The solitude I didn't know I was seeking
Some trips you plan for months, others frighten you until the very last day. My first solo journey was definitely the second kind.
October 2024: two weeks in the Aeolian Islands. First solo trip, first time working remotely without any support network, first hostel experience. An accumulation of "firsts" that had transformed excitement into an endless list of fears.
I imagined every possible mishap that could happen, this time with no one beside me to face them. Then there was that distinctly Italian social pressure: the silent judgment of those who see you traveling alone and think you're antisocial or strange. Because in Italy, you know, you're supposed to always travel with someone. And if you don't, something must be wrong.
But perhaps the greatest fear was being left alone with my thoughts. Not being able to socialize with other travelers. Discovering that, once you remove all the background noise of daily life, I wouldn't be able to bear the silence of my own mind.
The first day's lesson
On the first day, I dedicated myself to a rather long trek to Capo Milazzo. A series of beginner mistakes that make me smile today: arriving too early for the hostel check-in, instead of better organizing my timing or finding a way to store my luggage, I set off with everything on my back. And above all, never, ever do a long hike in new shoes. Ideally, I should have planned my arrival better to avoid that unnecessary strain. I arrived exhausted, with only one thought: sleep.
Too bad, because the other travelers at the hostel seemed really nice and I would have loved to socialize. But the foot pain won over my desire to meet new people.
The missing silence
It was those first two days of long treks in complete solitude that made me realize something important. Before that trip, like many people today I think, I was spending years of my life without ever experiencing long moments of total absence of external stimuli.
We're used to listening to music while washing dishes, walking, or running. Watching a TV series while eating lunch. Keeping the TV on for company. Going hiking with friends chatting throughout the entire excursion. But most of all, filling every moment of boredom with our smartphones.
All these stimuli have led us to a true deprivation of solitude.
Only months later, reading Cal Newport's "Digital Minimalism," would I find the right words for what I was experiencing. Newport defines solitude as "freedom from input from other minds." I hadn't read those words yet, but I was already beginning to experience their meaning on the trails of the Aeolian Islands.
Stromboli: epiphany in fire
The complete revelation came during the treks on Stromboli, where the only external stimulus was the pure power of nature: volcanic eruptions cutting through silence with their primordial force. There, walking for hours with only the rhythm of my steps and the breathing of the earth beneath my feet, I understood what I had missed in all those years of constant noise.
During those long solitary walks, I began to identify problems in my life that I didn't even know I had. I reasoned about how to solve them, but most importantly (and this was the most precious discovery) I became aware of what I had truly achieved in life, the journey I had taken, the mistakes and successes.
Sometimes I cried, from sadness or happiness, perhaps in front of a sunset that no one was sharing with me on social media. These were moments of pure union with myself, a union I had forgotten how to practice.
The return to solitude
Today, months after that trip, I realize how important this practice of solitude has become for me. It's become a habit: cooking, washing dishes, eating, and walking without any influence from screens, books, or podcasts. Long solitary walks have become among the most meaningful moments of my days.
It's not antisociality or misanthropy. Rather, it's the recognition that to truly meet others, you must first learn to be with yourself. To offer something authentic to the world, you must have listened to what you have to say when no one else is speaking.
That trip to the Aeolian Islands, which I had begun with so many fears, taught me that the real discovery wasn't a new island or landscape. It was the rediscovery of a territory I had abandoned without realizing it: the silence of my mind when it's free to wander without distractions.
And perhaps, in an age of constant connection, this has become the most revolutionary form of travel: the journey inward, into the silent territories of ourselves that we have forgotten to explore.
These are the reflections that emerge from the first week of that October 2024 journey to the Aeolian Islands, starting from Milazzo with the trek to Capo Milazzo, up to the volcanic trails of Stromboli. The photos from this trip capture not only the landscapes of the Aeolian Islands, but also those moments of solitude that I now recognize as the most precious: sunsets experienced without the rush to share them, trails walked at the rhythm of one's own thoughts, volcanic eruptions contemplated in complete silence.
📻 Soundtrack
📻 Colonna Sonora
🎵 Caricamento...
YouTube Music
It is in tune with my experience of those days: the need to create pauses of silence to listen to myself again.