In this edition of ‘The Internal Monologue of the Solo Traveller’, I want to talk about how travelling solo actually makes me feel. How travelling on your lonesome shapes your experience of the places you travel to.

I saw this guy sitting by himself, at the edge of this fortified section of esplanade that lines the Lyme Regis foreshore. He sat high up on the sea wall, no one with him, no one around. As if he had picked that spot because of the isolation it offered him from the rat race that had descended upon the town’s famed pebbled shore. The onyx black ovals of his headphones another hint that he his own company was all that was required that exact moment. I quickly grabbed my camera, took a second to frame the shot and clicked the shutter.

In that moment I saw myself. It wasn’t until I checked through the day’s images, that it dawned on me, the subconscious reason I took the shot. I saw a spirit akin to my own, seeking the personal space in the most public of spaces. In the 90 seconds, I stood there, atop the fortress looking down upon this man and his kingdom of solitude he did not break his focus from the notebook he was writing in. He sat there cross-legged, a sign that he was carefree and open to new ideas.

He was also positioned right next to the sea, perfectly placed to receive its restorative and calming energy. He had fashioned himself a writing space that was literally fortified, removed from the human distractions, that allowed him to release those words from inside his mind, on the blank pages before him. The solitude required for creating.

In a way, it felt like the photo I would have taken of myself. It was my subconscious wanting to capture a physical image of how I’m living, how I am experiencing, how I’m capturing it all.