventh grade before you have to go to a mandatory school for two years, which is sort of like community college in America. Then, and only then, can you go to university in the province. Nuts.

Sunday, June 29

• Went to my (new) favorite pastry shop, Mamie Clafoutis, for my last meal in Montréal. Man, are their croissants and cappuccinos amazing.

  I stood in line and noticed the guy in front of my was traveling with his wife and her family. We made friendly chit-chat and it turned out that (1) they were from Michigan and drove to Quebec to sightsee and (2) they were incredibly friendly and hospitable. I joined them for breakfast and they were fascinated with my journey. The husband was super cool — he was a designer for the automotive industry. In other words, he was one of those dudes that play with clay to make models of new cars.

  His son was only seven and was feeling a little ill that day. He was a cool kid, though. He loved hockey and freakin’ knew every player and watched every bit of the Stanley Cup playoffs. As a Red Wings fan, his favorite player was Datsyuk.

  “Are they old enough to fight?” I asked his Dad.
  “No, not really. But that doesn’t stop them from trying,” he said with a laugh.

• On the bus ride to Toronto, I sat across from three high school kids (two girls and one guy) who were heading to Toronto to study English. The girls were funny and spoke well, but the guy couldn’t speak much. He was really cool, though, and he and I talked a lot at the rest stop near Kingston. The kid behind me was a 14-year-old from Etobicoke who was listening loudly to rap music and then asked me for a few sheets of paper. I already knew what was up:

  “Are you going to freestyle?” I asked with a grin.
  “Haha, yeah…”
  “Cool man. Let me see it when you’re done.”

  We talked for a while and I learned that the kid was really trying to make it as a rapper. He told me about a few dope producers I should listen to, and I got him on the Mushroom Jazz series (DJ Mark Farina… c’mon.)

  At the rest stop, I noticed a woman on the bus who had a Lisa Simpson tattoo on her back.
  “Hey, why did you get a tattoo of Lisa Simpson on your back?”
  “Because she’s my favorite character on the Simpsons. She’s smart, intelligent, and awesome!”
  “That is so cool. I freakin’ love The Simpsons.”

Monday, June 30

• I went to the beach on a perfectly warm and sunny day with an old friend I met while teaching English in Korea. I took a walk around the walkway and ran into a very elderly woman who strolled along with her rolling walker. Just to put this in perspective, she came to Canada when she was 18, back in 1951. (That’s the year my Dad was born.) She started working at a sewing company for $0.75 an hour and her husband was earning $0.85. She was a lovely, lovely woman who was so positive about everything and taught some wise life lessons.

  “I don’t have much time left,” she said with a smile. “So as long as there are beautiful days like these, I’ll enjoy them.”

• I walked to the harbour and ran into a girl from Eastern Europe. I’ll be damned if I tell you what happened next.

Tuesday, July 1

• Happy Canada Day! I was staying at my friend’s lovely condo and, that evening, some of her neighbors had a barbecue on the rooftop to watch the fireworks. I went up by myself and mingled with the residents. Holy shit were they friendly! One of the organizers of the party was a phenomenal host and introduced me to so many people. Her husband actually lived in both Toronto and Los Angeles! (Sherman Oaks, of all places) and we talked about traveling, work, and golf. Another woman blended a special Peruvian cocktail and insisted that we all drink. (It was surprisingly delicious.) Another of the families had a high school kid who wanted nothing more than to live in Los Angeles. Another was an Indian family who admired my travels because they too traveled a lot — from India, they moved to South Africa and eventually made their way to Ontario.

  Much like America, people came from all over. One couple was Columbia, one family was from Hong Kong, and there was one friendly dude from Winnipeg who, because of his city planning background, explained every corner of Toronto (and even bits of Los Angeles).

  Admiring the fireworks in the distance, I cogitated and savored my last night in Canada — it was one of my favorites.

Wednesday, July 2

• At Toronto-Pearson International. I went through customs and chatted with a Brazilian woman who lived and worked in DC. She was very sweet and friendly. After we made it through security, we sat together at their free-Wifi/cafe area, chatted, and watched the Jays beat the Brewers with walk-off. What a phenomenal way to cap off my trip.

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If you read this whole thing, wow, I fucking love you.