An introvert's guide to travelling alone

Last month I took myself away to find true solitude- but also myself

Are you married?

Yes.

Do you have family?

Yes, but no children.

Do you have friends?

Some.

The taxi driver eyes me suspiciously from his rear view mirror as we make our descent into the small town of Argostoli. It is my final dinner of the week in the greek island of Kefalonia and I have chosen a romantic spot by the water’s edge in a restaurant I have been going to for the last few evenings. It is usually filled with holidaying lovers and families blowing out candles on giant tiramisus shared with several spoons. But tonight, like every other night, I eat alone.

The taxi driver has been ferrying me about this small corner of Kefalonia all week. I know he finds me an oddity: a middle-aged woman of certain means who eats alone, shops alone and watches golden sunsets all by herself. I suspect he feels sorry for me- this is usually how it goes with men of a certain age in foreign countries.

But to me this is heaven.

Although I have a husband and a handful of friends- both of whom I holiday with once or twice a year, the majority of my travel is undertaken alone. It was not always this way. Up until the age of about 30 I believed travel was a thing to be shared; that the joy of a mountain view was intensified by the ability to share it with someone else. But my husband is a solo traveller- having spent much of his career as a journalist reporting on stories in far off corners of the world. Thus it was a stipulation of our marriage that he would continue, nay needed, to travel alone.

This led me with a dilemma: how to travel to the places I loved without a partner to do it with. Friends were an option, but all the diarising and compromising sort of took the excitement out of the whole thing. As for holidaying with family, it felt too much like a return to childhood.

And so I decided to travel the world alone.

I figured out rather quickly that cities tended to be the easiest option for the solo traveller given you can slip in unnoticed amongst the crowds. There is a delicious sort of solitude to be found when amongst the company of others- especially when protected by an uncommon language. Paris. Stockholm. Tokyo - all are wonderfully undertaken alone and undercover, especially as a female traveller since they are also very safe. (You can find my solo guides to Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Paris on this Substack too). I have also been on various ‘self-improvement’ retreats alone -namely yoga, detox, or writing retreats, as well as a disastrous 3-day walking holiday in the Austrian Alps where I discovered to my absolute horror that ramblers are as committed to the art of small talk as they are to the art of walking.

And yet all these trips are a cheat in some way, since you are only ever alone through volition rather than environment. Because what I have actually always dreamed of is traveling to somewhere where true solitude is part of the deal. An island perhaps, in a house on a hill, where the beaches are deserted and there are just a clutch of cafes in which to eat. Somewhere with a little luxury too- because I have bad knees and a sore back and I know my cotton thread counts. And so a few weeks ago I found myself in Eliamos.

I don’t know what you would call Eliamos. It’s a hotel with villas, I suppose. But a hotel where you barely see anyone else; and with villas that are like stepping into an Architectural Digest magazine cover. The outdoor gym is always blissfully empty; the restaurant never heaving - even when the place is full, as was the case when I was there. You never have to wait for an electric bike to become available and the beach is a slow, meditative walk down a small hill, which is empty when you get there except for a lone black cat who eyes you up furiously.

I arrived at Eliamos a wreck of a person. I had spent the previous 7 months grieving my father’s gruesome death, had taken to working 13 hour days to try and outrun my feelings and was late on a 10,000 word book proposal that has been due months earlier. I would routinely forget words in the middle of conversations- or worse my own mother’s birthday. (She phoned me at 11 o’clock the same day to check I was still alive, it was that out of character.) My brain felt scorched. My body heavy and disconnected.

Eliamos’ instant appeal was that it was on the Greek island of Kefalonia. I had been to Kefalonia before, almost 20 years earlier in fact on my first holiday abroad with my husband, then my boyfriend. I remembered it as a vast, untrammelled island- very green with crisp blue seas and few tourists.

The garden villa’s wonderful garden

I arrived late one Saturday afternoon in May- and was led towards a small, discreet reception with pale walls and a small library of books. The genteel manager, Anna, sensing my exhaustion simply handed me a small wooden card key before leading me to my villa, which was one of three called The Garden Villas.

We walked the short distance to my home for the next week where we were greeted by a small wooden gate and a high wall which cossets the villas from the small street below. Once inside we were greeted by an entire landscape of pale blue lavender hillocks that thrummed with the gentle hum of bumblebees at work, whilst the scent of jasmine filled the air.

Lavender hillocks and a tranquil house high on a hill-just what I needed

Though the three villas are side by side, each is separated by a generous, lovingly planted garden filled with sweet roses, pale pink gaura and delicious, herb-scented salvias. (I am a gardener and know how hard this is to achieve in a place like Greece.)

We slipped soundlessly inside where Anna, with a smooth orchestration of her arm, walked me through the interiors. There was a beautiful state of the art kitchen with pots and pans and every kitchen gadget you could possibly imagine- coffee machine, microwave, dishwasher. But also a mini bar crammed with posh nibbles. There was a large lounge area too with poured concrete floors and a sofa with views out to the garden beyond. A bedroom trailed off to the side with crisp linens and acres of wood- the wardrobes, the desk, the side tables and a large bathroom that even had its own little seating area should one require a sit-down when brushing your teeth. (The absolute height of luxury in my opinion.)

Dream kitchen set up

I bid Anna goodbye, poured myself a glass of sweet Greek wine and sat on the edge of the bed stroking the bed sheets. It was so quiet I could hear by own breath.

The following morning I headed down to the beach with a book and a notepad. Greece is very good in May, with bright blue skies and a breeze that gently ruffles your hair. The walk was quiet and elemental, surrounded by cliffs on both sides. A small lizard accompanied me the entire way and when I arrived five or ten minutes later (time moves slowly in this part of Greece) there was nothing but rocks and sand and sea. I sat by the shore for some moments and thought of my father, now at rest in the earth he loved so much and for the first time in weeks I wept. The sun came out and the black cat darted off into the cliffs. I felt, finally, like I could breath again.

Not a soul for miles

Later I took lunch in the smart on-site, which is exactly my sort of restaurant with chairs and tables spaced beautifully apart. Most tables have a view out to sea, but you can sit and eat on the wide sofas should you choose -which I often did. The menu is small but perfectly formed, fresh and local in all the best ways: lobster burgers, greek salads, bread that is soft and unctuous and olive oil which tastes of the earth. The staff flitted soundlessly back and forth refilling water glasses, clearing plates and all the time flashing small, warm smiles which told you not to worry- they understood. You were here alone to enjoy being alone. Small-talk with the team was not on your agenda. (I cannot tell you how rare I find this nowadays, where well-meaning wait staff think being alone means you desperately want conversation.)

There is a gym at Eliamos too, with Pilates classes on every morning- though I was too exhausted to make a single one; and a small spa which dispenses excellent massages. I booked a couple of reformer pilates classes with a young man with a kind face whose name I now forget, but who may well be the best personal trainer I’ve ever met. We exchanged few words but he somehow knew exactly what my body needed, and was capable of at that moment in my life. He set up the sleek wooden reformer each morning, and we pushed ourselves through jumps and stretches and stomach crunches I had not done in years. And at the end of every session a smart waiter in a crisp white top would bring over a tray of filtered water scented with limes.

Because Eliamos, which by the way is part of the Relais and Chateaux group and was recently awarded two Michelin Keys, operates like a private villa collection but with all the amenities of a hotel, every day I would wander into reception for advice. Where to go shopping? How to get into the nearest town, Argostoli? Where to eat? Where to walk? And because the staff somehow sensed I was here for restoration and peace every recommendation was spot on. You can of course go far and wide across the island. There are private boat tours to take and a star gazing evening in the local national park that can all be arranged with a phone call or two. But also, if all you want- as I did, was a scrap paper with a few local restaurants scribbled down, then you can have that too.

A gentle quiet corner for reading

Peace is part of the deal here. And I mean real, deep peace as opposed to the sort of peace proffered by those corporate luxury hotels who think scented rooms, a large spa menu and mood music in the foyer does the trick.

Most days I barely left my villa, instead choosing to write out on the large wooden table in the garden as birds flitted in and out of the pool. Room service was delivered by a quiet waiter who would slip in with a silver tray and leave a hot bread roll with Eliamos’ famous tapenade for me, since they knew this was my favourite thing on the entire menu. (I still dream of it.)

My morning routine involved little more than ambling into the small local village, whose name I did not even know. The walk took me past houses where real lives were played out each day, to an infinitely slower pace than that which I knew. Dogs lazed in driveways, an old woman sat on a step selling honey to passers-by who never stopped, whilst builders bent and slaved away in the dust and the heat.

For six whole days and nights Eliamos forced me to slow down and truly drop into myself. This wasn’t just about travelling alone- which I have done many times before. This was about offering me a chance to connect with myself- a place which is often harder to reach than the moon.

And I thought about this as I sat eating dinner alone with a tiramisu that was flagged as being ‘for two’ but which I ate entirely by myself with a single spoon overlooking the Ionian sea that flows past Argostoli. And I thought about my father, and the 10,000 words I had written that week, and the black cat who had become my friend, and the rocky walk to the beach each afternoon and the table set for one that I walked to every night.

And I felt truly, wonderfully blessed.

Some other nice pix from Eliamos

*I was a guest of Eliamos for a few days only but paid for the rest of the entirety of my trip and was in no way asked to write a long review. I just had the best, most productive week and wanted to share it. You can visit their website here.

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