Beginner solo-ish female traveler's guide to: Mainland China.

Summer in the south of China is an ungodly combination of hot and humid. All the residents at the university and the small towns surrounding it promptly abandon it for cooler vacation places by the sea. I am not a social animal, so summer holidays do not mean visits and parties with friends. I'm too broke to afford a plane ticket home and I've had enough with crowds for the semester to willingly endure anymore. But staying inside my tiny student apartment, with my broken air conditioner, will not cut it anymore. I feel like a frog in a pot of boiling water. I need an out. Stat!

A french lady teaching at the university becomes a willing and trustworthy travel partner (crucial!). We've made awkward conversation on the climb up the apartment as we complain about every manner of cultural shock we have experienced in China. She asked to travel together first. I'm so excited, I forget that I'll have to have more conversations with this person for a week.

There's no solid plan for our trip, as my travel partner is the sort to let the wind guide her travels. She is a more seasoned traveler than I. And since I could not let the future of my summer holidays look like a black hole of stay-ins dominated by binge-watching endless Korean dramas (nothing really wrong with that though) or staring at my laptop for lack of content to write about (the beginnings of depression), I choose blind adventure.

Now, perhaps a disclaimer is needed here. I suffer from mild to moderate decision-making anxiety. Traveling alone as a woman in any place on earth is dangerous, unfortunately. However, I believe that these are boundaries that are constructed either personally or by society to limit the true extent of woman capability. Preparation and appropriate safety precautions are crucial. IF YOU ARE A STUDENT, INFORM YOUR UNIVERSITY BEFORE GOING ANYWHERE WHEN TRAVELLING ABROAD. That said, here are some more tips for those of you, fellow female folk, traveling to and around China.

1. Always travel with someone, at least for your first run

This goes without saying, my fellow female folk. Like I said, sadly that is still the nature of the world we live in. While the level of security in China is generally picking up, thanks to technological advancements in surveillance and general improvement in policing, it is better to be safe than sorry. Travel partners are good for more things than safety though. Mine acted as my accountant, we monitored each other for personal items, took each others' pictures, and shared the second embarrassment for cringy travel photos. Plus, the fact that she was French, blond, and fair-skinned, we kind of split the bill on the shock effect the locals got from seeing foreigners in the more remote areas.

2. Sometimes the weird journey is the adventure, not the destination

I had procrastinated deciding to go sightseeing for so long, a spontaneous last-minute decision and all its consequences, was what I was left with ultimately. Throughout a journey filled with uncomfortable bus rides, confusion aided by a language barrier, and unfamiliarity with the terrain, I was comforted by the promise of the destination that was waiting for me at the end of it. Halfway through our travel stops, we were met with enough ridiculous encounters to fill a memoir on the way to famous tourist sites. My travel partner kept repeating the words " if we are meant to go there, we will find a way, always". Perhaps because she could clearly see my flight instincts setting in. So my advice to you or future me is to hold on to the promise of that destination firmly in your mind, even when the going gets tough. Because if you were meant to go there, you were willing enough to come this far, it's worth it reaching the end, you will get there. Enjoy the journey too.

3. Research

I am naturally an overthinker and for me, the best medicine for anxiety is the availability of knowledge. Copious amounts of it. For even the most adventurous of people, they need to know at least where they are going or at the very least know where to start. Information on a first trip out of your normal schedule will always be a great tool to have. Look up the place that you want to go to and know how to get there. And since you cannot always rely on technology to have your back at all times, write numbers, words, and names down in a book or on a piece of paper so you can hold it up to taxi drivers or on the street to let the kind Chinese people guide you. Take a picture of the complex Chinese characters. This is true for food items you want to eat. Wireless internet is also always available at most hotels, inns, and restaurants to use to look up directions and information at rest stops. Always be informed or you are most likely to end up starting at a closed sign at a museum or a useless train ticket (been there). If you can grasp basic Chinese, the travel apps are your best friend.

4. Your best game is the tourist card

I am a dark-skinned, 5 ft. 7 African girl with a head FULL of relatively dense and coarse kinky hair which I occasionally like to tame with braids. In rural China, I stick out like a sour thumb. In a crowd of petite Chinese people, I think I am more likely to stand out next to an alignment of mythical creatures. Ignoring how the staring made me immensely uncomfortable, I discovered that I was easily the first sighting for most of the locals, especially when this type of foreigner can speak Chinese, even barely. The locals are quick to aid on numerous occasions and in most cases even likely to give gifts and discounts and are a boundless and willing (sometimes too willing) source of information and suggestions if only you are willing to smile and say hello.

5. Travel cheap, eat cheap, and tour like a king

If you can afford it, then by all means travel, eat and tour like a king. But perhaps you are like me, a student on a budget hoping to stretch out that budget into a schedule well worth the money (trust me, the real food is the one on the streets). It wouldn't make any kind of sense to splurge on expensive air tickets, hotels, and restaurants only to miss out on the tour sites. I had set myself a strict budget, initially believing that I would run into disasters for which I should prepare suitably, so the bulk of my budget was in actuality a safety fund.

However, I found that what I had initially planned to be a two-day trip stretched into five days. It is the nature of traveling in China. So, save a little more by going the cheap comfortable route and be able to fit more memories into your journey outside airports and expensive hotel rooms. Skip the mainland airplanes, take the subway, the high-speed trains, or bus. See the beautiful countryside, eat a bowl of cheap goooood beef noodles at train stops, and sleep at a small hotel. With a tourist industry largely supported by its own people and an insanely functional transportation system, China has learned to be accommodating to every kind of budget.

6. Follow the pied piper

I know this is a really weird thing for someone who naturally loves avoiding crowds and crowded places, but sometimes the phrase "follow the music" does lead to wonderful discoveries that I would have otherwise missed out on by going my own way. So when in doubt about where to go, what to do, or what to see, chances are it's probably where the positive, happy, loud, and bright noise and movement is at.

7. Traveling is an experience of the senses

Being anxious has always been the greatest barrier for me when it came to being adventurous. But once I did the one spontaneous thing that ensured there was no going back, like agreeing to travel with someone or buying the train ticket, the rest of the journey came naturally. Ironically, I have always found traveling to be a form of therapy, a way to detach myself from the thoughts that ruled me. So I focus on the other senses, touching foreign or interesting textures like old walls and doors, tasting new food, listening to different sounds like the beautiful Chinese local dialects, that like music, feed a traveler's soul. Absorbing these sensory memories is in itself healing and infinitely rewarding. It gave to me a sense of want and courage to do this traveling thing more. Let your senses guide you and you will truly enjoy all that China has to offer.

Upon my return, I'm overwhelmed with the heady feeling of being able to accomplish anything. It might just be the adrenaline from my first solo-ish touristic trip in China or the relief that I had not been kidnapped and sold for body organs (this is why I never go anywhere) speaking. I might also not be an expert at giving great travel advice to anyone, however, from the truly wonderful experience I had, I want to give a few tips for the tentative traveler like me. If anything, this might serve as a manual to me the next time I feel too anxious about going places...because it was worth it...going places.

This post is reposted from a blog I started in 2018 but never paid much attention to. The photos used here are taken from stops at an off-the-beaten-track small ancient trading town in Huaihua in Hunan Province, which is nearly abandoned.

Are you up to traveling alone around China?

PAT.