Clarissa Tan

Clarissa is a solo traveler who has been to 47 countries on the backpacker’s budget, or $30/day. This piece was written at the Denpasar airport in Bali, Indonesia.

I can confidently say that I have a friend in every country I’ve visited. But in all of the time we’ve spent together, we’ve never asked for each other’s names. 

Travel is full of short-lived friendships that somehow seem to last a lifetime. Backpackers always start with a simple “Where are you from?” We spend days and nights together — clubbing on the beach, motorbiking in the mountains, trying uncommon street foods — rarely do we get to the name stage. 

One random morning in the hostel, one of us will wake up to the noise of the other frantically rolling their belongings into a backpack — an art we’ve mastered all too well. Knowing we’ll never meet again, we say “Have a safe trip, enjoy X destination and live a good life!” It’s not until the Instagram request comes in, from a mutual friend or other mysterious means, that I finally discover their name.

Somehow, I feel more wholly understood by my travel friends than the ones I’ve grown up with since childhood. Maybe it’s the curiosity we share for the world, and those in it. We are Oxford drop-outs, Catholic apostates, holders of astrophysics degrees, surf instructors, professional cooks, graphic designers, musicians or just people who are so damn sick of their hometown and 9-5 office job. Whatever it is, we gave up something in our past lives to pursue adventure. 

In a term coined by my Australian host mom, it’s the “Traveler’s Blues.” Anyone who has spent months or years of their life on the road, collecting crazy stories and receiving constant stimulation from meeting new people, is bound to feel out of place when it’s all over. 

Back in my hometown in Nebraska, I felt like I had returned to a movie scene on pause. Amidst the small bubble of familiarity, no one asked a single question about where I had been — and fair enough, maybe they didn’t want to know. It is the sneaking dullness of being too comfortable that leads travelers to find our home around the planet. (That random British girl I met in Portugal might never know my parents or see my house, but we swam in the Atlantic Ocean under a full moon at midnight!)

With people weaving in and out of my life every three days, you’d think that I’d become an expert at saying “goodbye.” Things like online check-in, passport control, security and customs are just part of the daily routine. But no matter how many times I leave, I always feel a twinge of sadness. In moments like these, when the car is pulling away from the airport and I’m left with my whole life condensed into a 7-kg backpack, I imagine my life as a physical timeline, intersecting with other peoples’ at odd points — some lines are nearly inseparable, while others will never cross paths again. 

As travelers, we learn not to become too attached to any person or place — or wonder “what if?” — because nothing is forever. It’s a blessing to experience so many strangers in such a short span of time. And of course, the joy is in moving on! 

We are filled with wonder and excitement by the idea of who or what will come next, with no routine or constant, except the weight of the bag on our shoulders. We can never be done exploring — that’s the one relationship that will last forever. 

And so I tell myself, “onto the next thing!” and then I go. Onto the next thing!