The Man Who Should Not Be Traveling Alone

I like to think of myself as a seasoned traveler, though the evidence suggests I am more of a “seasoned liability.” Still, every few months I convince myself that solitude is good for the soul, and that I—an adult with a driver’s license and a Costco membership—am perfectly capable of navigating the world alone.

This is how I ended up at Gate C27 in the Denver airport, eating a pretzel the size of a deflated basketball and trying to look like someone who absolutely meant to arrive three hours early. I’d read somewhere that lone travelers appear mysterious, but I suspect the author was imagining a different kind of person—someone with cheekbones and a leather journal, not someone like me, who had mustard on his shirt before 9 a.m.

My destination was Portland, a city I chose because the flight was cheap and because I once saw a documentary about moss that made it look peaceful. I pictured myself wandering through damp forests, contemplating life, maybe even writing something profound in a notebook. I bought a notebook specifically for this purpose. It was blank, of course. I didn’t want to contaminate it with any of my previous thoughts.

The trouble began when the gate agent announced that our plane had been “downgraded,” a word that in airline language means “we’ve replaced your aircraft with something that looks like it was assembled from leftover IKEA parts.” Half the passengers were bumped, and I, naturally, was one of them.

“You’ll be on the next flight,” the agent said, tapping her keyboard with the enthusiasm of someone playing whack‑a‑mole. “It leaves in six hours.”

Six hours. I could have driven to Wyoming in that time. I could have learned conversational Italian. I could have eaten three more pretzels and still had time to regret it.

But I reminded myself: I am a lone traveler. I am adaptable. I am serene.

I am also, apparently, someone who cannot read airport maps.

I wandered the terminals like a ghost with poor spatial reasoning. Every sign seemed to contradict the previous one. “Trains This Way,” one said. “Trains That Way,” said another. I began to suspect the airport was designed by someone who hated people and wanted them to suffer.

Eventually, I found myself in a quiet corner near a massage chair. A sign advertised “Five Minutes for Five Dollars,” which struck me as both a bargain and a threat. I sat anyway. The chair immediately began kneading my spine with the tenderness of a disgruntled baker. I tried to relax, but the machine kept hitting a spot that made my left leg twitch involuntarily, like I was communicating in Morse code.

When the chair finally released me, I felt both looser and somehow emotionally compromised. I decided to walk it off.

That’s when I met the bird.

A small brown sparrow hopped confidently across the floor of Terminal B, as if it had a boarding pass and elite status. It stopped in front of me and tilted its head, judging me in a way only birds and French waiters can.

“Hello,” I said, because six hours alone in an airport will do that to a person.

The bird chirped once, then stole a crumb from my pretzel bag and flew away. I admired its boldness. If I had that kind of confidence, I’d probably be in first class right now, sipping something complimentary.

By hour four, I had eaten a second pretzel (don’t judge me), browsed every store that sold neck pillows shaped like animals, and seriously considered buying a $38 bottle of airport sunscreen. I also wrote exactly one sentence in my notebook: “I am losing my grip on reality.” I underlined it twice.

Finally, mercifully, my new flight began boarding. I took my seat—an aisle, thank God—and prepared for the peaceful, introspective journey I had envisioned.

Then a toddler kicked the back of my chair.

Not once. Not twice. But rhythmically, like he was trying to communicate with submarines.

His mother apologized in the tone of someone who had long ago surrendered to fate. “He’s excited,” she said.

“So am I,” I replied, though my excitement was more of the “quiet dread” variety.

The kicking continued for the entire taxi, takeoff, and first twenty minutes of the flight. I tried to distract myself by reading the in‑flight magazine, which featured an article titled “Finding Yourself in the Pacific Northwest.” The irony was not lost on me. I couldn’t even find myself in Terminal C.

Eventually, the child fell asleep, and I allowed myself to relax. I looked out the window at the clouds—soft, white, peaceful—and felt a rare moment of clarity. Maybe this was the point of traveling alone. Not the moss or the notebook or the fantasy of becoming a mysterious wanderer, but the simple act of being forced into situations where you have no choice but to surrender control.

I was feeling almost philosophical when the flight attendant arrived with the beverage cart.

“Would you like something to drink?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Something calming.”

She handed me a ginger ale.

I don’t know what I expected—maybe chamomile tea or a small vial of lavender oil—but the ginger ale did the trick. I sipped it slowly, pretending it was a sophisticated cocktail and not carbonated sugar water.

When we landed, I felt oddly triumphant. I had survived the downgrade, the massage chair, the bird, the toddler, and my own questionable decisions. I stepped off the plane with the confidence of someone who had truly earned the title of lone traveler.

Then I realized I had left my notebook in the seat pocket.

I turned around, but the line behind me was already moving, and the flight attendant was ushering us forward with the urgency of someone trying to evacuate a burning building.

So I kept walking.

Maybe it was for the best. The notebook had only one sentence in it, after all. And besides, I could always buy another one.

Preferably one that came pre‑filled with wisdom, or at least instructions for how to navigate an airport without losing my mind.