Road trips sound like the epitome of friendship activities. Since middle school, I’ve dreamed of going on a road trip with friends. As a teenager, any time I traveled on the road it was for soccer. As an adult, I’ve had a few opportunities to travel with friends but have declined them for financial reasons.
Lame, I know.
This year, I finally had another opportunity to go on a road trip with a friend. Finances were still tight at the time, but this wasn’t just any old get-out-of-town-for-the-sake-of-it venture. This was to play in a soccer tournament. In Arizona. Only eight hours from where I lived in Utah.
If you’re a retired athlete, you probably know how much the soul yearns for the days when you could play your sport competitively. You used to whine about practice but now you would give anything to have a team to practice with—even if it means doing sprints and pre-season conditioning again.
Or maybe that’s just me. Either way, I said yes to the road trip. Week by week my excitement grew as I thought about being on a full-sized field again, standing in the goal and blocking shots. Fighting alongside my team for first place.
Less than a week before we were supposed to leave, my friend texted me. She had gotten injured. No more tournament for her. While I felt disappointed and unsure about riding with strangers, I decided to reach out and find other people I could carpool with. That’s when the first of many discoveries came to light: most of the players lived in Arizona.
The only other person from Utah had a car full of family and friends going with her. That left me with one option: don’t go or take my first ever solo road trip.
I had driven long hours on my own before, mainly to move from college to home or from home to college. It had a sense of permanence with it. This had so much of the unknown. The only person I knew would be gone for the driving and gone for all the other parts too. I wouldn’t have anyone I knew in the Vrbo we were staying at. I wouldn’t have anyone I knew while playing the games.
But I hadn’t played in a tournament in ages. I regretted stepping away from the sport when I did.
So, solo trip it was.
On my phone’s note app, I made a list of what I would pack. Deciding to make it fun for myself, I planned out content I could film and places I could go to in Phoenix before settling in the city where the tournament was located. Would it be two hours out of my way? Sure. I’d still go. After all, being so close to it, how could I not visit the city Bella Swan grew up in?
With my soccer bag and suitcase packed, I left early on a Friday morning. Nothing kicks off a road trip like getting breakfast on the go. I stopped for kolaches—the savory version is eggs and sausage contained by a bread ball, the sweet is more similar to a Danish pastry.
There was no drive-through. I parked, stepped out of my car, and walked in. They handed a brown paper bag to me. Inside were the kolaches. I left. Walking up to my car, I pulled on the door handle. Locked. Right, I needed to unlock it. I reached into my bag for my keys. They weren’t there.
Within seconds, I spotted my keys in the ignition. The car wasn’t running, which was good. I was not leaving anytime soon, which was bad.
Sitting on a green metal bench in the sun, I waited an hour and half before I got assistance with my car. The setback might not seem like much, but I didn’t have a large amount of time set aside for the Phoenix pit stop.
That’s okay, I told myself. I could still have fun. I would still get to play soccer.
Thankfully, despite how it kicked off, the rest of the eight hour drive went smoothly. I arrived at the Vrbo before anyone else and picked my bed. Exhausted, I laid there the rest of the night. People were friendly and said hi, but having traveled far less than I had, they were ready for a night of partying.
It seemed a little odd that they wanted to stay up the night before our tournament began, but I had seen it happen in college before, so why not here. Unfortunately, that left me staring at a dark ceiling for over two hours before I finally drifted to sleep in their cacophony.
When I showed up to the field, it was smaller. I had discovery number two: this was 7v7 tournament. Was the field not its full size? Correct. Was it still too large for such a small team? Yes.
Then came discovery number three: apparently, our team didn’t have all its players for the first game. There were no subs, and since there was another goalkeeper on our team, I let her play in the goal first while I played field.
Once the ref blew his whistle and the game started, I had discovery number four: these players were not at the highly competitive level I had assumed. Neither was the other team. Regardless, we lost. By a lot.
For our second game, we played against the other people staying at our VRBO who weren’t on our team. They had a full roster. We had some subs this time, but essentially we were the leftover team, people pieced together because there wasn’t any room left on the first team.
I played in the goal this game and finally I had fun. Blocking goal after goal, I smiled as the other team joked about me preventing them from scoring. They were kind in their praises and our team won that game, feeling uplifted.
That night, there was more partying. Still exhausted from my drive, now with two games to top the feeling off, I tried to go to bed early. Having learned from the night before, I took a friend’s advice and put in my noise cancelling headphones. I fell asleep much sooner.
The next morning I had discovery number four: there weren’t enough teams in the women’s tournament. Our third game would be played against a men’s 60+ team. Whether I was sluggish from the past two days or just not on my A-game, I did not play well. The 60+ men’s team beat us. I don’t even remember if we scored any goals. Maybe one? Needless to say, my feminist part felt quite small.
Because I didn’t want to be driving past midnight, I said goodbye to everyone, skipped the fourth and final game, and departed immediately to drive back to Utah. At some point, I stopped to change, freshen up, and eat. Then I kept driving and driving. Past 9 PM, I arrived home and collapsed.
My first solo road trip had not been exciting or fun, it had been exhausting and full of disappointment. I wanted to write a blog post about how, when done safely, adventuring on your own can be great. But I didn’t have that experience.
For me, it came down to expectations. The road trip wasn’t as fun because it didn’t fit my expectations, to the extent that I wouldn’t have gone had I known more. I thought I had all the information I needed, but I didn’t. I made assumptions.
Does this mean I’m writing off solo road trips? No, not completely. If given the choice, I certainly will go with company rather than on my own. However, if I end up in a similar situation again, I will simply make sure I have more information. I won’t just know where, when, and why I am going somewhere. I will know the details, and I will know the expectations of the other people involved.
In truth though, I think this was a one and done kind of experience. So as much as I wanted to say how great they can be, I ultimately have to say these solo trips aren’t for me.
Read MRC 