The Trips that Never Happened

I thought I was going to go out with a bang. To end my stay here, I was going to travel around—to Singapore, Japan, and South Korea to be exact. Despite my intentions though, I won’t be going to any of them in the near future, and while I’m a little saddened, I know I’ll get over there some day. 

It came down to a lack of earlier planning and the fact that I would have been traveling by myself. I was highly advised by my parents not to travel alone, because it’s always good to have at least one traveling companion for safety, even if you speak the language. (English and Mandarin for Singapore—yes, Japanese I could brush up on, South Korea I would have been relying on hoping to find English speakers.) I understood my parents concerns, but I wanted to go for it at least once. I heard that traveling alone is an experience like no other, and similar to studying abroad, I wanted to make this experience my own.

The ultimate reason why it didn’t work out was because of money. Because I hadn’t planned earlier, the prices were all inflated for the holidays. Because I was to be traveling alone, accommodation priced for two was little cheaper for one. One of the major services that I’ve been using, Cathay Pacific Holidays, doesn’t even allow for single travelers to book because all their prices are worked out for parties of two.

I looked into a weeklong trip to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Hotel and flight alone would have cost me $700 USD. For just $300 dollars more, I could have brought along two more people. So in the end, I decided that in order to spend money in a more sensible manner, I would postpone these trips indefinitely. After all, I’m most definitely coming back to East Asia sometime.