Two Keys

A story about autonomy, surprise, and the unexpected abundance of solo travel

I checked into the Old Faithful Inn at Yellowstone National Park and talked at length with the desk clerk. He gave me tips on a great sunrise spot (Artist Point) and advice about safety while hiking alone (yell a cheery “Hi there, bear!” before every blind corner on the trail). We talked about my solo road trip, and then he searched for an available room, confirming that I was just one person.

Then he handed me two keys.

It was my fifth week of solo road tripping. Yellowstone was no different from any of my previous stops. No matter my answer of “one” to the question, “How many?” I was always given two keys.

And the keys for my room in Yellowstone were not the average thin plastic cards. The clerk handed over substantial, worn metal keys. I could see all the guests who had stayed at the Inn for a hundred years before me holding those same keys. Perhaps because of that history, I spoke up for the first time in my travels that fall.

“Hey, I am just here alone…we just talked about this. Why two keys?”

The receptionist looked put out.

“Uh, well, I don’t know. I guess we always assume there are at least two in a room. Very few people come here alone.”

I was tempted to play with him a bit and make him squirm, but he was too nice. I could have asked:

Was he pointing out possibilities? Hey, I might get lucky tonight. Meet a sexy fellow and offer him a key to my room—rendezvous at midnight. Clothing optional.

Or was he encouraging kindness? The Inn is full tonight. Here, have my extra key and come join me.

I like traveling solo. It’s a choice, not a fallback. And yet it’s often the first question I get when people hear about my road trip (the other has to do with the Blue Car breaking down, but we won’t even consider that).

“Are you really going alone? Aren’t you afraid? Lonely?”

I don’t equate alone with lonely. On my solo travels, my aloneness often invites connection and conversation. This is particularly true when I dine alone, something many people actively avoid.

I follow the M.F.K. Fisher approach to dining alone. Sitting at a restaurant table, eschewing distractions like a book or a bit of writing, is an intimate and essential act of caring for oneself. Being alone at the table allows full attention to the food. And it invites the world to meet me halfway.

Two weeks later on that same road trip, I was in my fanciest dress at Sierra Mar, with the last glory of the Pacific Ocean sunset on full display through the restaurant’s floor-to-ceiling windows. It was the most romantic setting imaginable for dinner in Big Sur. At one point in my life, eating alone there would have saddened me. But I was in a groove on the road trip, and my own company felt comfortable and welcome. Being alone that night didn’t feel permanent. It felt chosen.

The waiter took extra time talking with me (which often happens when I dine alone), and the couple at the next table struck up a conversation about travel. I said hello and congratulated the newlyweds on the other side of the low partition, still dressed in their finery, with a beautiful flower-covered wedding cake on a small stand beside their table.

Almost two hours later, after enjoying my first smoky old fashioned (my new favorite cocktail) and a four-course meal, I was presented with a dessert menu. As I perused the offerings—thankful I had done a long hike that day—I heard a voice from the other side of the partition.

“We have a lot of cake here.”

I laughed, and then the couple on my other side joined the conversation. The next thing I knew, there was a slice of wedding cake on my plate and a glass of champagne in my hand. I raised my glass in a toast—to all the important things in marriage and in life: health, laughter, harmony. Then my fork cut neatly through the layers, capturing the fluffy cake, creamy filling, and buttery frosting.

The cocktail, the meal, the conversations, and the shared cake and toast formed complex layers that instilled a little bit of magic into the evening. I had been given two keys at my hotel that day, and while I needed only one, I experienced solitude as abundance.

Despite my love of solo travel, there is one aspect of needing only one key that remains a challenge. The hardest part of traveling alone isn’t loneliness. It’s authorship.

A few months ago, while planning my upcoming European road trip, I decided I would finish in the Arctic Circle in Tromsø. I was looking at kayaking tours in the Lofoten Islands and other adventures in Norway when a website popped up that made my heart beat faster:

“Self-driving tours of Norway available now!”

I read “self-driving” as self-driving cars and briefly imagined a tour company offering autonomous vehicles with random, pre-programmed itineraries. Get in and see where the car takes you.

Of course, “self-driving” simply meant that it wasn’t a group tour. Just the offer of a car, with help designing an itinerary based on my interests.

My hopeful misreading tells you what I crave most when traveling alone.

Being the sole architect of every day’s plan—of each move—isn’t always fun for me. While it can be liberating not to meet someone else’s schedule or do things I’m not interested in, there is a price. It’s more than decision fatigue. The real cost of solo travel is total responsibility—and fewer surprises.

And what fun is a world without surprises?

That’s why I love the serendipitous moments that arise during my travels. When traveling alone, the unexpected feels like acquiring a traveling companion or a cruise director on the fly—when I least expect it. And it’s great fun.

In April, after five days alone in London, I flew to Inverness, Scotland. On the plane, I met a man returning home after a lengthy business trip. We talked the entire flight, and as we taxied to the gate, he offered to take me on his favorite walk along Loch Ness. Of course, I said yes. An hour later, he picked me up at my hotel, his golden retriever in the back of his Land Rover, both of us in our wellies.

I had a completely unexpected three-hour walk through a rewilded area of Scotland—past restored castles, rebuilt stone walls, and replanted forests. Along the loch we watched his dog run, and we talked about land conservation, AI, global politics, and our families.

He was smart and thoughtful, and the conversation flowed easily. And best of all, it was a delight to have the afternoon arranged by another person. It didn’t really matter what I saw. What mattered was that I didn’t plan it.

Solo travel has taught me how to choose: what road to take, when to stop, how long to linger. It has required me to listen more closely to myself. What do I want? I find this kind of autonomy delightful, but it comes with a cost. When traveling alone, there is no one else to spring a surprise or offer an alternative. No one to say, What if we turned here instead? Every day bears my imprint, limited by my own knowledge and reach in the world.

Which may be why the unscripted moments feel so luminous. The shared wedding cake in Big Sur. A three-hour walk along Loch Ness with a stranger and his golden retriever. These moments gently reroute my carefully plotted days. Even when I need only one key, the world can still meet me halfway.

And those two keys I am always handed at hotel desks? I no longer think of them as an assumption of absence or what’s missing. I take the second key as a symbol of possibility—proof that I am free to travel solo and open to letting someone, or some circumstance in. Solo travel teaches me who I am when I am both fully in charge and fully open.

I think I’ll keep all those extra key cards on this upcoming trip—a small archive of freedom and responsibility, intention and chance, and proof that traveling solo is never just one thing.