Women On The Move

My mother took her first solo trip 35 years ago. She travelled from Kolkata to Darjeeling on an overnight train, followed by a four-hour taxi ride to the hills. It doesn’t seem all that meaningful now in the era of solo travel, but those were pre-mobile phone days, and there were many anxious moments till we got a “trunk” call from her the next day when she declared, “It was easy; there’s nothing much to it.” Like everything else in her life, my mother had taken solo travel in her stride. It was the start of many more journeys, each more adventurous. But that’s the thing about solo travel; you’ll never know what you are capable of till you venture out.