A Traveled Worrier’s Courage

BY SARA SHEIBANI A TRAVELED WORRIER’S courage

The relationship I have with travel is complicated. One would think that I would have felt confident with almost two decades of traveling across the U.S. and internationally as I left to study abroad in France.

Unfortunately, the ‘anything could go wrong mentality’ from my mother and random news articles made me a very worried yet well voyaged traveller. My view of travel and courage has been shaped by this contrast of my vast travel experience yet constant worries.

What brought me to France was a confusing freshman year, over six years of French classes, and an accepted IAP application to a French language institute in the small ville of Tours. Traveling has always been a sort of escape for me, both physically and mentally. Even though I am often worried about what could go wrong, being in a new place makes it okay. Over the years my successful trips have made my pretravel worries dissipate and gave me more courage. However, facing my first solo international travel I felt like I was not starting a new chapter but as if I was picking up a new book with no information.

Before I was able to get to my small French town, I had to board a plane from Chicago to Stockholm, then Stockholm to Paris with hopefully all my baggage and no missed flights. Walking to the security line at O’Hare by myself is when it hit me that I would be travelling alone. All the possible mishaps made me feel a jolt of worry and short of air. This wasn’t the last time I felt this, but it was the worst of the summer. Going through the motions of security helped bring my heart rate back down but then I had to wait for hours, alone

with all my thoughts. I knew there weren’t any other options except getting on the plane. The incentive of French pastries also helped me put one foot in front of the other when my seating group was called. Conquering two international flights alone, as easy as it may seem, helped build back my courage that had crumbled in O’Hare. For the rest of the summer I called upon the courage that I had built up from my previous little victories.

Paris is a big city and one of the most famous, so of course I felt obligated to spend a few days there before heading to my host family in Tours. My two cents of wisdom that I have for ‘solo’ travelers is knowing you don’t actually have to be alone the whole time and planning does not ‘ruin’ the fun and funny stories of travel.

Really distant family connections graced me with a car ride from the airport to my airBnB. Not to mention a great conversation with a Parisenne and experiencing the madness that is traffic circling l’arc de triomphe. After a squished elevator ride and several stairs with my suitcase, I made it to my small room. I was alone in a city I didn’t know, with no access to a cell signal or data, and I had a choice to pull out the couch and sleep or take an evening stroll in my temporary neighborhood.

It takes a long time to lock doors in France and the long journey back down stairs and the elevator prolonged my worries, but I was also excited as I stepped out onto Boulevard Saint Germain. Before getting to that point I had planned, I was prepared to go to the ice cream shop a friend had recommended, and that’s what gave me the courage to go out and wander. That’s how a worried traveler enjoyed an evening solo in Paris after multiple flights and jet lag. Triomphe is what I felt as I enjoyed my tangy mango ice cream, stumbled across the scaffolded Notre Dame, wandered the banks of the Seine and cobblestoned streets of Paris getting just lost enough and not injured.

Choosing to travel solo is just one of the many courageous steps that travelers take, as I found on my first night in France and throughout the following months. Everyone gets their courage from a different place; for me that’s having some plan, even just a small objective, and a map. When you find that courage it only continues to grow and that’s when the fondest of memories, no matter how simple or insignificant seeming to others, start to happen.