As a solo traveler, there’s no end to the amount of people you’ll get talking to. Who you happen to meet on your travels will have a massive impact on the entire experience and you’ll remember the trip around the people you met there. I decided to start this mini-project Do Talk To Strangers to account for all the weird and wonderful people I meet on my travels.
This post is dedicated to the warm and caring soul I met one sunny morning, at a bus stop en route to Amalfi.
I had just got myself to the circumsvesuvania station in Sorrento and found the bus stop heading to Positano/ Amalfi. There was a long queue, about 40 people lining up. As the bus stop and queue was in direct sunlight, there were another 15 or so people who had left their rucksack or shoes in the queue and had gone to sit in the shade.
I put my rucksack down and used it to sit on while I applied sun-cream and kept a look out for the bus.
Behind me I could hear, what I assumed, was a teenage daughter moaning to her mother because she forgot to take the sun-cream from the hotel. I turned around and said hello and that she was welcome to borrow mine. While she did so, I stood up and got chatting with her mother. They were from Canada, the mother half Italian, here with her sister-in-law and their two daughters. The two girls, only a few years younger than me, went to relax in the shade while their mums kept their spaces in the line.
“Gosh you’re young to be travelling alone!”
Conversation was flowing and flowing. I’d practically told her the last couple of years of my life- leaving home at 16, fall outs with my mother, leaving university- and found out all about them, their life in Canada, the girls plans for the future, etc.
About an hour later the bus pulled up and everyone piled on, until the driver put his arm in front of me and said “space no”. Very sweetly, the Canadian mother tells him, “She’s my daughter” then again in Italian, to which he shakes his head. She then turns to her sister-in-law and they look at each other for a split second and walk off the bus, the two girls following behind.
Another four people are let on the bus and off it goes. I tried to tell them no no no it’s fine I’ll be fine etc, but they wouldn’t listen.
“Well we couldn’t just leave you!”
I go to sit on my rucksack again and she tells me it’s too dirty on the floor.
“Mum….” the daughter whines rolling her eyes back. “No she’s right” I say, smiling.
It felt really nice to have this woman care about me. I could see she had a lot of love to give and had probably spoiled her daughter in it. Again the daughter gets annoyed at her mother for forgetting to bring the plasters from the first aid kit. The mum is busy toweling herself, joking about her hot flashes and getting old. I desperately want to tell the brat that if she knew she needed a plaster to cover an old scar to stop it getting sun-burnt, she should have packed the damn plasters herself. But I refrained this and just handed her one from my bag.
As the bus swerves around the corner I quickly whisper to the four of them “sit on the right side for the best views” (a tip I had read that morning from my trusty Frommer’s guide).
Funnily enough, I bumped into this lovely lady again on two separate occasions- the most special one was on their last evening in Italy, at our last supper. I had just came back from Pompei and was incredibly sweaty and gross. I was about to head back to the hostel when I saw the four of them, dressed ever so elegantly, walking in my direction. After a quick update about both our days, they invited me to join them for dinner. What a truly wonderful night that was. There were genuine tears when we said good-bye.
As an aspiring expat of the world, talking to anyone and everyone, whether fluently or in broken English, hand gestures or in as much of the country’s language I can manage, for me is the most important part about travel. You learn so much from other people – you learn a bit about yourself too. I learnt after meeting this family that I must make an effort to reconnect with my mother.
Most of the interesting characters I met on my travels I will never have the pleasure of meeting again- we didn’t exchange contact details. Sometimes it’s better this way. Instead of adding each other on Facebook and having this illusion that you’ll stay in touch, just enjoy the day or night that you had together for what it was. I had an incredible visit to Capri with two American boys I’d just met. An insightful afternoon in Florence with a street artist. I was rescued by an old man in his late 60s in Agrigento. Enjoyed the best pizza in Naples with a cautious Australian girl. A warm evening by the sea drinking wine with two locals. I fell in love with a Sicilian sitting on a bench across from me. Okay… I did keep in touch with the Sicilian, but you get my point! Travelling solo was the making of my travel experiences. Without it, I imagine you remain the same person, experiencing the same kind of life with the same people from home, just in a new surrounding.
This was very much the case when I took my first ever holiday abroad to Spain about 4 years ago with my then-boyfriend and his folks. I didn’t speak to one local, didn’t attempt any Spanish, didn’t go with my intuition, didn’t find anything out about myself, I didn’t push myself. I regret that entirely. Take my advice and do talk to strangers.
Love Sarah @ Expat of the World
