A Backpack of Audacity: A Tale of a Solo Traveling Iraqi Woman on Her Journey of Self-discovery

The Iraqi Culture of Traveling

Traveling is not usually considered a priority in Iraqi culture. It is not commonly perceived as an essential character development experience or a part of a self-discovery journey, and it is widely not appreciated for those aspects. The culture of traveling might have recently spread due to many factors, such as globalization, the emergence of more affordable destinations, the rise of many tourism startups, and many others.

However, it remains within certain boundaries of familiar destinations, familiar activities, and the act of trying to create the same experience you have in your country but abroad. For example, one would go abroad with one's family and book a trip with an Iraqi tourism company to handle all the logistics, as with many other Iraqi tourists, find an Iraqi restaurant, and find a mall to go shopping. The trip will include checking off multiple tourist attractions and popular spots. Still, it will largely look at a foreign place through the same glasses, with limited interaction with the people, the culture, and the history. People will often come back with snarky remarks about the people there and how they are trying to fool tourists or take advantage of them.

Unfortunately, this experience will repeat itself in almost every country because the tourism industry, like any other, is exploitative. While this experience is correlated with certain countries, it is actually more global than we think. However, it is a spectrum, so some places will have it better than others. While this tourism experience might be the preference of many people, everyone has their cup of tea. I believe the core elements of traveling are seeing the world through different eyes, being fully present, learning about other cultures, and interacting with unfamiliar parts of the world. In other parts of the world, traveling could be a priority experience for them. We might even see young people taking a gap year between school and university to go on a self-discovery journey or travel around the world.

It might be a privilege to criticize why traveling has not been a priority for the Iraqi citizen. It is essential to analyze this through the lens of a country that has been operating in survival mode for several decades. In addition to a passport ranking third worst in the world, only beating Syria and Afghanistan, which is an upgrade, as we ranked second worst a few years ago. That means to travel, not only do you have to save and budget in an unstable economy, but you would also have to go through expensive, exhausting, and extensive visa application processes to almost anywhere in the world and bear the investigations and defend yourself against every stereotypical profiling at the passport control in every country you visit.

This hassle might not be worth it for a lot of people. They might just want to escape the scorching heat of Iraq’s summer to a nearby country that does not cut its own trees during a global climate crisis and reset, recharge, and enjoy the company of their family or friends in cities abroad they can easily navigate through an organized tour or maybe on their own. Nevertheless, I think the traveling experience is way more than just that; it is definitely worth the hassle for many reasons that I will delve into in this piece.

Dare I Enjoy My Own Company?

Doing things solo requires you to have made peace with yourself, to be comfortable enough to exist on your own, and to do things without the distraction or company of others. It is not an easy task to assign to oneself, and it will take time and practice to get there.

In a collectivist culture, which is the norm in the Middle East, as in the case of Iraq, it is hard for people to comprehend why anyone would want to do anything on their own because we value collectiveness above self-autonomy and goal pursuit. It does not sit well with people that you can do things on your own and enjoy your own company. It would often raise an eyebrow if you said that you want to experience something on your own, let alone an experience as big as traveling, since doing things solo is often frowned upon instead of celebrated. You are assumed always to need the company of others to enjoy an activity. Nevertheless, I would not debate the pros and cons of a collectivist versus an individualistic culture in this piece or how they impact the way we behave and experience life, as it is not our topic.

Doing things solo allows you room to explore yourself, your taste, what you enjoy and dislike, and to grow more comfortable in your skin. It also allows you to be fully present while experiencing life, and most importantly, it will enable you not to miss doing the things you enjoy because you have not found the company.

Going alone to the movies, going to the cafe to work, going to the park to reset, or enjoying a meal at a nice restaurant sounds more tolerable than traveling to a new country solo. Usually, the traveling experience involves going on holiday with your family, friends, or significant other. Traveling solo sounds like a dangerous adventure to embark on, all out there foreign, in the world of the unknown. It is not what one would like to sign up for a holiday, as it will require meticulous planning, thorough research, and some risk-taking.

However, going solo enriches the experience of traveling beyond measure for various reasons. The very first is connecting with yourself, being able to sit with all of you, even the most uncomfortable parts, and getting to know them, loving them anyway. Going through life alone will build your confidence in ways you cannot expect it. You are out there in a new city, a new country; no one knows you; you know no one. Completely new surroundings to navigate on your own; in many cases, you do not even have another language to communicate, let alone save your life. You have to navigate everything from maps to public transport and emergency situations. What if you get sick or robbed? You have no one else but yourself to rise up to the occasion, and you will; you have to, as there are not many options here. The amount of self-awareness, confidence, and courage this will gain is inexplicable.

My second reason is connecting with people. You will be forced to interact with complete strangers, and have that small talk with the locals, be it the waiter, the shopkeeper, the Uber driver, or the girl next to you at the stadium at your favorite artist’s concert.

On one of my trips, a Portuguese waitress at a cafe in Lisbon noticed that I was Arab from a sticker on the back cover of my phone that said in Arabic, “Life will gift us lights at the end of the tunnel.” She simply approached me because I was grabbing brunch alone in Lisbon, and we had a conversation about her Lebanese ancestors from her mom's side; she kept telling me about her family and their summer plan to visit Beirut despite the fear and concern regarding the Israeli attacks.

Your journey will be filled with these interactions, and you will come back with stories that could counter the tourist trap tales of exploitative shopkeepers and Uber drivers that we all expect and are honestly bored of hearing. These local interactions with people will broaden your perspective in unmatched ways about the world and, in my opinion, will make you more humane. Each interaction will make you realize that people are very similar despite all their differences, and you have more in common with the girl from Tampico, Mexico, whom you went with to a football match in Lille, France, even though you do not watch football than with your childhood best friend. There is so much of the world to see and so many people to get to know and cross paths with.

The third reason, as cliche as it sounds, is that you will also get the chance to experience the activities you want to do and do everything on your terms without compromising whether the activity might appeal to others. There is no one else but you. Bonus point: you will get to secure a spot at any popular restaurant that requires booking in advance because they will always be able to accommodate one. The same goes for that workshop, activity, train, whatever—you name it.

The Odd One Out

In cultures like ours, self-actualization is often neglected. We live our lives on a predetermined path of finishing school, getting a job, and forming a family; the end goal is always to create a stable unit. The list of our goals does not often include things like exploring the world on your own, which looks like the opposite of stability and unity.

As an Iraqi woman coming from a very conservative background, traveling solo might not have been in the cards for me, which is the most luxurious card compared to other mundane rights that were also robbed the moment I took my first breath in this world. The experience of going through life solo is not something celebrated, encouraged, or, to be more frank, “allowed” for a woman. Traveling could have been on this checklist only if accompanied by a male figure and for a valid reason, that is, not “discovering the world.”

Why would anyone want to know more than the box in which they were born? I know this is the case for many women regardless of where their background stands, but this is especially emphasized in the more traditionally oriented households. Breaking those boundaries and navigating life while crossing those limits has been my life's fight. This traveling adventure started at the age of 17. Where I made it my life mission to convince my parents to go on a 5-week exchange program on my own, of course with like 40 other kids, but still, that was my first rule break. I am forever grateful for that reluctant approval that allowed me the space to see what life looks like outside my box of rules and familiarity. This single event in time, I believe, had a little domino effect on my life later. The mix of fear, excitement, bravery, fresh perspectives, and deep connections is addictive. Once you step into a new world, away from everything you knew and accepted as absolute truth, you might never go back.

It draws exclamation marks when people ask who will join me on my trip, and I say no one. There is a huge amount of stigma associated with this topic, so I might conceal the truth or brush it off to avoid heated discussions about how this is not a good look for a woman. The “society” has yet to approve this. I have always wondered why I am not part of society. And who is that society? Why does it have to decide for me and approve my choices? Why do I have to come up with excuses for traveling alone? Why is it such a big taboo? What is so scary about foreign cultures? While I understand the fear and concern for my safety and well-being, I unfortunately always feel safer abroad than in my own country. I can go for a walk, sit and dine alone in peace, or just wander around, and no one would bat an eye. But yes, the "scary abroad" and the endless shameful things that can happen.

The shame shackles people from living the life they want. Still, I simply refuse this fate and prefer to accept the struggle to exist loudly and authentically rather than determining my life choices according to people’s terms. At a younger age, I put so much effort and energy into debating these things. As I grew older, I started picking my battles more efficiently. I simply accept the burden of being different. It would be easier to be born with the same mindset and perception of the world as the “society” around you. But I would rather be the first Iraqi woman anyone meets and break the stereotypes about Iraqi women, the same way I did for the Canadian lady at an auditorium in Rome, who could not believe that I actually have a college degree, than to shrink myself to fit into someone else’s idea of who a woman should be and what she can or cannot do.

The downside of seeing the world, having those deep connections, making friends with strangers in different time zones, and changing your perspective will come at the cost of never belonging anywhere. Every time you leave, you risk changing some parts of who you are that will never fit back in where you came from. It is the compromise you have to make. But at the same time, it emphasizes belonging to yourself and the world as a whole. Those experiences also often unveil how much kinder the world is than we think, how much more we are alike despite our differences, and how magnificent the human experience is. The number of good experiences and the amazing people I have met along my journey have always outweighed the danger of the unknown. These experiences are my constant reminder that there is something in this world worth seeing and that life is infinitely larger than the imaginary restrictions imposed on us.

Written in English by: Safwa Salim

English Editor: Athraa Hussam Aldeen

Translated to Arabic by: Amna Jaleel

Arabic Editors: Murtaja Talib & Tarneem Maitham

Translated in Kurdish by: Ahmed Rzgar