I don’t think I would have gone to several places on our itinerary. It’s very easy when traveling in India to keep on the tourist trail in part because it’s often hard to veer off of it. What I loved most about our tour was the fact that we stayed and experienced both large cities with major sites AND got a chance to see small, rural towns. Honestly, those experiences in more “off the beaten” path locations were really some of my favorite moments on the trip. Over the coming weeks, I’ll share those experiences with you, but I know that I wouldn’t have even thought of going to many of them. One place we visited wasn’t even mentioned in my guidebook and barely comes up in a Google search.

I knew being a woman traveling alone in India was not always going to be easy. I’m not trying to scare anyone, but I knew going in that my time in India was not always going to be hassle-free. I read a lot about the experiences of solo women travelers, and they were all a mixed bag. Mostly the answer was, “You’ll be fine as a solo woman traveler, but….”. Solo women travelers were a rarity (Black female solo travelers non-existent) in my three weeks in India. Our group did encounter or see a few women traveling alone, and there were moments where I felt like a little bit of a punk. Maybe I should have done this all alone? Maybe I can’t hack travel like I think I can (I thought I’d overcome that insecurity with my solo trip to Brazil, but maybe not)?

Can a woman travel alone in India safely? Totally! Would I want to travel solo in India as a Black woman for an extended period of time? I’m not so sure (I’ll get into why in many posts). Also I did have 8 days of solo travel during the trip, so it’s not like I didn’t have the solo experience. I have to admit to you, though, that there were moments when I liked knowing that the men of Team Ozzie and our guide, Pancham, had my back.  I felt there were instances when I was alone that people (okay, fine, men, especially vendors) felt it was okay to a be a bit more aggressive than if I was walking with the male members of our group or Pancham. Although I’ll have to tell you about the time I almost got into a fight in Darjeeling, but, that, my friends, is another story.

Sometimes I needed to talk it out with someone. What I mean by this is that India can sometimes rattle you. I’d seen extreme poverty while traveling before. I’ve stood out as a traveler before, but India affected me differently than many places I’ve been. I call my time there “in your face, full frontal” travel. I think that’s why I liked it so much. When I saw or experienced something, it was nice to have someone right there to say, “Hey, did you just see what I just saw?” I was processing so much between my travel journal (the first one I’ve kept in a long time) and writing e-mails to family and friends, but having someone who was experiencing the same things at the same time who could discuss it really helped me. I know that Team Ozzie and I may not have agreed about everything, but at least we could talk about it all together.