Solo travel (and in which the red hat is explained) and creating a blog is much harder than they make out.

Hello Internet, it me Shana! I’m about to embark on what I hope will be the first of many big solo travelling adventures. As my family and friends know, this has been my wish and dream for many years and I am finally about to embark for Thailand! I could not be more excited to be spending almost a month in the Land of Smiles!

Let’s rewind a little and look at how I got here. Over the past two years I have made many changes in my life to do more to enjoy myself and make the most of my time. That’s not a novel concept, but now being in my thirties, I recognised, if I didn’t do things that made me happy and only lived for work and other people, then I was cheating myself. I thought it over and realised that the thing that would make me happy would be to travel. And if that happened to be by myself, not a problem at all.

Now solo travel might be intimidating to some, but this is far from my first foray into the realm of trips taken by myself. Over the past decade I have gone to quite a number of places partly or fully on my own. Living in Cape Town my whole life, I have wanted to explore the beautiful Western Cape and have taken a few turns in the province, just me and my suitcase in my car.

In fact, my first ever overseas trip involved a flight to England and arriving in Heathrow Airport on Boxing Day 2011. Now I don’t know what it is like today, but back then nothing operated on the 26^th December and I mean nothing! None of the airport staff knew what was going on. I was on the phone with my first cousin Cecil trying to figure out how to get from the terminal I arrived at to the hotel where I was meeting a tour group. There was no real way to know the right way to go and how to get there. This was before the ubiquity of the smartphone and looking up anything you need in a moment’s time. I ended up walking and taking several buses and I believe ended up going through 3 terminals by the time I reached the hotel! Since then I truly believe I can make it through any travel complications that come my way and we shall see.

At the time of that first ever trip I was supremely nervous and was not confident because I had never really travelled and I had certainly done very little like that on my own. Since then I have happily embarked on all sorts of trips and adventures with and without travel companions and have not felt nerves like that again. From the time I got separated from a group of acquaintances well after midnight while chasing a heavily drunk friend in the middle of a city I didn’t know, more than half the world away from home, to the time I left my lights on in my car and drained my battery while seemingly the only person in the West Coast National Park in the middle of winter to many more than that. And although I might have felt a little flutter in my stomach while these things were happening, they certainly did nothing more than make for fun stories in the long run.

I am sure there will be mistakes and mishaps on this trip. I am bound to get lost (I have a notoriously hideous sense of direction!) and then end up where I didn’t expect to be. But these things are part of the fun, they are part of the experience and they enrich your trip and the memories you make. What occupies my thoughts are the things I will see, what I will do and the people I will meet not the invariable blunders along the way.

Okay, so why Thailand? For years I have had a shortlist of the top destinations in the world I would love to visit and Thailand has been at the top of the list. From the beautiful scenery, the well-developed tourism industry to make solo travel simple and the delightful people, Thailand is a no-brainer. In addition, the more favourable Rand to Baht exchange rate makes Thailand very attractive when the bulk of international destinations are completely unaffordable for most South Africans, however long you might save to try and get there. I also spent 13 years doing Muay Thai and loved it a lot and am excited to visit the birthplace of the sport that has been a huge part of my life for such a long time. I hope to have time, and more importantly energy, to catch a class while I am there.

Deciding to travel on my own, making that happen, organising it, planning it and doing everything to get there might not be easy, but it turns out that all of that is nothing compared to creating a blog when you are not technically minded. Getting the blog up and running has been more frustrating, more impossible and much more daunting than I could have imagined. Did I mention doing the technological aspects for the blog were beyond exasperating for me? Doing this solo was actually intolerable unlike travelling solo. It turns out online guides and tutorials only get you so far when you have no idea what you are doing! I spent hours upon hours, in the middle of the night even, trying to get this done between work and everyday life and failing miserably. In the end I realised that I needed help to make sure the technical aspects behind the site were right and this was something I could not do on my own (shout out to Josh for making this blog happen! Any bad styling or weak aspects are once again my own doing). Writing this blog post was much easier than putting together my trip which was easily doable compared to creating a website. It turns out that pushing your comfort zone is one thing, like travelling solo, but doing everything on your own when you just can’t manage is not the way to go either. Onwards to the journey itself now and let’s just forget about the hiccup of starting the blog…

So, let’s now address the red hat business. In the photos that will be posted on my blog, it will become obvious that I am of a rather light hue. But it’s only when you see me next to other people that extreme paleness of my skin becomes apparent. Thailand is hot and very sunny. Sunscreen and all forms of sun protection are not just my friends, they are required. I knew that I must have a hat to take with me to Thailand and being rather fond of hats, I have a number to choose from. However, I didn’t have a hat with UPF or that is crushable. But why did the hat end up being red? It is not as if red is my favourite colour or that I am particularly fond of red hats, I only have one other red hat and I have that one because it is pretty and on sale.

The red hat has the UPF I need and is happily suitcase compatible and packable, but why red? The hat came in tan and red and anyone who knows me, knows that I don’t choose the neutral or basic colour if there is a brighter, richer option available. (Remember I am super pale; I look better in colours.) So, obviously I chose the red hat, although I will admit I thought it was more of a burgundy since I bought it online and the photo certainly didn’t do the colour justice. Thus, here we are with the bright red hat. It is definitely going to be in a lot of my photos of the trip, so follow along on my adventures and follow the red hat.