In my next solo trips I became a more experienced traveller.
I returned to places I had travelled to before either alone or with my husband and children. I returned to Paris post Charlie Hebdo and found new places in Italy. I made some serious decisions about how I would travel solo.
I always travelled Qantas when I could. The fortunate opportunity of being an Australian citizen is that when things go awry away from home we have a government and an Australian airline that for the most part honour their citizens and passengers and return them home safely in a crisis. This was a psychological safety net for me when embarking on travels that took me into places of risk.
I also fell in love with Expedia. The hotel reviews and ratings (Fabulous-Superb-Exceptional) meant that 95% of the time of the time I was booking accommodation that was outside anything I ever anticipated I could experience for the price I paid.
I started to travel in the 'off season' because the deals in the 4/5 star hotels were extraordinary. I froze in Venice and sweltered in Cambodia to experience luxury travel at discount prices.
Travelling outside the traditional tourist season also meant I wasn't fighting the crowds, the school holidays and/or the tourists. There were lots of times when I was able to be alone for a moment in an extraordinary place.
These were the moments when I loved my family most and recognised the need I was fulfilling away from them for myself. In Maslow's Hierarchy I was self-actualising!
The sense of freedom and autonomy in these travels became a place that gave me a sense of my independent self (again) as a mature aged woman like I had never experienced before.There was something about being over 50 and re-determining my life that was liberating!
Travel was always a first love, as were art galleries and extraordinary experiences and in this new place and space these adventures started to authenticate the woman I had become.
What I didn't know when this journey started is that I would never want to return to the limitations of daily life and that entering the huge world that the big picture of travel afforded me would become the oxygen I needed to breathe.
Through my daily life I would work tirelessly to change the lives and outcomes of other people and when my commitments were complete I would seek out like a starving person the next banquet that life could offer me.
Over the last 6 years and 10 solo trips to a variety of international and domestic destinations I became the solo women traveller I am today.
I have a husband who knows the truth of our lives and me. I have two adult daughters who are individual, strong, independent and exceptional in their own ways. I have a solid and fulfilling career that allows me to make strong contributions to my community.
But these travel adventures have always been about giving oxygen to the woman I am who wants to step out of the boundaries and limitations that culture and society would have me adhere too.
It is in this solo independent travel that I know the power of women outside of the rules, constrictions and obligations that we are expected to conform to everyday.
I can't change the rule book for women and mothers and older women but I do have the power to redefine the terms on which I engage with my own life as a mature woman and my solo adventures have become self-defining in my identity moving forward.
With a new adventure ahead that will fill the part of me that self-actualises as an independent woman with strength, vision and autonomy this has become the lifeblood of me at my best.
