1 Woman, 12 Months, 52 Places

JAN. 4, 2019

It was a dream job, visiting the globe’s most alluring destinations on

assignment.
Here’s what our 2018 Traveler learned in a year of almost nonstop travel.

The man on the train platform who spoke only Hindi looked at my ticket
and chuckled. This had been one of those days when mistakes piled up
faster than I could track them.

I had tarried too long in Chandigarh, India, and the four-hour taxi ride
back to New Delhi now promised to be a six-hour slog in traffic. No
problem, I could take a train instead, I thought, only to run out of money
on my cellphone SIM card just as I was booking a last-minute ticket. I
hopped in a tuk tuk and raced to the station, and got there five minutes
after the last fast train had left for the night.

When I started this harebrained experiment in January, to visit and report

on the Times’s entire 52 Places to Go in 2018 list, I thought that by stop 48,
for sure, I’d be the Wonder Woman of travel: blocking mishaps with a flick
of my wrist. Instead I was staring down a 2 a.m. arrival in New Delhi
before having to force myself awake for a morning plane to Bhutan.

But there was the man on the platform — a waiter for the railway, whose
job it is to pass out dinners — flashing a gesture that seemed to mean,
“Don’t worry, I’ve got you.” I had bought an “unreserved” ticket, which I
thought was for people who’d had trouble purchasing online, but which
really meant I’d likely have to stand for five hours.

But when the train pulled in, the man talked to the conductor and ushered
me into a sleeper car. English-speakers all around jumped in to interpret.
Seven dollars in fines and upgrade fees later, I was sitting in a cluster of
bunks with four boisterous 20-something women from New Delhi.
The words “dream job” come up whenever I tell people about the 52 Places
project. Like the thousands of others who answered that fateful job listing
— travel the world for The New York Times! — I had a vision of winning a
journalism lottery, of getting to leave behind my routine to swim in
waterfalls in Australia, paraglide off mountaintops in Switzerland and eat
at Michelin-starred restaurants in France. And I got to do all of those
things, for which I am incredibly grateful.

I’ve also had to face reality: that constant travel — alone — on an illogical
route no sane human would plan, might take a toll on my physical and
mental well-being. That The Times, quite reasonably, expected me to do
work and file stories, which meant spending a lot of time in beautiful
destinations in front of a computer. That I’d make gaffes along the way and
have to weather the sting of valid criticism. That I’d meet new friends only
to have to say goodbye a few days later. And that I’d be mostly celibate,
miss the births of four close friends’ babies, forget to call my parents. That
I’d reach the end, and all I’d want is to do it over again.

I started out, arms laden with recommendations and highlights,

determined to do every one of them: Eat all the food in New Orleans, hike
to the sea cave everyone goes to in Tasmania, visit every mountain temple
in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Yet what I remember most are the small
wins and human connections. The kind people and delicious salchipapas
(deconstructed hot dogs with French fries) at a Peruvian food truck on the
highway outside Disney Springs, Fla. The man in Lucerne, Switzerland,
who returned my laptop when I left it on a bridge in the rain. That army of
concerned citizens in Chandigarh.

Trust has been the through-line that has emerged from it all. Trust in
myself, trust in the fundamental goodness of people, trust that as a solo
female traveler, I could watch my back without walling myself off from
experiences.

You see, it was a dream job. It’s just that my idea of what made this dream
job dreamy has changed so much.
Total Distance Traveled
Approximately 74,900 miles
or one third of the way to the moon

Lesson No. 1: A year is short

I was going on 40, feeling sad about being single, and contemplating a
sabbatical from New York Magazine, where I’d worked for 17 years, when I
clicked on The New York Times home page and saw something curious: A
job listing in the most-read articles list. Did I want to travel around the
world and document it? it asked. Sure I did! So did pretty much everyone.
By the time I saw the listing, 3,500 people had already applied. The final
number, they tell me, was 13,000.

The odds were so impossible and the selection process so mysterious that I
couldn’t allow myself to get too excited. And then I got the incredible
phone call telling me I had three weeks to pack up my apartment, say
goodbye to everyone I knew, quit a workplace that felt like family and set
out for a year on the road.

All through my 20s and 30s, I had watched friends move to London or
West Africa, or quit their jobs and travel, and wondered how they possibly
had the confidence to do it. I had made the huge, scary leap from New
Mexico to New York City after college because it was the one big city I
knew, and I had family there. And then I stayed at the same workplace,
building a career I loved while living in a series of closet-size walk-ups and
earning barely enough money to go home for the holidays.

“Why do you think they picked you?” interviewers often asked me, and I
didn’t know the answer. I suspected it was because I hadn’t done anything
like this before. I’d never been brave enough. And maybe I could be a
representative for those who didn’t think they were brave enough, either.

Getting on that first plane to New Orleans, I felt as though I were stepping
into an unknowable void from which there was no return. The first few
months were tough. Five stops in, and behind on my writing, I wound up
in Bogotá, Colombia, still needing to file my articles on Montgomery, Ala.
(stop No. 3) and Disney Springs, Fla. (stop No. 4). I spent three straight
days in my Bogotá hotel, losing precious time to report on and photograph
the city. The one day I got outside, I took a taxi 30 minutes to the museum
I wanted to see and realized I’d left my wallet back at the hotel.

And I just lost it.

I called a dear friend of mine who works for The Wall Street Journal and
has made many a global move, and sobbed.

“I know this feels daunting right now,” she said, “but you have to
remember that a year is short.”

I argued that this was the longest year of my life, and it was only February,
and she didn’t know what she was talking about. But the saying stuck in my
head and acquired new meaning whenever I’d hear myself complain about
this wondrous opportunity.

Freezing down to your bones and sleeping in a by-the-hour motel where

you shower while sitting on the toilet? Suck it up! You’re about to see the
rainbow hills of Zhangye, China! A year is short.

Freezing again and dinner is bar nuts because you waited past 8 p.m.,
when all the restaurants close? You just rode a horse in Iceland! A year is
short.

Car got towed in Auckland, New Zealand, while on your third trip to the
Chinese consulate trying to get a visa? But you’re in New Zealand! And
you’re going to China! A year is short.

A year is short and a year is not enough.

A year is short, and I was strong, and the risk had always been worth it.
Clockwise from top right: The Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia; the Bürgenstock Hotel at Bürgenstock
Resort, in Lucerne, Switzerland; the Coral Coast of Fiji; and a chinchorro, or small informal bar,
in Santurce, Puerto Rico. Jada Yuan/The New York Times

Lesson No. 2: Know thy logistical self

My 27-hour travel day from Kanazawa, Japan, to India, was one of the
trickiest of the year and I had gamed it out to the minute: A 4 a.m. taxi to
the Kanazawa station, where I’d pick up luggage I’d left in a locker; a six-
hour train ride with two transfers, arriving at the Osaka airport with a
generous two and a half hours to check in for my flight. I’d filled out the
longest form in the world to get my India eVisa and paid to get it
expedited. And I had a ticket for onward travel to Bhutan, having
anticipating that India would require me to show I’d booked travel to exit
the country before I could get on the plane in Japan.

Then the AirAsia ticket counter woman asked if I had a paper copy of my
eVisa. I hadn’t thought to print it out. Nowhere else in the world, in 47
stops, had I needed to show anything but my phone at a check-in counter.

She couldn’t let me on the flight without it, she said. Check-in was closing
in 20 minutes. After a mad scramble, I ended up in line at a Family Mart
convenience store behind a woman printing out what looked like a 40-page
dissertation, watching as the clock ticked down. The complicated printer
setup required downloading an app to my phone, and by the time I had
printed it out, I’d missed the deadline by 15 minutes.

I raced up two flights of escalators and down several long corridors,

carrying the bags I hadn’t been allowed to check, prepared to beg the ticket
agent for leniency. By some miracle the line was still open. I handed
everything over, smiling with relief, and then looked up to see my plane
was on a 2-hour delay.

So like any reasonable person, I went back to the Family Mart and bought
a basket full of sushi snacks and tea-flavored Kit Kats, plus a beer to take
the edge off.

I’d estimate that at least 60 percent of this job was dealing with logistics.
And I even had a helper back in New York, who would research hotels and
flights for me.

Every country is different, with different currencies and different

languages, a different pace and different cultural customs. An unreserved
train ticket means one thing in India and another in Spain. Had I done
cursory research on the dual-island African nation of São Tomé and
Príncipe, I would have known to show up with a wad of euros, because the
society is completely cash-based and there are no ATMs foreigners can use.

At first, I tried following travel conventions that had worked for me on

one-off trips: booking planes and hotels in advance, picking the absolute
cheapest fares, guarding against delays by taking 6 a.m. flights, which are
the least likely to be canceled. Then four 6 a.m. flights in a row, with the
necessary 3 a.m. wake-up calls, turned me into a zombie.

I started listening to my rhythms. I am a night owl, for one, happy to wake

up for sunrises but usually not for planes. Inflexible travel plans give me
anxiety, particularly when they were coupled with work deadlines.

The trip had been planned to go from west to east, minimizing jet lag, but
some time zone changes knocked me out. The 24-hour travel day from
Zambia to Darwin, Australia, knocked me out for days.

I’ve become far calmer from having to deal with mishap after mishap, and
realizing that nothing dire usually happens. There would be another plane,
and more trains if I missed that one, too. Maybe I’d lose a day, but when
you’re on the road this long, time becomes malleable, too.

Longest Journey
6,881 miles
Zambia to Top End, Australia

Lesson No. 3: Develop your superpower

“So what countries are you going to?” asked Tina Phillips, a nurse at
Passport Health in Orlando, Fla., which issues vaccinations and
prescriptions for travelers who might encounter infectious diseases like
malaria, rabies or Japanese encephalitis.

I started listing off my 52 Places destinations. Ms. Phillips typed the

country names into the computer, her eyes widening as she laughed at the
absurdity. She sent me home with several needle sticks in my arm, $1,100
in preventive medicine, a video message telling my mother not to worry,
and a spiral-bound printout of all my health vulnerabilities.

One of my biggest fears going into this project was getting sick, or injured,
and having to come home early — or worse, having something happen
while I was in a remote location without access to adequate medical care.
Getting sick is painful, and often gross, but what worried me more was the
potential time suck on a trip so tightly scheduled that it would go off the
rails if I spent days groaning on a hotel bathroom floor.

My waistline has expanded and diminished throughout this trip, but the
medical kits I built so meticulously before I left the U.S. have remained
largely untouched in my suitcase. It’s a stash so extensive that a customs
officer at the ferry entrance to Tangier, Morocco, spent an hour
threatening, in Arabic, to confiscate it and accusing me of being a drug
dealer.

Instead, I discovered I have a superpower, which may be the sole reason

I’ve stayed relatively healthy: the ability to sleep anywhere, under any
conditions. Give me a window seat on an airplane and I’ll be lights out
before takeoff, no earplugs, eye mask or neck pillow.

I’d fall asleep in hotels on noisy streets as dogs barked all night, and in 20-
minute chunks, regulated by an alarm, between writing paragraphs of
articles on an all-nighter. In Tangier, two friends who joined me started
looking like death because of hourlong prayer calls outside our windows
every morning at 4 a.m. I didn’t even notice them.

But the only times I’ve gotten really sick were the colds I caught in Seville,
Spain, and Chandigarh after extensive sleep deprivation. I warded them off
with a lot of naps.

Longest Stay
12 days
Route of Parks, Chile

Lesson No. 4: Try it

The rain in Chilean Patagonia never really seemed to stop. Every article of
clothing I owned was soaked. Soppy socks, soppy shoes. The weather
matched my mood. Earlier that week, I’d called my friend crying yet again,
and told her I wanted to quit — I was so far behind in writing it felt like I
was drowning in obligations I couldn’t meet.
What do people do when it rains like this? I asked the hotel manager in the
national park, Parque Pumalín. “We do what we always do,” he said. “If we
stopped for rain, nothing would ever get done.”

So, in a small break in the rain, I went out to do what I always do: take
pictures, talk to people, get to know the place.

I was in the tiny town of Chaitén, which had been leveled by a volcanic
eruption 10 years earlier. Residents had come back, but the buildings
closest to the slope were still abandoned. I went to examine the ghost town.
A few friendly construction workers were rebuilding a house, a school. I
wandered further, to an industrial building that had been overtaken by
jungle growth straight out of “Jurassic Park.”

The rain started up again while I was inside, exploring the concrete
corridors and coming to the realization that I was inside an abandoned
prison.

And now I was trapped by torrential rain.

For two hours I watched the rain flood the dirt streets before me, and the
inside of this prison. I tweeted out my location, just in case. Then my
phone’s battery died, and it was just me and the torrent, alone in the wilds
of Patagonia, with the sun going down.

I had to make a decision, and the decision was to run, through the rain.
And in that rain, soaked and running, I looked around, at the blue-tinged
mountains around me, and the jungle shrubs on all sides, and the kind
people laughing at this silly foreigner who’d gotten caught in an abandoned
prison in the rain, and realized that all the rest was superfluous. This was
why I was here.

Something crystallized for me in that moment, of how singular this trip

was. I started trying things: I jumped off a 30-foot cliff into freezing river
water while “canyoning” in Megève, France; scuba dived and surfed for the
first time in Fiji; and maybe scariest of all, tried a taco with a crispy-fried
ant at Gustu in La Paz, Bolivia.
Two days ago, my friend Ben saw a dish on the menu of a barbecue joint in
Phnom Penh, Cambodia, he thought I should try to commemorate making
it to my 52nd place.

“Come on,” he said. “After this you can tell everyone you tried Fried Spicy
Cow Penis.”

The whole table agreed to join me. We ordered it and the kitchen brought
out Fried Spicy Beef instead. “We changed it for you!” they said, cheerily.

“Awesome,” said Ben. “We also want this one.”

The dish came out. It looked exactly as you would imagine. Ben ate a piece.
Then it was my turn. We have video evidence. I know I said, “try it,” but
you don’t need to try that one. I did it for you. You’re welcome.

Lowest Point
About 30 feet below sea level
Scuba diving in Fiji

Lesson No. 5: Learn what safe means to you

Eurydice Dixon, 22, Melbourne, Australia; June 13.

Mollie Tibbetts, 20, Brooklyn, Iowa; July 18.

Wendy Karina Martinez, 35, Washington, D.C.; Sept. 18.

Carla Stefaniak, 36, San Jose, Costa Rica; Nov. 28.

Grace Millane, 22, Auckland, New Zealand; Dec 1.

Maren Ueland, 28, and Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, 24, Imlil, Morocco;
Dec. 21.

Those are the names, ages, places and dates of death of seven women who
were violently murdered while walking home, jogging, hiking or taking a
birthday trip this year.
Of all the news that has filtered across my phone screen while I’ve been
bouncing around the world, none had the potential to throw me into a
paralytic spiral more than reading about a woman killed simply because
she was alone.

“Was there ever a time you felt unsafe?” a friend asked me recently. The
answer was no, not like I have been in the past, when I escaped attackers in
my Williamsburg, Brooklyn, neighborhood or on a trip to France; and also,
“Always.”

Caution as a solo female traveler is healthy; blind fear is not. I find that for
me the best system is to always remember that I am a tourist. It’s good to
know what people who live in a place have to say about safety, but also
realize that the rules that apply to them, who know where they are going,
and can blend in, don’t apply to me.

I’ve had to sacrifice areas of coverage I might otherwise enjoy, like night
life, because I didn’t feel safe going out alone. For the one destination that
was all about going out, in Belgrade, Serbia, I hired a translator-guide to
keep me company, who became a fast friend. In Bogotá, I met a young
female professor through Instagram who took me out with her friends for a
night.

There’s a literal extra cost to being a woman traveling on your own. In

cities where safety seemed like it might be an issue, I took cabs and Ubers
rather than cheaper public transport. Climbing up certain mountains or
going around certain cities, I opted for a guide, and often paid extra
because most private tours have a two-person minimum.

At one point, I got delayed arriving at an Airbnb I’d booked in Glasgow,

and had to retrieve the key, after midnight, from a lockbox attached to a
fence on a dark side street. A man, clearly on something, swayed back and
forth about 20 feet away, as I fumbled with the combination while also
trying to keep an eye on my bags. When I got inside, the apartment was
lovely, but the building looked like it had been through a bombing and
never recovered. Certain landings, including mine, had no lights, and glass
covered the floor from broken windows. I was hanging out with a local
travel writer who usually walked me home at night, but if he hadn’t been
there, no one would have known my whereabouts.

After that I vowed to stay only in hotels with 24-hour front desks rather
than rental apartments.

The idea of dating in a strange land quickly went out the window — I didn’t
have time and it didn’t seem safe. But I didn’t swear off romantic leanings
entirely. All told I had four make-out sessions all year, all in public or
under what felt like very safe circumstances. Those seem like little
miracles.

Highest Point
13,600 feet above sea level
La Paz, Bolivia

Lesson No. 6: Still, talk to strangers

Oh, the stories of strangers that I could tell.

In Montgomery, there was Marcus, an Uber driver who’d grown up in what

he described as “abject poverty,” who gave me an inspired lecture on his
city’s complicated racial history. We picked up his neighbor, a nurse, from
work, as he does every night, and finished with a feast at Applebee’s.

In Puerto Rico, there was Blandine, a travel agent who’d greeted me

dancing and singing by the baggage carousel, a few months after Hurricane
Maria, when much of the island was without power. A farmer, Elmer
Sánchez, mentioned a party to me and my friend, and we showed up to
find at least 400 people dancing to the best musicians in the country
playing by the light of a generator.

In Ypres, Belgium, there were the countless people attending the Last Post
Ceremony, to honor the missing fallen Commonwealth soldiers of World
War I, who told me the stories of their valiant, dead relatives, and ripped
my heart in two.
In Matera, Italy, there were Cosimo, Angelica, Mariangela, Alessandro and
Marcello, who introduced me to possibly the world’s most delicious food,
panzerotto (fried dough with cheese and tomato sauce), and made me feel
like I was family, even with my rusty Italian.

In Kigali, Rwanda, there was M.A., now a surrogate sister, and her entire
family, who hosted me at a birthday gathering two days after I met them,
while also sharing their stories of surviving genocide.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned? is a question I often get. I always
answer, “That people are fundamentally good around the world.”

Clockwise from top right: Farming in Bhutan; the coast between Hornopirén and Puerto Montt
on Chile's Carretera Austral; the Basilicata region of Italy; and Top End, Australia Jada Yuan/The
New York Times

Lesson No. 7: Alone does not mean lonely

Solo travel is an experience I’d urge every human, and particularly every
woman, to try at least once. You’ll find that while you might physically be
without people you know, you’re rarely alone. I had a device in my pocket
that allowed me to call home, and to post a picture on an app that opened
up conversations with strangers who just seemed to want to wish me well.

While in Patagonia, I spent four hours climbing a volcano in the rain by

myself, to reach a desolate summit with nothing but burned trees and
ashen pebbles. Out of the freezing cold mist came a hooded figure. “Hablas
esapañol o ingles?” I asked. English, he told me. He was a vegan punk-rock
drummer from Berlin who liked to laugh a lot and pet stray dogs, and we
ended up traveling together for the next five days.

My parents were my rocks through the ups and the downs. Weekly phone
calls with my therapist were among the best work I did. Certain friends
became lifelines. There was Heidi Vogt, with her endless logistical know-
how; Jean Lee, an expert on Korea and also on how to pack for any
eventuality; Chiwan Choi, a poet friend who kept me clearheaded on
writing; Marie Ternes, who talked me through story ideas even two days
before having her first child.

For the past week, I’ve stayed put in my 52nd place, the small town of Kep
on the Cambodian Coast. The plan was to spend the holidays alone in this
tranquil, piece of heaven on the beach, banging out my final articles.

Then I got an Instagram DM from an acquaintance from Los Angeles. She

had seen a photo I’d posted from Kep, and it was a strange coincidence, but
she and a girlfriend would be there the next day. Then I got another
message from Ben, who lives in Bangkok. He and his girlfriend, Zoe, were
trying to figure out one last vacation to take before they moved to New
York. Would I recommend Kep? Within 10 minutes he sent me his hotel
booking and flight information.
The next morning, I befriended a British family at my hotel and we got
along so well we went on a sunset cruise together.

The posse grew with each new arrival. We’d feast on crabs and then head
to a bar to play cards until the owner kicked us out. It was a magical
holiday, and in it I could see glimpses of the future, of being surrounded by
found family, content in each other’s company, of traveling solo but never
being, or desiring to be, truly alone.

What’s next? I don’t know. I might be physically going back to the

apartment I left behind in Brooklyn 12 months ago, but the center of my
life isn’t there for me anymore. It’s with me and it’s mobile.
Jada Yuan in Peru, the seventh stop on her 52 Places journey. Kerri MacDonald/The New York
Times

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