Solo travelling at 60: A story from Norway.

“Hey mate… do you speak English?”

"Well you’d hope so, I’m from there!!”

Well fuck.

This wasn’t the exact person I was looking for.

In my head, my second ever street interview, now in Norway, would involve a poised, perfectly refined Scandinavian, with an accent as thick as two short planks, but wisdom in his Norwegian-ness that’d blow my mind.

But instead, I’d bumped into an english chap.

He seems keen enough I thought, and decided to sit down beside him, and ask him a simple question:

“What’s one piece of life advice you have for a 20 year old?”

He paused for a moment; I wondered for a second if he’d just zoned out on me completely.

‘Travel as much as ye can.

Learn from people.

Get as much experience as ye can.

Because it becomes more difficult as you get older!!’

While being as far away from home as I’d ever been, feeling a combination of lost and found at the same time, I was reminded by someone that I ought to keep exploring.

We continued to talk for a while after ending the short interview, and this man (Morris was his name), continued to share his story of looking to travel now that he was retired, since he never took the chance when he was younger.

Solo travel is never too late for anyone, and that includes you.

Whether you feel like you’re running out of time in life, at 18, 25, or 60, remember that you have all the time in the world.

And I don’t urge you to take that literally.

I urge you to try feel what that phrase can bring up in you.

Can you act a little more calm, a little more in sync, or lead with slightly more action in life, in order to “experience as much as ye can”, or to take the leap and visit a new country?

Maybe you can be a little like Morris. Maybe you don’t have to wait on anyone to explore what life truly feels like when you live within it.

It’s like our phones can keep us outside of life - feeling like the future is when it visits us. But you have to knock. You have to step into the uncertainty of being in the moment.

We shook hands one final time, wished each other a pleasant rest of our travels, and I continued walking down the beautiful streets of Bergen, each step a little lighter than the last.