The Case for Touring Alone

Monique Andre has been solo touring around the globe since she was a young person, when she first flew to Europe by herself. Now 54, she’s traveled across the U.S. in her conversion SUV and overseas to far-off locales like Patagonia, Iceland, Bali, and plenty of, many extra, all of the whereas documenting her travels on Instagram and TikTok beneath the deal with @neveraroadmap. Under, in her personal phrases, Andre talks about reconnecting together with her sense of childlike marvel, resisting the narratives that make ladies fearful to maneuver by way of the world, and the primary steps anybody can take towards their very own solitary adventures.

I’ve been touring since I used to be born. My mother and father had a ship, so it was a part of my upbringing—particularly, touring by sailboat.

After I was three years previous, my mother and father cut up up, and my mom moved to the Hamptons to lift me. At age 10, my mother and father determined to get again collectively, and we moved onto my father’s sailboat. We sailed from New York to Florida in August 1978 and spent the winter in Key Largo.

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Whereas there, I received an essay contest the place the prize was touring with a number of different children to a abandoned island in the course of the Everglades. It sounds loopy by at this time’s requirements—regardless that we did have chaperones—however we slept in tents on the island for a number of days. We needed to wake ourselves up each morning, and I nonetheless keep in mind getting out of my tent and discovering a spot on the island to observe the dawn on my own.

It was the Everglades, so after all there have been alligators and snakes, however nobody ever mentioned “watch out,” and that actually helped form the particular person I’m at this time. There was just about nobody else round, and I needed to maintain myself. That was the second I discovered who I used to be and what I liked—I don’t ever keep in mind feeling extra alive, and I’ve spent a lifetime going forwards and backwards between these glimmers of me, simply me, and the self-imposed societal expectations of me.

The creator at age 10 crusing the Intracoastal Waterway whereas residing on a ship together with her household.

As a Hamptons child, I used to be within the nightclubs of New York Metropolis by the point I used to be 13 years previous. Then, after all, I moved to Manhattan to attend the Vogue Institute of Expertise—it was the subsequent step on my approach to a glamorous metropolitan life-style.

I used to be 17 after I went on my first journey on my own, from New York to Europe. I had household in Germany, so first I flew to stick with relations, however spontaneously determined to leap on a prepare to Rome, after which Paris. The visa legal guidelines modified whereas I used to be there, so I didn’t know I wanted a visa to get into France and was detained on the prepare station for not having one. I used to be placed on a prepare again to Germany in the course of the evening, so I obtained off the prepare on the border, discovered a lodge, and secured my visa the subsequent day. I went proper again to Paris. On the time, I didn’t converse greater than excessive school-level French, and it by no means crossed my thoughts that I wouldn’t be able to taking good care of myself even when hardships had been introduced to me.

I don’t keep in mind anybody considering it was unusual for me to go off to Europe alone. The following 12 months, I went to Ecuador to volunteer with Earthwatch, an environmental nonprofit that pairs volunteers with researchers. We went up into the Andes to work with Indigenous tribes. I felt privileged at 19 that I used to be accepted and allowed to be there, and I used to be cognizant of my objective discovering a deeper connection to each the world at massive and myself.

The creator in Iceland in August 2021.

Throughout that point interval, I used to be working as a waitress on the fancy Higher East Aspect restaurant Le Bilboquet with celebrities throughout me, however I used to be absorbed in studying Diane Fosse’s Gorillas within the Mist. I felt depressed and questioned what I used to be doing with my life. I really feel like I spent my total 20s going forwards and backwards between my interior self—what felt proper for me and made me really feel entire, which was touring—and the grownup expectations of a job and cash. In some methods, it felt like a pipe dream for me to do what I really wished to do.

As soon as once more, I packed up and headed to Southeast Asia for nearly a 12 months. Whereas there I had what I’ll name a Mowgli second. I used to be within the jungle with a tribe on a small island off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia and I noticed my reflection in a pool of water. I sat there in disbelief, as a result of I noticed I hadn’t seen myself in a month. Actually, it rocked my world. It hadn’t even dawned on me to fret about what I appeared like whereas there. I by no means as soon as thought, do I’ve a pimple? Or if I had baggage beneath my eyes, or if my hair was a large number. I used to be residing with roughly zero ideas about my exterior look. The few garments I had had been washed within the river. My nails had been by no means finished, and I discovered all of it so liberating, particularly popping out of the Hamptons and New York Metropolis society.

In Guatapé, Colombia, circa June 2019.

Spoiler: I did return to conventional life and stayed in it for over 20 years, however now I discover myself getting rid of figuring out labels like mother, spouse, trainer, and reconnecting with the 10-year-old model of myself I discovered within the Everglades.

My social media accounts are named “By no means a Roadmap” as a result of in a lot of life, we all the time have a vacation spot in thoughts, a spot we’re speculated to go, and a street map to get there. However life occurs alongside the best way—if we’re too centered on all the time following the trail, I feel we danger not having fun with the current second. So many individuals discuss looking for themselves, which means that you simply misplaced your self. I really feel like we do lose ourselves in jobs and relationships, notably as ladies.

Many ladies attain out to me on social media saying they’d like to journey like I do, however they’re scared. I wish to change the narrative that ladies ought to really feel unsafe wherever we go. If I can encourage different ladies who see me, a median girl, driving off-road, snowmobiling on glaciers, taking little boats to hostels in the course of unique locales, and staying in treehouses and boutique inns, all of the whereas assembly fabulous folks around the globe that deal with me with kindness and seeing the sheer pleasure I really feel by believing that the world is sort, I’ve finished my job. My tendency to journey alone makes folks really feel assured about making adjustments in their very own lives, nonetheless small. I just lately instructed one girl who reached out, “Go to a mountaineering fitness center someplace close to you.” It takes bravery to go to a climbing fitness center by your self, by no means having finished it earlier than, in one other a part of city—that’s a solo journey to me. It doesn’t must be Patagonia to start out.

I’ve traveled with household and associates, however I desire touring solo. While you journey by your self, it actually will get to the core of who you might be as an individual. You strip all the things away, all the titles, and reconnect with the particular person you might be inside.

I’m going to Bali quickly, and I’ve my first three nights booked, however then I’ve a month the place I don’t know the place I’m staying or what I’m doing. Each every so often, I’ll take a look at another person’s Instagram and suppose, Oh, I’ve to go there. Typically I’m going, however most of the time, I inform myself to cease so I can create my very own imaginative and prescient and never simply observe another person’s. After I don’t know what I’m doing or the place I’m going, it makes the expertise extra genuine—when there’s no vacation spot, you may’t get misplaced.

I don’t suppose there’s actually an finish of the street for me. All I can image is that in my 60s and 70s and 80s, I wish to be doing precisely what I’m doing now. As long as I can hold returning to a spot of my interior ten-year-old and the place I’m most comfortable and vibrant, I’ll hold shifting.