For years, one of my best friends has been trying to convince me to travel abroad with her. She started talking about it in high school, but when you’re working off of minimum wage in retail, and your summers are spent with a second job as a camp counselor, it’s not really doable. Even in college, it felt like an impossible thing. Traveling abroad was easily a 2-3k expense when I was in college, and while that is totally manageable to me now, it was absolutely bonkers back then. And so, it begs the question, now that I’m making enough money that I can actually spend a few thousand on a trip abroad, why am I going alone?

Back in 2019, before the world fell apart, Jen & I decided that we were finally going to go abroad together. She’d still been consistently trying to convince me in the years following college, but I was being stubborn and saying that I still couldn’t afford it, and that I didn’t have the time for it. Of course I would choose the year before a pandemic to start planning my first ever trip abroad so that, when the scheduled trip in mid-March 2020 finally came around, it was smack in the middle of everything slowly being destroyed. We planned for a solid six or seven months, and I can so bring us right back to the week before the trip, saying that it was going to be okay, and then finally cancelling a few days before.

And it seemed like that was the end of it. We obviously went nowhere in 2020. I barely left the state, and, when I did, it was only up to Maine to visit Erin for a very lowkey weekend that both of us were nervous about. When 2021 started to roll around, Jen and I started floating the idea of planning the trip again, but things were still up in the air. I didn’t want to go without being vaccinated, and summer started to drift away until October was rolling around, and it was time for me to fly out to California for Sara’s baby shower. 2022 seemed like the best idea, and I was starting to get hyped up about the trip again until Jen & I realized that she would be in Germany for her school’s alternate spring break, and she was getting married in June while I was flying back out to Cali in December, so the whole year kind of disappeared.

But something had started to happen over the summer. A lot of my Massachusetts friends were busy most weekends or didn’t feel like hiking, and I watched the weeks go by until I finally said enough was enough, and I started hiking alone. I’d never done it before, but I was sick of not being able to go to the mountains just because my friends were busy. And this is absolutely no shade on them! This is actually kind of shade on myself for not making this decision sooner. Why was I waiting for other people to have availability so that I could enjoy my life? It was really starting to not make sense, so I just took matters into my own hands, and I think you can see where this is leading.

It was probably around September that I started to consider traveling abroad by myself. I’d been hiking by myself for a few weeks by then, and I was about to fly out to California by myself to meet someone I’d only ever talked to virtually, and I just–why was I still waiting? If I could do all these other things by myself, why was I going to watch 2022 pass me by, as I had the past two years, just waiting for someone to be available to see the world with me? My friends were busy, and I don’t really want a significant other, so that leaves me with me, and well, I’m the one that I have to live this life with, so vamos, right?

The responses I got to the “what if I went to Portugal by myself?” text were wildly varied. Erin fully channeled the energy I wanted with a “do it you won’t”, Sara was cautiously excited, but also mostly nervous, Jen went full cheerleader “YES QUEEN GET IT”, and my mom pleaded with me not to because two weeks in a country I’ve never been to on my first ever trip abroad? Yeah, sounds insane, but also, why not?

The trip was originally supposed to be a week. Let’s take it easy, I thought. We’ll slowly start seeing the world since I’m not going with someone who is very well-traveled and will be able to steer me in the right directions. But a week is a really small amount of time, and I would only be able to see the mainland, so I extended it to nine days so I could make a quick trip out to the Acores. But my great-grandfather is from Madeira, and was I really going to go to Portugal without visiting the village my family is from? That just seems dumb. So I finally pulled the trigger and said I was going for two weeks instead. Because why not?

That phrase has been my mantra for years now. Why not learn how to teach yoga? Why not fight for my financial worth at my job? Why not create boundaries with friends who were hurting me? Why not choose the life that I wanted to live? Why not? It’s the question that they asked when we said we wanted to go to the moon. Why would we do something so out there? Well, why not? I love that question. It opens the world in ways you’ve never imagined before, and it’s my favorite way to approach new situations.

If I don’t have anyone to travel with, why not go alone? Why not see the places that I’ve written about in my books, as well as see the village that I’m from? Why not try to conquer my fear of the ocean by kayaking a half mile into the open ocean, as well as taking an inter-island flight that’s going to scare me halfway to hell? Why not go somewhere that I’ve been dreaming about for years? Why not?

So I’m going to Portugal alone. Today is the last day of February, which means that, in eighteen days, I’m getting on a flight to Lisbon. I’ll be spending four days in Lisbon, Porto, Sao Miguel, and Madeira, and I am beside myself with excitement. And this isn’t the end! In 2023, I’m going to Scotland. In 2024, I’m going to Iceland. In 2025, I’m finally going to New Zealand. I’m going to see the world by myself because why not? If someone happens to come into my life along the way that wants to travel with me, great, but until then, I’m going to stop waiting for my life to start and start living it instead.

Vamos, Portugal!