Monique Andre has been solo traveling about the world considering the fact that she was a teen, when she initially flew to Europe by herself. Now 54, she’s traveled all-around the U.S. in her conversion SUV and overseas to far-off locales like Patagonia, Iceland, Bali, and several, lots of much more, all the while documenting her travels on Instagram and TikTok underneath the take care of @neveraroadmap. Down below, in her have words and phrases, Andre talks about reconnecting with her perception of childlike marvel, resisting the narratives that make girls fearful to move through the earth, and the initially ways any one can acquire towards their have solitary adventures.
I have been traveling considering the fact that I was born. My mother and father experienced a boat, so it was component of my upbringing—specifically, traveling by sailboat.
When I was 3 yrs aged, my mother and father break up up, and my mother moved to the Hamptons to increase me. At age 10, my mothers and fathers decided to get again together, and we moved onto my father’s sailboat. We sailed from New York to Florida in August 1978 and spent the winter in Important Largo.
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Although there, I received an essay contest the place the prize was touring with a couple other kids to a deserted island in the middle of the Everglades. It seems nuts by today’s standards—even even though we did have chaperones—but we slept in tents on the island for a couple days. We had to wake ourselves up each early morning, and I continue to recall receiving out of my tent and obtaining a location on the island to view the sunrise by myself.
It was the Everglades, so of study course there ended up alligators and snakes, but no a person ever explained “be very careful,” and that really served condition the particular person I am these days. There was practically no a single else all over, and I had to just take care of myself. That was the moment I figured out who I was and what I loved—I don’t at any time bear in mind experience far more alive, and I’ve expended a life time heading back and forth concerning these glimmers of me, just me, and the self-imposed societal expectations of me.
The creator at age 10 sailing the Intracoastal Waterway although living on a boat with her family members.
As a Hamptons child, I was in the nightclubs of New York Metropolis by the time I was 13 yrs outdated. Then, of system, I moved to Manhattan to show up at the Vogue Institute of Technology—it was the upcoming phase on my way to a glamorous metropolitan way of living.
I was 17 when I went on my initially excursion by myself, from New York to Europe. I experienced family members in Germany, so 1st I flew to remain with family, but spontaneously determined to soar on a practice to Rome, and then Paris. The visa legislation modified whilst I was there, so I didn’t know I essential a visa to get into France and was detained at the train station for not possessing just one. I was set on a teach back to Germany in the center of the night time, so I received off the teach at the border, located a lodge, and secured my visa the up coming day. I went ideal again to Paris. At the time, I didn’t talk much more than higher school-level French, and it hardly ever crossed my intellect that I wouldn’t be able of getting care of myself even when hardships had been introduced to me.
I really do not remember anyone imagining it was unusual for me to go off to Europe alone. The up coming 12 months, I went to Ecuador to volunteer with Earthwatch, an environmental nonprofit that pairs volunteers with researchers. We went up into the Andes to function with Indigenous tribes. I felt privileged at 19 that I was approved and permitted to be there, and I was cognizant of my purpose obtaining a further connection to the two the world at significant and myself.
The writer in Iceland in August 2021.
During that time interval, I was performing as a waitress at the fancy Upper East Aspect cafe Le Bilboquet with celebrities all all over me, but I was absorbed in examining Diane Fosse’s Gorillas in the Mist. I felt depressed and puzzled what I was performing with my life. I truly feel like I spent my entire 20s going again and forth involving my internal self—what felt correct for me and manufactured me come to feel full, which was traveling—and the adult anticipations of a job and funds. In some means, it felt like a pipe dream for me to do what I truly required to do.
Once all over again, I packed up and headed to Southeast Asia for nearly a year. Whilst there I had what I’ll phone a Mowgli moment. I was in the jungle with a tribe on a tiny island off the coastline of Sumatra, Indonesia and I noticed my reflection in a pool of water. I sat there in disbelief, because I understood I hadn’t noticed myself in a thirty day period. Truthfully, it rocked my globe. It hadn’t even dawned on me to get worried about what I seemed like although there. I in no way after considered, do I have a pimple? Or if I had luggage underneath my eyes, or if my hair was a mess. I was living with around zero feelings about my exterior physical appearance. The handful of garments I had were being washed in the river. My nails were being by no means performed, and I observed it all so liberating, especially coming out of the Hamptons and New York Town modern society.
In Guatapé, Colombia, circa June 2019.
Spoiler: I did return to traditional lifetime and stayed in it for over 20 decades, but now I locate myself casting off determining labels like mother, spouse, trainer, and reconnecting with the 10-12 months-outdated variation of myself I located in the Everglades.
My social media accounts are named “Never a Roadmap” for the reason that in so significantly of daily life, we constantly have a destination in head, a area we’re meant to go, and a road map to get there. But lifetime occurs together the way—if we’re way too targeted on generally next the route, I consider we danger not making the most of the present second. So quite a few folks communicate about trying to come across on their own, which indicates that you missing on your own. I come to feel like we do drop ourselves in careers and associations, significantly as ladies.
Numerous women of all ages attain out to me on social media stating they’d adore to travel like I do, but they’re worried. I want to adjust the narrative that ladies must sense unsafe anywhere we go. If I can inspire other females who see me, an typical lady, driving off-highway, snowmobiling on glaciers, taking small boats to hostels in the center of unique locales, and remaining in treehouses and boutique accommodations, all the whilst meeting fabulous people today all around the entire world that treat me with kindness and viewing the sheer joy I come to feel by believing that the globe is variety, I have accomplished my work. My tendency to travel by itself tends to make individuals experience self-confident about earning alterations in their personal life, even so compact. I recently told one particular female who reached out, “Go to a rock climbing gym someplace near you.” It can take bravery to go to a climbing gymnasium by by yourself, under no circumstances having performed it prior to, in another portion of town—that’s a solo journey to me. It doesn’t have to be Patagonia to commence.
I have traveled with household and pals, but I desire touring solo. When you vacation by oneself, it genuinely will get to the core of who you are as a man or woman. You strip almost everything absent, all of the titles, and reconnect with the person you are inside.
I’m going to Bali soon, and I have my 1st three evenings booked, but then I have a month the place I really don’t know exactly where I’m remaining or what I’m performing. Each when in a when, I’ll glimpse at anyone else’s Instagram and imagine, Oh, I have to go there. Occasionally I go, but a lot more usually than not, I inform myself to stop so I can generate my very own eyesight and not just observe another person else’s. When I really don’t know what I’m doing or exactly where I’m going, it would make the encounter a lot more authentic—when there’s no vacation spot, you just can’t get missing.
I don’t think there’s definitely an conclude of the street for me. All I can photograph is that in my 60s and 70s and 80s, I want to be accomplishing specifically what I’m executing now. So lengthy as I can hold returning to a area of my interior 10-12 months-old and where I’m most satisfied and vibrant, I’ll keep moving.
