Origins of an Intrepid Woman Traveling the World Alone (sort of)

Bridget Toffic :: Sultanahmet Istanbul 2012

Jocelyn Toffic :: Sultanahmet Istanbul 2012

The Story of How I Became a Solo Female Traveler

I was raised by a single mother in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. A quaint little, over gentrified, colonial seaside New England town.
~ Land historically stewarded by the Abenaki, Wabanaki, and Penacook people, many of whom reside in the wider region still to this day.

My mother was part of the first big wave of divorced single mothers. 

Traveling would have been both financially impossible and intellectually a bit hard to grasp.
It simply wasn’t done.
There was no road map for young divorced mothers to follow at this time. She and all of them were doing their best to provide a safe home and put food on the table, all while blazing a trail for women to leave unhappy marriages sustainably and with purpose.
There was certainly no time and little money to consider much more than the basics.

And so I didn't get on a plane until I was 24 and pregnant with my daughter. I went with my step-sister to visit our parents who had just moved across the country to Seattle.

I definitely had a fear of flying, but it was manageable, and the benefits far outweighed my fears.

I later learned to book very early flights, because my tiredness significantly diminished my fear. Of anything really, but fear of flying especially.

After my daughter was born, her father and I took her to Seattle again, and then to Ireland to visit his family. Traveling with an infant has plenty of stressors, but I had a good partner and family waiting for us with a car seat and cribs when we arrived. This particular car seat was something we jokingly referred to as a remnant of cold war technology. It was old, like from the 80’s old. Possibly the first car seat sold in Ireland. It did not make me feel safe. Nor did the roads and the driving in Ireland, but that’s a story for another time. 

On the balance though we had a lovely trip! And I was now confident in my abilities to travel internationally with my child. 

When she was a toddler, every Sunday we would watch Rick Steve’s travel show on PBS. I love him to this day. He’s like the Mr. Rogers of travel.

I would fantasize about traveling the world, something that seemed out of reach for a soon-to-be single mother. But the more I watched the more viable it seemed. 

Maybe I could travel with my daughter?

Certainly not when she was small, ugh the hassle of car seats and luggage. Alone? With a babe? No thank you. 

But maybe a little later I could travel alone with my child. 

I began to imagine life as a single mother, and what I wanted it to look like. 
I wanted to give her more than I had, as most of us do. 

My mother gave me the foundation and strength and resolve to be a good single parent (I had a very supportive co-parent thank goodness). 

But I wanted more than meeting basic necessities. I wanted to give us both the world. 

And so I did. 
I prioritized it. 
As a waitress/bartender, in my younger years, putting myself through college, I made traveling my goal. 
I didn't shop much or eat out much, luckily that came naturally to me. And so I was able to save for travel. 

And as soon as my daughter was out of the booster seat (5 yrs old here in America) we went to Cancun of all places.
I wanted my first solo trip with my child to be as worry-free as possible, so we went to an all-inclusive.
We ate as many desserts as we could at every meal, you know, to compensate for all the alcohol neither of us was drinking. Good ole Yankee frugality, gotta get your money’s worth. 

It was a blast, though a bit (a lot) over manicured. An all-inclusive would not be my first choice, unless it was my first time being a single parent traveling with my daughter.
It did the trick though, I got our feet wet and built my confidence as a solo female traveler with a child in tow. And we felt very safe.

We had arrived, as it were, with no resources or guidebooks or mentors to follow on single parent travel, I had made myself an international solo female traveler, as a single parent traveling with a kid, no less.

Still a college student, studying and working, I was carving out the life I wanted for myself and my child. Lack of precedent be damned. 

The next time I had money to travel, we went to the Dominican Republic. A recent college graduate with my fine art degree. We went to an eco-lodge. It was rugged rough-hewn hand-built palapas on top of a mountain, with a cute little pool -more of an oversized bathtub, and an outdoor-ish toilet, which had a floor, and was very pretty, but walled on only three sides. So when you sat you had a full view of the mountains and jungle canopy.
It was perfect.
It was everything I wanted, Remote but not too remote, very authentic (also very very authentically very large spiders), but beautiful and so different from all my daughter had known, and just so genuinely wonderful. The place, the people, the food, the everything. 

The housekeeper and cook was a local woman a little younger than me. Her daughter was the same age as mine. They didn’t speak English and we didn't speak Spanish. 

But it didn’t matter, our kids played together without the hassle of language, thoroughly enjoying painting each other's nails, frolicking in the “pool” and playing with dogs and the chickens. 

It was magical and I loved every minute. And if you get the chance, I highly recommend the Tubagua Eco Lodge run by Tim Hall https://tubagua.com/

I won't sugarcoat it though, Traveling alone with a child can be terrifying. Usually without just cause, but not always. 

It’s far more intense than traveling alone, your senses are always heightened. 

Like when you walk at night to your car through a dark area, keys between your knuckles. It’s like that, but magnified. 

You are sleeping in a state of hyper-vigilance. A state of sleep experienced by soldiers at war and mothers of newborns. You will be tired but also hyper-aware of everything all the time. Any potential threats are instinctively and continuously scanned. This state does diminish after the first 3 days, I don’t want to turn you all the way off. 

But the upside to this hyper-aware state of solo female travel is that you are also absorbing the beauty of everything around you on a deeper, almost cellular level. 

The colors will be more vibrant, you will see people more clearly, in all of their humanity, and you will see your child more deeply too.
Because you will not take your eyes off her the entire time.
You will see her almost with new eyes.
And she too will see the world with new eyes.

It is not without risks, but nothing good ever is.

And the magic of showing your child the world is beyond measure.

We went on to have many more international adventures, Istanbul (a wonderful city for children btw, one of the best), Germany, Iceland, China.
She’s 20 now and in college in Vermont and a highly competent traveler in her own right.
She is safe. She knows when to be open and when to have boundaries. She knows how to keep a level head in stressful situations. 

She is now a fully capable solo female traveler in her own right. 

She knows how to be vigilant and to see the world with eyes wide open, for safety and for beauty too.
Experienced in all its fullness, and measured risk.

This is how we should all see the world, and live our lives.

This is how we travel as solo female travelers.

In fullness, aware of humanity’s beauty and frailty, and
worth all of our carefully measured risks. 

Join us on our next big adventure into the wild unknown
See the world with eyes wide open

Outside The Blue Mosque ~ Istanbul