Adventure Begins Today

I nearly always only post the highlight reel of travel. The incredible landscapes. The wildlife. The sunsets. The freedom.

What I don’t always post is the part where you’re sitting on the floor of Heathrow Terminal 4 at 4am, trying very hard not to cry.

(Although, for a brief moment, I did wonder whether life might suddenly turn into a romcom. You know the scene. A billionaire with impeccable timing spots me sitting on the floor, falls hopelessly in love and says, “Forget the commercial flight. My private jet is this way.” I can confirm this did not happen.)

Instead, I was having a minor panic. My Kenyan visa had been approved online, but the confirmation email hadn’t arrived. Without it, I couldn’t check in my bag. I was stuck.

When you travel solo, there’s no one to share the mental load with. No one to say, “Let’s think this through. So your brain does the job of two people. Mine immediately started calculating every possible scenario.

Could I still get into Kenya?

Would the airline let me board?

If not, how much would another flight cost?

Would I miss the start of my tour?

How on earth would I get to my first destination if I arrived a day late?

The cheapest flights for the following day were around £2,500. Even then, there was no guarantee the visa email would have arrived. Suddenly, sitting on the airport floor felt like a perfectly reasonable life choice and I’ll admit something else too – for a fleeting moment, I wished I wasn’t quite so independent.

I love travelling on my own. I genuinely do. But every now and then, when everything seems to be going wrong, it would be nice to have someone beside you saying, “We’ll sort it.”

Thankfully, at 5.15am, just ten minutes before bag drop closed…

…the email finally arrived.Cue absolute chaos. Bag dropped. Through security. Run to the gate. Collapse into my seat on the plane. Only to discover the flight to Paris was delayed by 30 minutes. Excellent.

That meant another sprint through another airport to make my connection to Nairobi. By 9am, my watch was congratulating me on smashing my daily exercise goals. Not exactly how I’d imagined starting my trip.

As the plane finally took off, my eyes filled with tears. Not because anything was wrong anymore. Just relief. Relief that I’d made it. Relief that the adventure was still on.

I settled into my seat, put on The People We Meet on Vacation (which felt appropriately timed) and watched Europe disappear beneath the clouds. Because here’s the thing about adventure – it’s rarely as effortless as it looks on Instagram. Sometimes it’s breathtaking wildlife. Sometimes it’s breathtaking scenery. And sometimes it’s sitting on an airport floor at dawn, wondering whether everything you’ve planned is about to unravel. The difficult moments don’t make the adventure any less worthwhile. If anything, they make arriving feel even sweeter.

It’s time to get exploring.