Back to the Basics - Kona, HI (Part 2)

Apparently, people notice when other people travel alone. I got asked whether I was "here by myself" almost as frequently as I was asked where I come from during my short trip to Hawaii. I could be overlaying my own perceptions here, but being asked whether I'm traveling alone feels uncannily similar to being asked whether I still live at home. A yes to either question elicits a “Oh… Well, good for you! *overcompensatingly brightly*”

???

Fair enough. Hawaii is first and foremost a scenic spot, so you have an absurd amount of quiet time if you’re not traveling with someone else.

There’s a lot of freedom in being independent. I can wind down from my high-interaction work week at my own pace in my own way, which took about a solid day actually, to remember how to take it easy. But it also means I need to entertain myself and stack up the weekend with good planning. Say for lunch, I can easily spend two hours if I'm with someone else, chatting, but I don’t eat two-hour lunches on my own. Given that the concept applies to every other part of my day, my plans become that much more event-focused as I move rapidly from activity to activity. Coffee plantation tour > Hike by a historic beach > Drive to another beach for the sunset. Bam bam bam.

The sense of staying active and not fully relaxing is rather accurate and actually necessary for another reason, which is that I am the only one looking out for my safety and well-being. There won’t be anyone to brainstorm solutions if I drive myself into a ditch, wander into a bad area, or run out of battery on my phone. No one is going to watch my stuff from getting stolen or remind me to pack my water before I leave the hotel. I have to keep a portion of my brain aware at all times just to maintain the baseline preventative measures, and that's a permanent feature of traveling alone.

Hawaii was really beautiful; it was an amazing trip and concurrently a concentrated weekend on the considerations of being on my own.

I like it. It was good. I exclaim these things with some vigor, overcompensatingly brightly, you might suspect – especially when we consider my sunburned back, with a windshield wiper-shaped crescent of un-tan in the only spot on my back that I was able to reach any smidgen of sunscreen. *Slow quiet exhale out.*

Just kidding. :)

The sunset is worth it.