Knock Knock. Who’s There? Exactly

“Go simple, go solo, go now” was Audrey Sutherland’s mantra, and the single mother of four lived by it, swimming the meagerly charted and rugged north coast of Molokai in 1962, towing a raft with supplies and sleeping at night on wild and empty beaches. Later, at age fifty-nine, she began a series of solo paddles through the waters of Alaska, returning to the north almost every summer, eventually covering more than eight thousand miles by the time she put away her boat at age eighty-two.

I don’t recall Sutherland’s rationale for going alone. My small collection of her books has passed into new hands so others might enjoy them, and my notes from them are sparse on the matter. I suspect she enjoyed her own company best. She was a determined woman, with strongly held beliefs (she famously kept a long list of skills children should learn by age sixteen), and she didn’t let a job or any other person stand between her and her goals. She wasn’t a misanthrope, though. Before quitting and aiming for Alaska, she worked as a vocational counselor and in later years taught and lectured. I believe that for her, as for so many, being alone was simply the key that unlocked the greatest sense of adventure.

I never met Sutherland, who passed away in 2015 at age ninety-two, but she remains a kindred spirit and inspiration. I’m an only child, and while I had plenty of friends growing up, some of whom remain close today, early on I learned to entertain myself with reading, creativity, and solo explorations. I have always been happily self-contained and comfortable in my own skin; by constitution and by the circumstances of an unconventionally structured job, many if not most of my adventures in recent years have been conducted alone. When I decide to go, I just go.

There are heaps of rewards for lone-wolfing it. No one questions your choice of playlist or listening to the same song a dozen times; indeed, your playlist is always genius. You can climb as many trees, drive down as many dirt roads, take as many summit naps as your heart desires. You eat what you want, as often as you want. And perhaps most important, you are reliant on yourself and yourself alone, the true meaning of which becomes apparent when you are lost, or debating whether to push on as the sun is setting, or when your gear or the weather goes awry. Few pursuits will teach you as much about yourself—your joys, fears, limits, and capabilities—as solo adventures.

But self-contained doesn’t have to mean hermetic. You can travel in a bubble of solitude, as I often have, staying off the phone and internetty things, avoiding interactions, in the hopes of magnifying one’s sense of aloneness. But what’s far more fun, interesting, engaging, and rewarding is going out in the world by yourself and seeing who you meet along the way. A few years ago, inspired by photographer Elliot Ross and his images of “single-serving friends” he met on the road, I began seeking opportunities to spark conversation with strangers. Not weirdly—only when there seemed common ground or an obvious opening. And not in the interest of acquiring something, like trail beta or road conditions, but simply to have a moment of connection and learn a little about someone else’s life.

Although these interactions might start awkwardly—who’s this shaved-head, coffee-stained man and what does he want from me?—they almost always end with surprised delight. Science tells us why. “From a survival point of view or evolutionary point of view, our brains want us to make connections to other people because we’re more likely to find mates, more likely to be able to protect ourselves from predators, more likely to be able to steward scarce resources,” says Dr. Anna Lembke, a professor at Stanford University and author of Dopamine Nation. “Our brains get us to make those connections by releasing dopamine and making sure it feels good.”

Lembke says substances and behaviors that become addictive, such as alcohol, drugs, and digital consumption, are just stand-ins for what we’re really craving, which is this human connection. Studies of the so-called blue zones, the parts of the world where people live longest, show having a network of friends, from extremely close to extremely casual, is key to longevity. Even the lone wolf, apparently, wants to stop and chat about the weather. All I know is that my travels once were about seeing what’s in the blank spots of my map; now they’re also about seeing who’s there, and I’m so much better for it.