Solo Hiking, Travel, and Selfies

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**post warning: lots of pictures of ME in this post**

I used to hate selfies.

I thought they were dumb. This may really surprise you, since I now not only post tons of selfies both solo and with a group, but I also own a selfie stick. It was a gift, but an inspired one.

I didn’t really develop any selfie game until I was on my own a lot. I wasn’t yet a single mom, but my ex-husband was traveling a lot, and I was alone with the kids a lot. And I began taking pics of us via selfie. I’d love for my kids to know that mom was there too. 🙂 Once I was a single mom, then it was on. I also did a lot of solo travel and solo hiking at this time, so I would take selfies to document my travels.

Looking back at travel photos, I had tons of pictures of artifacts in museums or gorgeous landscapes, but my mom would be like, where are you? And I was like, she’s right! When I look at friends’ photos of trips and things, I’m looking for pictures of them, not of stuff I could go see myself. So I started taking more pics with me in it.

I also sometimes am somewhere by myself and see something weird and I’m like, okay I need photographic proof that me and this thing were in contact! 😀

I have had largely positive experiences with solo hiking and solo travel, though I have to say that in the past year, I have had a couple weird solo hiking experiences that have made me even more safety conscious.

I always advise that you bring the ten essentials on every hike you take. Recently, I was on a hike with another family and a kid scraped their knee. I left my pack in my car because it was only like a two mile hike. I never do this, but I did it. I wish I had my things! It’s always best to be prepared. And when you’re solo, it’s even more important.

I love solo travel. I’ve done domestic and international travel by myself and I enjoy it. Not too long after I got divorced, I went on a trip to Iceland, Wales, and England solo in summer of 2018. Often when I plan these solo trips, people will offer to come with me or come with for part of it. I declined these offers for this particular, mostly because I had already made my plans, gotten my tickets, etc and didn’t want to change plans around or cause undue cost to my potential travel partner. But I also knew that I would learn a lot doing this trip by myself, given what I had been through. Being completely by myself and responsible for myself on a trip like this teaches you a lot about yourself. And it reminded me of my own value and strength. I had a really great trip solo. I was able to be very flexible. After a particularly difficult hike climbing a mountain, I changed my plans and left Wales early and included a new stop in England. I also met some really cool people which I may not have been as open to had I been with others. Had a great trip!

Solo hiking is a little different. I don’t usually want to meet cool people on a solo hike, ha ha. I go for the solitude, peace and quiet, or I’m looking for something in particular. For whatever reason, I feel more cautious hiking solo than traveling solo. Not sure why. But I will say that I have had more negative experiences solo hiking than solo traveling. Being aware of your surroundings is very important in both settings. Choose your trails wisely. Let someone know where you’re going. Here are some of my tips for solo hikes.

At this point in my life, solo travel is not something I do often. I try to plan all of my trips with my kids. If I’m going to spend the money, I want them to come with me! And I’m remarried, so the kids can’t come, then the husband will! And I love it this way. But solo hiking does still happen. Or hiking with my non-human hiking buddy Jeff. He’s a pretty good pal. 🙂

I’m also totally open to hiking pals if you want to be one! Requirements- can’t be in a hurry and must appreciate really cool rocks. Litterbugs need not apply. 🙂

The Little Things

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I’m going to try to blog more again this year.

I say this always, but lately I have had a legitimate reason not to blog. The shift key on my laptop hasn’t worked for a while. This has been super annoying and somewhat problematic. At first, I didn’t think it was a big deal. But the longer it went on, the less I’d use my laptop.

I don’t love typing long emails or blog posts or anything of significance on my phone. And I don’t do that stuff at work, so it has been only when necessary that I have really done it on my phone.

Life update: Kareem got a new job! We are so pleased. With this new job, he received a new computer set up- laptop, a couple monitors, etc etc. His old monitor from his old job was up for grabs, so I grabbed it. His old work computer was a Mac, which is what my laptop is. So he had a couple Mac accessories like a keyboard and mouse which I also commandeered.

We then adjusted our dining room. When school closed down in spring of 2020, we all worked from the dining room table. Before that, it had been a lovely dining table that I always had decked out for whatever season and sometimes we had dessert or played games on it.

When Covid closed everything down, the dining room became an everything room for everyone. We all had work and school from the dining room table at different points during the day, so there were like seven computers and a bazillon papers and it became like a mega desk.

For one day during the pandemic, it functioned as a dining room. That was our wedding day- aww….

Photo Credit: Ben and Becca Lee Munson

After a few months into the pandemic, Kareem switched jobs and they gave him a stipend for office furniture for his home since he would be working remote. He decided to purchase a desk and chair which was more comfortable and appropriate for his needs. We adjusted the dining room table and made room for the desk.

Since then, our dining table is used mostly when we have company. Or it collects piles of school work, backpacks, projects, gifts, mail, art supplies, and every other kind of thing you can imagine, until I can’t take it anymore and clear it all off. Since the dining room table is usually full of crap, then everybody does art and games on the kitchen table and then THAT has stuff on it until it’s time to eat. The stuff goes on the passover and then I get annoyed. We also all use Kareem’s work desk for our stuff when we need to do a Zoom meeting or something, because my laptop sucks and Rami just has his school Chromebook. So everybody leaves stuff on his desk, puts stuff on his desk, and does stuff at his desk so his work space is not really his. It hasn’t really been efficient for the family.

With the new work set up and my pirating of his old work set up, we decided to just accept what is happening and make the dining room function better according to our use of it- a workspace. It is not really used as a dining room anymore. So I moved the dining room table into my kitchen, took the leaf out of my kitchen table and moved it to the dining room creating a desk table of sorts. We set up two long table tops along the wall to function as a kid/art workspace, and we feel like this is going to function much more nicely for our family.

Really, I’m mostly glad to have a working shift key again. It’s the little things, I tell you.