I love idea of not doing what's expected of you (Q&A with Kate Wills)
As you will have seen in yesterday’s newsletter, I spoke to Kate Wills this week about solo travel. I wanted to include the practical advice in the main newsletter as it’s something I’m repeatedly asked about, but Kate and I talked about so much more including striking out on a different path to your friends, what it’s like to be a young divorcee, how grateful she is for the time she spent being single, which travellers from history particularly inspired her and much more.
I hope you enjoy the chat we had. I loved what she said about how liberating it can feel to be away from other’s people’s expectations of you and also what she said about feeling out of step from her friends and how difficult it can be to create your own path in life. Do comment underneath if you have any thoughts on anything that came up in our conversation.
In the meantime, I’ll just be here daydreaming of packing my bag for an adventure.
Have a good week.
Nicola
Twitter: @Nicola_Slawson | Instagram: @Nicola_Slawson
Q&A with Kate Wills
Kate, people often describe solo travel as freeing. Why do you think that is?
I think to be away from the people that know you the best and away from your usual context is the most freeing part. I think so often we blend ourselves to fit in with others or perhaps we have a perception of ourselves within our friendship groups, like ‘you're the crazy one’ or ‘you're the quiet one’. Being alone can free you from that because you can shed all of those expectations.
You might find you’re more aware of yourself. Back home you might think ‘I'm not the sort of person who would do [insert activity here]’ but when you're by yourself, you can really let go and see what unfolds. That’s what I love about it.
There are different sides of yourself and we all go through so many different phases in our life, but if you have had the same friends for a long time or been in a relationship for a long time, you don't necessarily have those opportunities for growth and it can feel quite stagnant. That's why solo travel can be so nice.
You researched a lot of female travellers for your book and then followed in their footsteps. Who was your favourite?
It's so hard to pick just one because I felt like they were all amazing but a woman called Emily Hahn sort of inspired the whole book because she lived in Shanghai and lots of other places in the 1930s and she had this really wild and eccentric life.
She was an opium addict and she had a Chinese poet as a lover and she had a pet monkey and all these interesting aspects of her personality, but she also just really came to symbolise for me this idea of not having to do what's expected of you and not having to take the expected path.
Actually all the women in the book kind of did that in a way so that's what really resonated with me about their stories.
You’re now in a relationship with a baby. When you look back, how do you feel about your single life?
I wish I'd had more of it. It's funny because at the time, everyone was saying to me I should make the most of this time and that it would only be when I looked back that I would cherish this time of being single. When you’re in the depths of sadness, you can't really see that. It definitely took me a while to get out of the heartbreak but I'm so glad I didn't just jump into another relationship straightaway because that was my default setting.
Before that, I had always leapfrogged from one boyfriend to the next or if I was single for a period, I would have someone that I was seeing or interested in. It was really rare for me that I would just be totally single so to have that was amazing. Once I started to enjoy it and feel more confident with it, it was just the best.
I did notice the attitudes towards being single that you have touched on in this newsletter. There’s the idea that people think you are an incomplete person if you don’t have a partner. I'd meet up with friends and one of their first questions would to ask if I was seeing anyone as if that was the defining and most interesting thing about my life.
How did it feel to be doing all this travelling when your friends were having hen dos and weddings and posting baby announcements?
I did feel completely out of step with all my friends, which was hard. There was this feeling that I wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing. It was also hard because I had already done those things. I had had the long term partner and the big wedding and I had bought the flat and then suddenly, I was single at 34 and moving into a house share.
I think that’s why travelling really became my thing because I didn’t have any of those things anymore. It was quite painful to be going to lots of weddings when you're going through a divorce.
Last year, I had a guest writer who wrote about the stigma of being a young divorcee. Did you also feel that way?
Yes, absolutely. I think it's still a taboo topic in a weird way, especially when you're young. Given how much we talk about weddings, so little is known about divorce even though it’s so common. I realised while going through it that I had no clue about it. I think it's still quite shrouded in mystery so it's been nice to write about it and for people to say it’s really helped.
It can feel really lonely and there is a shame and a stigma to it, which is so unnecessary. It's sad when relationships doesn’t work out but there are a lot of positives in realising that you're not right for each other and and moving on. Even moving back into a house share can have its positives. It was good to have a change in view point and to gain a different perspective.
You wrote your column for Fabulous magazine about going from being the childfree friend to now navigating friendships as a mother. Tell us more.
I talk a lot in the book about how I thought I didn't want kids and that's such a big divide in friendship groups. I wrote my column about it because it was hard when it felt like all my friends were either having babies or talking about trying for babies. If you're not doing that, it can just feel quite lonely. You just feel a bit different.
When I was childfree, I would have friends who'd go on holiday together and not invite me and then they'd be like, ‘oh but it's because we've got our babies and so we thought it wouldn't be fun for you to come on holiday with babies’. Even if that was the case, you want to be asked.
Now I’m on the other side, I'm really conscious of the fact that even if you don't have kids or you don't want kids you still don't mind talking about it and there is like an interesting way to talk about babies as just as there is an interesting and a boring way to talk about anything. Before I had a baby, I loved my hearing about my niece and nephew and my friends’ kids. I think the worry about boring friends who don’t have children comes with the insecurity of being a new mum.
But I just don’t think friends have to be so segregated into those who have kids and those who don’t. In other countries, I think they manage to incorporate babies into life more than we do in the UK.
Do you remember your very first ever solo trip?
I did a study abroad year when I was at university and that was the first time I went away as I didn't take a gap year. I don't know how I managed it but I got sent to study in California. It was a jammy destination. I remember being so frightened before I left.
It was really hard leave my friends because I knew that by doing an extra year of my course, my friends would have graduated by the time I got back and that was quite a hard prospect. But the experience just completely opened up so many worlds for me not just in terms of being in this incredible destination but also with my course because I got to study new things that I probably wouldn't have done in the UK.
It's also where I met my future husband (and now ex) so it was life changing in that respect too. It really was a transformative year for me and I'm so glad that I did it and I really urge anyone who gets that opportunity to do anything like this, to go!
But it's so funny to think of how worried I was about leaving my friends and them graduating before me. That fear of being out step really does continue throughout life. There's so much pressure to be doing the things everyone else is doing, and so it's really hard to ignore that and forge your own path.
Kate Wills is a travel writer and columnist and the author of A Trip of One's Own: Hope, heartbreak and why travelling solo could change your life. She has written for The Guardian, Grazia magazine, The Evening Standard, Fabulous magazine, The Times, Vogue and The Telegraph to name a few. She is also the host of a new podcast Ticket For One.
Follow Kate on Twitter and Instagram. Buy her book here.
About me
For those who don’t know, I’m Nicola Slawson, a freelance journalist and writer who lives in Shropshire, UK. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter.
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