While I was in Bled, Slovenia. I was talking to a girl at the hostel about our respective trips. At one point she had asked about my first solo trip and I had to pause for a second to think about it. If we’re talking about my first solo trip as an adult – that would probably have been in University when I made a trip to an Anime Convention in Ohio by first taking a greyhound bus to meet up with some friends that I then carpooled with to the Con. My first international solo trip was to London and around the UK and to Iceland.
But I’d been traveling long before any of that and it made me think about what would actually qualify as my first solo trip. And I think the answer was when I was 9 or 10, as crazy as that sounds.
So like many kids – I watched Parent Trap and decided I wanted to go to camp, unlike many kids I’m sure there was a part of me that thought I might actually meet a twin or sibling there since after all I am adopted. hahah.
That all being said – this was early internet. It was probably in 2000 actually now that I think about it. So think AOL, dialup, and waiting 20+ minutes for a page to load. (so crazy to think about now, but back then it was just accepted that I would click a page and go get a snack – it might be loaded by the time I got back, maybe.) My parents wanted to encourgage me to be independent so they told me to find a camp I wanted to go to. I’m sure they were thinking that I would pick some week long day camp that was being advertised at school or the library.
That’s not what happened.
Instead, I did a search on the internet and found a camp hours away in the Pocono mountains. A camp that I could go to for the entire summer, half the summer, a month, or even a week. Obviously I wanted to go the entire summer, we compromised with half a summer.
So while I didn’t travel there by my self – my first solo trip was probably that summer when I went away. I had a cabin with 9 other girls and 2 counselors (oh gosh, the hostels of camp!), and had to meet new people who were from all over – there were even some international campers there. Deciding what to do each day was just like being in a new city where you have to decide what to do. There were 60+ activities to choose from with at least 30-40 available each day including a flying trapise, rock climbing, ziplining, kyaking, horseback riding, pottery, beading, weaving, tennis, archery, riflery, and so so much more (not all of it was active. Honestly, you name the activity and you’d probably have a chance to do it at this camp. They even had a week each year that they brought in some people to teach us how to do various circus tricks and a camp Olympics each year too.
It was a blast and I went back for 3 years. I’ve thought about applying to be a counselor there over the years but I also know it wouldn’t be as fun if I had to work and not just pick activities to do each day haha!
My travel bug definitely hit early – and that was probably a foreshadowing of the travel I’d do in the future. But hey, at least it was fun!
