The Angst of Solo Travel...

I'm a contributing writer at several travel, health and fitness magazines. I also did some work for the Michelin guides. But now it's time for me to really step out and stop writing about �other� people's trips.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your Journeywoman website. I'm planning a year-long trip to help mitigate my midlife crisis! Though the planning is fun, it's a bit nerve racking as well. It's good to know that the (Journeywoman) sisters are out there.

I�ve got to say that my only trepidation is that about 10 years ago I took a solo jaunt to Chile in the middle of their winter. Emotionally, it was a very rough trip for me. I kind of expected Mexico south -- warm welcomes, easy, open folks and culture. (Grossly miscalculated the impact of 15 years of a brutal, military dictatorship on people). I was literally the only "tourist" in the country and the level of paranoia was high among the people I met. Americans were viewed with suspicion and if truth be told, single women travelers seemed to be pariahs. Everyone asked me, "what are you doing here?"

But once I got out of Santiago, things did change. Southern Chile was cold, wet and friendlier. I remember taking a bus to Puerto Montt and chatting with a woman next to me (by then my Chilean Spanish was good. Believe me, Chilean Spanish IS a different Spanish. Caramba!). When I told her I was traveling alone she smiled and hugged me and called me brave. I'll never forget that.

I'll also never forget sitting on the sea cliffs at Valparaiso on a cold, gray day and staring out at the grim Pacific and wondering, "what the heck is all this about? I could just disappear from the face of the Earth and who would notice?" It was a lonely trip but I suppose everyone has them.

This is my "fear" about voyaging solo, that I won't be able to handle the existential angst that grips me on occasion. But I feel that by doing my homework and joining SERVAS and teaching yoga as I go (I'm a certified yoga teacher), I can learn to be at home in the world and thus, at home with myself.