It's a crisp winter's day, and I am crawling the bakeries of Portsmouth. In each window, there are rows of Mediterranean tarts and fig-flavoured carrot cakes in preparation for the festive season. But it is a pastel de nata that stops me in my tracks, and I find myself smiling to myself as memories come flooding back.
It has been two years since I spent a month in Lisbon. I visited Confeitaria Nacional, one of Lisbon's tastiest bakeries, countless times on my trip. Their hot chocolate is the best in the city, I would argue, and their Portuguese custard tarts are unmatched. There's something comforting about the two-floor bakery, with its 18th-century decor, burgundy curtains and pale pink frills. The waitresses know me by now and bring me the freshest goods.
There was something about that city: the sunshine-yellow buildings, the way locals sit on park benches and talk to their neighbours. The bitter orange trees that grow diagonally across the famous seven hills, causing fruit to cascade downwards as I take the Tram 28 up to see a view from another miradouro.
I am still to work out whether it is Lisbon itself or the act of travelling solo that makes me feel this alive. As I duck into another café, or speak to a farmer’s market seller, or make acquaintances of smiling faces, I realise I am home wherever I am in this city.
Travelling solo did not begin with this trip, nor did it begin in my teens. As the daughter of South Asian and Muslim immigrant parents who were worried about their only daughter’s safety and her lack of fear for it, the push towards travelling freely initially began via an opportunity at my university, then later with friends, before graduating into a first solo trip at 24 years of age.
I remember distinctly feeling the need to get out of my hometown. A friend at the time, who was also a Muslim woman and a writer, suggested Malta as a destination. As a hijabi, she found it safe for Muslim women and had no issue. She had asked, as someone who travelled frequently for work, why I had not travelled by myself before. I could not answer her. I recall feeling this fear of the unknown.
It was soon after that conversation that I found myself walking down the promenade in Marsaxlokk, a village in Malta, seeking the best seafood in fishermen’s town. I had booked my flight six days before.
It had not hit me that I would be a stranger in a beautiful city by myself until I got to the royal blue door of my Airbnb. There was a realisation that I was here by myself, with no plans, no one I knew and conscious that no woman in my family or even friends had ever travelled by themselves before.
I quickly unpacked, slipped into a golden midi skirt and sandals that announced my arrival on the cobblestones as I went in search of the nearest ice cream parlour. This wasn’t something I couldn’t do in England, yet the difference was that I had travelled to a corner of the world by myself, with my own money, and on my own timeline. I was self-sufficient. The opportunities felt limitless.
For Muslim women, especially those of the South Asian diaspora, it is not encouraged for them to gain a sense of self outside of servitude for others. We are praised when we look after everyone else first. You do not get points for trying to access the world outside on a whim.
Although the Quran refers to its believers as “travellers”, as a reminder that everything is temporary and we are not in this world for long, it is recommended for a Muslim woman to travel with a man within her family. This is for protection; however, culturally, it can be manipulated for control.
Therefore, it’s no wonder that it is still a surprise when I mention in a broader conversation the places in which I have travelled by myself. There's a sense of shock in the air when I say aloud how I enjoy a solo long-haul flight, the excuse to parade around in a sheet mask thirty feet in the air while rewatching one of my favourite movies. In that moment, I appear alien to some people who share my faith.
There is still this idea that you have to be a certain type of woman to travel solo. The Eat Pray Love kind, with an unlimited stream of money and no ties to culture, faith, or any person.
Whereas, when solo travelling, that isn’t what I have found at all. It is during solo travelling that I have come across many Muslim women who wish to see beyond the horizons set for them. Those who wanted to make the most of their adulthood without the need for marriage. Who wished for more than their own mothers experienced. When we spot each other, we share the best local places to dine, the peaceful corners in the city to read a book and where to purchase knick-knacks at a reasonable price. Even as strangers, we see each other, why we are here and what we hope this experience brings to our lives. We help each other get into our respective taxis alone and share each other's details in case of emergencies, and plan dinners before we jet off elsewhere. Meeting other women who are solo travelling brings out the ultimate level of girlhood.
It was during my month-long stay in Lisbon that I contemplated the real sense of creating community where we go. In the space of four weeks, three other women I had met while in a coffee shop had become fast friends and would see each other multiple times each week. We would meet on Sundays for a pack of cards, share invites to parties happening around the city, recommend new books to each other, and meet for brunch after I prayed at Lisbon Central Mosque every Friday. These women even helped me pack my suitcase before I left home, while I cooked them dinner and gave them groceries and essentials that would come to no further use. When I am solo travelling, I feel at one with the universe. That the love that I put into strangers comes flooding back to me.
And then there are other moments, when I am alone in the city, and I can finally hear myself think. This tended to happen at the top of Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara. Where I could see the sky turn into a pastel-coloured painting, the fountain circled by lovers, and the terrace lights of apartments stacked on top of each other twinkle, allowing the scenic view to transform day into night.
It is in these moments of silence, when I am travelling solo, that my heart can actually keep to a regular rhythm, and my mind does not feel the need to be elsewhere. There is a sense of fulfilment; that this is where I am supposed to be.
Whenever I talk to women about solo travelling, especially Muslim women, I am reminded of a quote from the Barbie movie, “We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back and see how far they've come.”
That is the essence I have personally felt when solo travelling. But the gift that solo travelling has given me is this deeper ability to trust and believe in my inner compass. It has allowed me to ask myself who I am, when I am free from the stress of the everyday and what shape my joy takes when I am untethered. It may sound cliché, but women discovering who they are outside of their usual selves sounds pretty revolutionary to me.