Rising Above Fear and Travelling, Alone

The other day, I got a call from a distant cousin. It had been a while since we had spoken, so the phone call took me by surprise. Post the quick and mandatory ‘long time’ and ‘how have you been’, she immediately came to the point – ‘Err Ginni, I am planning a road trip to Punjab. Can you please help me plan a 7-day itinerary?’ was the crux of the conversation.

This was the third itinerary planning request in a month. Ah, not bad, I thought. For a girl who had no clue about even the popular localities in her own city to be planning trips for cousins and friends, I had indeed come a long way. And it got me reminiscing – about the time when instead of actually travelling, I just day-dreamt about travelling and backpacking across the country alone. Not that I have achieved that goal in entirety, but yes, I am every bit on my way there, having overcome my fear of travelling on my own.

My first ‘on my own’ trip!

So, like I mentioned above, till my final year in college, I had never really travelled alone. Having grown up in a family where travelling meant long family trips, the idea of going out and exploring new places on my own sounded intimidating. There were so many what-ifs to contend with. But yes, every time I’d see a woman travelling alone, I would be all full of admiration for her. Imagine – the adventure, the pride in tackling all the ‘what-ifs’ and navigating difficult situations on your own – such an incredible sense of independence and self-reliance it gave. And deep in my heart, I craved for that. It gave me a lot to self-motivation, and pep talk from traveller friends to finally take the plunge a few years ago, when I made my first solo trip to Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh. I spent a few weeks there, living on my own, having rented an accommodation in a village further up from Mcleodganj, and enjoying my first exhilarating taste of independent living!

Overcoming my fear of water

Since that debut independent trip, I have travelled around a fair bit and take pride in the fact that I have made so many lovely friends in different parts of our vast country.  While at one point travelling on my own was one of my biggest fear, overcoming this fear has in turned worked like domino effect on my other fears – fear of interacting with strangers, nitpicking about food issues, sharing space with strangers, and a hundred other trivial details that have now ceased to even exist for me.

The point is most of the time we all remain stuck in the ‘what if’ mould. What if this happens, what if that happens…these whats-ifs, more often than not, are about unfortunate scenarios ‘that can’ come up when we decide to come out of our comfort zone. But why is it that we have to harp on the negatives that can happen, why not take a positive stance and think about all the good things that can happen if we overcome our fear of trying out something new, or moving outside our comfort zone, or, as in my case, travelling alone.

This beautiful campaign video by Mountain Dew too drives the same point home – of rising above trepidations , of letting go of fears. Hope it inspires people to follow their hearts and leave their fears behind.