I Traveled Alone on a Whim and My Life Took Off

“So this is Malaysia,” I thought as I shuffled out of the cab dragging my backpack along with me. I looked around; the ethnic mix of the passers-by and the workers under the scaffolding on the corner was similar to what I’d seen in Singapore where I lived, but the clothes they were wearing, the streets and the buildings were in more disarray.

I looked down once more at the page I’d printed detailing my hostel’s information and then lifted my gaze to the building in front of me. I sucked in the dusty air and started towards the door.

I’d moved to Singapore just two months prior. Inspired by Tim Ferris’s book The Four Hour Workweek, I’d quit my consulting gig, sold my queen-sized bed and said goodbye to my shared Manhattan two-bedroom, my friends, my family and my boyfriend at the time.

In Singapore, I would be teaching SAT classes at a company where one of my cousins worked. I’d never been to the city-state before, let alone the continent of Asia; but I was assured by my cousin’s presence and the fact my new employer would cover the cost of my flight and put me up for a few days until I found somewhere to live.

The year away was meant to be a slight detour in my life trajectory. At 24 years old, I felt it was my last chance to do something different before I had any real responsibilities: a job I liked more, a family, a mortgage perhaps.

After that year, I would continue on the path most of my friends were taking and that my parents and my ivy league education expected me to take as well. On my return to the city, I would buy a new queen-sized bed, find a partner, a new job and continue a life similar to the one I’d once led, having been grateful for the time I lived in Singapore for a year.

I’d discuss it at cocktail parties and interviews, and I’d die peacefully without thinking “What if?”

But that isn’t exactly what happened.

Shortly into my move across the world, I had the urge to explore elsewhere in Southeast Asia. As I worked on weekends and didn’t have many friends yet, I thought, “I’ll have a go taking a solo trip, and why not to Kuala Lumpur?” It would be a half-hour flight and only 3 days of my life. Going alone would be scary, but I would survive even if I didn’t end up having fun.

It was too early to check-in when I arrived at my hostel in the Malaysian capital that morning, so I took a seat in the common area. I wanted to explore the neighborhood but I was afraid to go out alone.

There were two younger women chatting in an Irish accent at a table nearby, so I decided I should go see what plans they had.

But my body didn’t agree. My heart was beating at twice its normal rate at the idea of getting out of my seat and walking over to them. “How random! How awkward!” they would think about this stranger. They probably didn’t want to go exploring anyway. They likely have already gone out, I thought.

The mind has a funny way of rationalizing the things we’ve already decided we do or do not want to do.

But I knew, either way, I had nothing to lose. So after some time of my heart beating quickly, unprecedented heat flowing through my body and more senseless rationalizations, I stood up, swallowed my fear and sat down at their table.

“What are you guys up to today?” I blurted.

It turned out they had just come back from walking around the area and weren’t going back out anytime soon. But it didn’t matter. We all talked and, suddenly, I wasn’t alone. That day, I didn’t let my fast heartbeat guide my actions. And that weekend turned out to be one of the most fun of my entire life.

On the hostel’s rooftop bar later that evening, I met a dozen interesting people from all over the world. A few of us went out for fish-head curry at the nearby hawker center and then stayed up all night playing drinking games. I even kissed a cute guy from England. Score!

When I returned to Singapore a few days later, I was elated at how good of a time I had had “alone.” I realized I didn’t need anyone else to do whatever it is I wanted to do. With confidence, I could find new friends anywhere.

So I increasingly took short trips by myself and ended up spending my last 3 months in Asia backpacking around the continent.

On those trips, I learned so much. I watched children squeal as they played with sticks in puddles and families embrace in front of one-room huts where they all slept. I saw with my own eyes and felt with my own heart that the idea of The Other is a fabrication. That we’re all human.

With no one there to expect anything of me or to judge me for my choices,

I was forced to make decisions based on what I alone wanted and in the process I learned who I was.

I realized how narrow my previous vision of my future was; the trajectory I was on in New York was one very specific life and there were so many more possibilities.

I met a 30-year old Australian in Cambodia who had spent the last decade working a quarter of the year in Oz and the rest of the year using his money to live by beautiful beaches and mountain towns in South America and India.

I met two Brits in Thailand whose “job” (they actually mimicked quotes with their fingers as they told me this) was to buy beer for 15 backpackers and take them on a boat through crystal blue waters past limestone islands jutting out of the sea, and then jump off cliffs into the water.

I thought back to the time I spent in my office on Park Avenue pulling out my eyebrows and wishing the week was over. Yes I was making more money than these people — a lot more — but for what?

I thought of a future me shackled by mortgage payments and other possessions. Meanwhile, I was living out of 40-liter backpack and had everything I needed.

I spent the night in hostels with pools or got hour-long massages for less than a happy hour-priced can of PBR at a New York City dive.

Suddenly, there was so much more opportunity, but also more confusion. I started to question everything I thought I knew.

I was afraid to come back to The States. I didn’t want to get sucked back into whatever my peers were doing and the it’s-not-so-bad job I’d had before.

You will travel again. You will travel again. You will travel again. I told myself as many times. Don’t you dare let future Sarah convince you otherwise.

So I came back home for a wedding and to start a 12-week coding bootcamp, where I learned to how to build web applications. I subsequently landed a remote job as a programmer and began to travel the world on and off as I worked from my laptop.

Four years and 18 countries later, long-term solo travel has enriched my life in so many ways, but I know it is not the answer to everlasting happiness. I don’t get as much thrill as I once did sitting on a rooftop drinking with a bunch of strangers.

I realize the value of travel does not lie in being thousands of miles from home but in embracing the uncertain and breaking through the spheres of comfort surrounding us. And in a city of 8 million people, we don’t need to go very far to do that; there are thousands of little worlds to discover right here.

And since fulfilling this promise I made to myself: to travel more, I feel a sort of relief. I can relax and focus on whatever it is that excites me, knowing all the while that as a native English speaker making American dollars (as unfair as it is), I always have options.

Whatever risks I take, I know there’s another life out there waiting for me if things don’t go the way I hoped.

In a few weeks, I’m moving to Spain to join my boyfriend, who I met on a trip through Mexico this past spring. I still would like to have that family I’d dreamed of before any of this happened. Although it would mean I could no longer make decisions based on my personal whim, it doesn’t mean I have to resign myself to a life of boredom. Thanks to that moment in Kuala Lumpur, my sphere has grown larger than I could have ever imagined, but I will never stop breaking through it.

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