Hello from the gloriously buzzing Gran Hotel in San José, Costa Rica!

This is my first new country since 2019, and it’s very exciting even with all the Covid-related travel restrictions. I spent time at a yoga retreat, then in a beach town with a friend, and finally on an eco-adventure in the forest on my own. I’m in the town capital to take a PCR test before I head out of the country.

I’ve also traveled solo in India, Germany, Bali, the US, London, Lebanon, Bahrain, Thailand, and the UAE.

Why travel solo? I love to observe the world around me and within me.

I have amazing experiences and hear riveting stories when I meet other travelers, and its usually when I’m by myself that other people approach me (or that I get desperate enough for company that I approach them!). I realized in my twenties that waiting for friends’ work schedules free up so we can travel together was getting frustrating. And now, in my thirties, I realized I was waiting for a partner to do things like stay in a super cute geodesic dome hotel on the top of a Costa Rican mountain…but why not just…do it now?

Of course, there’s the fear factor. It’s always a matter of intuition, and of course, my privilege, when it comes to feeling safe.

Here are some tips I’ve gathered in case you too, are ready to go on a solo adventure:

1. Do your research

Sometimes all it takes is a simple online search i.e. “Good places for solo female travelers” or “Safest places in the world” …also, you can search Google News for “(Name of Country) Crime / Murder / Robbery.” In India, for example, there’s a lot of cases of women both local and visiting being subject to sexual violence…so that’s probably not a place to go solo. That being said, if you are still going to go ahead and go to a country with high crime rate, I would do the following….

2. Be strategic about your aloneness.

Let’s say that you need to spend a night in a city known for pickpocketing. If you are able to spend the money, stay in a hotel with good security. Do not walk alone at night, take a taxi. If you end up walking alone at night (please don’t), stay on main streets. If you take side streets, make sure they are well lit and ideally that there are still people around. Do not have both headphones in so you can hear people approach you. Only pack bags with zippers and clasps, and preferably ones you can wear on the front of your body when you need to do so in crowds. Only take your phone out when you’re sure that no one can grab it from you, sometimes this means memorizing parts of your route before you go out.

3. Be findable

I currently have my phone set so that my friend can track my movements. You can do this a number of ways - I sent her my location and set it so that she can receive it indefinitely. I can turn this off when I get home. My parents have her contact number, so in case I were to disappear, there is a network of people who would instantly know where my phone was last seen.

4. Choose your layers wisely

Once, when I was in India, my friend and I were walking around the Jaipur Museum, and there were a couple of guys following us around taking pictures of us (and ignoring the ancient art and intricate sculptures - rude!). We both had packed light scarves in our purses, and we took them out and covered our heads. The moment we did so, the unwanted attention stopped.

I would never ever tell anyone how to dress. That being said, I know from having grown up in both conservative and liberal places that blending in is a strategy. The more alone you are, the more important it is to blend in. If you are not willing to dress like the locals while you’re traveling, then I feel like you should probably just stay home.

I really recommend that no matter where you are, you at least make an effort to follow local customs. This also means taking off clothing when its appropriate! Like your shoes at a temple, or your bathing suit at a nudist beach, if that’s where you end up :D

From a packing perspective, my strategy is to look up the weather for the entirety of the time I’m in a place, and pack items of different levels of warmth and coverage, which are easy to layer and combine. I mostly pack black, white and blue items, with some pops of color so that everything mostly matches. And I avoid bringing flashy jewelry, bags and shoes.

5. Have your story ready

I was staying alone in Jaco, a kind of seedy beach town in Costa Rica, and a fellow traveler asked me where I was going next. Even though it wasn’t true, I told him I was meeting friends to go hiking. If someone is giving you weird vibes, don’t tell them your complete story. I also don’t say I’m from Kuwait if I don’t want people to assume I have money or that my country can afford to bail me out if i get kidnapped. I say I’m Palestinian or even American (even though I’m not) if that’s what feels right.

6. Don’t be needlessly brave

If doing something gives you second thoughts, that’s probably for a reason. I like to push myself, like going ziplining or going to a scary movie solo. But these are calculated risks. I’m much less likely to do something like going to a club in the middle of the night in the middle of an industrial area on my own. Avoid doing anything that would still be risky even if you weren’t traveling.

7. Have a contingency plan



Keep a credit or debit card in a separate part of your luggage. Have all your records including health insurance and passport digitized and accessible in the cloud. Make sure you have your embassy’s phone number in case of emergency. 


8. Have fun!

The year is 2002. I am grounded, forced to stay home all weekend. I was rebellious as a teenager, I wanted to go to house parties and talk to boys. This was not acceptable in (culturally conservative, largely Muslim) Kuwait. Hence, I was not allowed to leave the house for two weekends straight, with a caveat of no friends over and no cell phone. Since I was home anyway, I decided I would throw myself into my English class writing assignment, which was a response essay to Dino Buzzati’s short story, The Falling Girl.

Here is the essay, written 19 years ago at the time of this post:

Liane Al Ghusain

October ‏2002

Falling Girl:

Reasons why this story fulfills my needs for a good story

        Have you ever felt like you were so deeply immersed in a decision or a lie that you felt you were falling and that you would never hit the rock bottom of the doom that awaited you? If you have, then as you were falling, you felt anxious, not knowing what to anticipate. Marta, the falling girl in the story is a perfect example of an adolescent making a hasty decision without realizing the consequences. This story fulfilled my needs for a good story because it made me understand myself better and made me feel like I could make better judgments and I felt closer to the social environment I live in, as well as the consequences of my decisions and the descriptions set my imaginations free, thinking about what a mysterious and devilishly obscure place the world is.

     The beginning of the story, with the description of the city below made me truly understand the meaning of the phrase “Stories are a playground for language”. The descriptions of the city and the sunset made me hungry for more of the story. I wanted to read more about the beautiful way the sun was setting.

I could imagine the sunset, illuminated by colors even a child with a deluxe set of Crayola® crayons couldn’t dream of. The sunset symbolized the end of something in Marta’s life, the end of all sweet, vivid childhood memories and the beginning of the unknown, a time of oblivion, which was symbolized by dusk.

“It was in fact an hour when the city is seized by inspiration and whoever is not blind is swept away by it”. The end of the sun, ended in a sudden contraction, a “long spasm of sunset”, plunging into the sea “the sun had plunged into the sea, one could see it disappear, transformed into a shimmering red mushroom”. After letting go of the childhood she was so accustomed to, she looked down at the magical city, which both frightened and intrigued her.

        The author made the city down below sound like a place from a fairy tale, “a sweet abyss burning with pulsating lights”. He/She described the city in such a way that I myself wanted to throw myself off the top of my adolescence into the city of adulthood, full of “powerful men, and women who were even more powerful…neon signs of nightclubs, the entrance halls of darkened mansions, fountains, diamonds, old silent gardens, parties, desires, affairs, and, above all, that consuming sorcery of the evening which provokes dreams of greatness and glory”.  Reading about this city stirred within me the desire to live, breathe the greatness of what I can’t have, it made my ambitions elevate to levels that are unimaginable, not only did my imagination escalate to the playground of language but to the amusement park of aspiration.

        Marta’s journey and the ending of it, the dire finale her life came to in such a short period of time gave me a different perspective on life and how to live it. I learned about the consequences that could come from my actions and how to avoid rushing life and savor every aspect.

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        Marta feeling dizzy before letting herself fall from the tall skyscraper was an indication, a warning that what she was about to experience wasn’t as untainted by hatred and cruelty that it seemed from the top. I realized this about myself, I too see things from a view that can blind me from the heartless ways of the world and the irony of the turn of events. I fail to see the negative effects of things I see and do. Even though the ride is fun, the sudden stop it comes to and the consequences that are attained from it are not worth it. Like many other teenagers, I want to rush life and go straight to the dessert instead of relishing the main course. I see growing up as not such a positive part of life. Marta realizes this too, but she realizes it too late. “Marta now felt a tremor growing inside her; perhaps it was just cold; but it may have been fear too, the fear of having made an error without remedy.”

        I understand now that my parents aren’t trying to forbid me from growing up, but are trying to make sure that I don’t hurry growing up and forget to enjoy it. The thought of landing with a thud without being able to appreciate and dwell in the beautiful world of adults gives me cynicism towards the world and how unfair it can be. This is something I both need and want in order to succeed and the story of the falling girl fulfills this need.

        The intense kingdom that I thought awaited me at the end of my adolescence seems disappointedly illusory but I’m filled with determination to make sure that I learn from Marta’s mistake and I land on my feet. The city may seem more unreal after seeing the consequences that hastiness can bring,  but it makes me want that perfect life of laughter and music like Adam wanted that forbidden fruit. “Down there opportunity was waiting for her, fate, romance, the true inauguration of her life”.

     The people in the building and the other falling girls helped me connect the story to myself and to understand my relationship with my social environment. From reading the story I feel a sense of belonging, that I’m not the only one hurrying to grow up, and I have a place in the crazy world of falling girls, cosmopolitan adults, and splattering old women. I feel recognized as a falling girl and have every right to feel impatient or curious. When Marta was falling, she passed many people on different floors and other girls of her age and many of them were symbols that related to the social environment I live in.

           The way that the rich people were on the top of the building got to see pretty young girls falling and the people on the bottom only got to see decrepit old women hitting the ground, which symbolizes the social classes that exist everywhere, especially in Kuwait. People who are rich and are on the top of the building of life can blind themselves with money and pretend that there’s only beauty in the world and that the falling girls never land or get old. The people on the bottom can only see poverty and misfortune, they hear the tragic thuds of young women who’ve wasted their lives.

           As Marta is falling, she is offered drinks, parties and gallant young men offer to whisk her away into their world where money is authority, and beauty is mandatory. “The beautiful people, then, were interested in her and that filled with her satisfaction. She felt fascinating, stylish.” In my environment, these are temptations, things that give me a sneak preview of what awaits me and they drive me to accelerate to adulthood, things like freedom, boys, money, success. As Marta falls she sees other girls falling around her. “Along the sides of the skyscraper many other young women were plunging downward, their faces taut with excitement….It was a contest then.” As a teenager, there are many other girls around me growing up and it goes without saying that we are all competing against each other. We compete to be the most attractive, the friendliest, the best dressed…the list is endless.

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I learned from the story that we shouldn’t be jealous of one another but we should help each other along the journey of womanhood and give each other advice on the safest way to get down from the top of the building.

           Once Marta reaches the bottom levels of the building she passes the poorer people living in the building, people who are accustomed to seeing old women passing their windows anticipating a thud when they hit the ground, and being disappointed when they aren’t supplied with one. I realized about my social environment that there are people like this, on the bottom floor and they feel bitterness about their low position in the building. They like to see people fall flat on their faces, and are satisfied when they hear a nice big thud.

           From the story ‘The Falling Girl’ I realized a lot of things about myself and about life in general. I learned how moved I am by beautiful descriptions and how much I want to live in that magical untouchable world even more than I had perceived. I connected many of the people and things that Marta saw to the social environment I live in and that competition is not necessary for life, but appreciation is definitely a necessity. I discovered that I was hurrying life more than I should and that I should slow down my pace if I want to luxuriate in all that life has to offer. If I am given the choice, I will doubtlessly take the elevator.

——

Reading this back, I’m almost glad I got grounded. Glad in the same way I am for the pandemic era, for giving us so much introspective time. Writing this essay made me want to go to school as a literature major, and that’s exactly what I did! Grateful to my incredible high school English teachers, Ms. Heather Campbell and Mr. James Perovich. Thank you for imparting so much passion!

To vaccinate or not to vaccinate?

I was resistant at first. I didn’t want to be a guinea pig. I worried that it would affect my ability to have healthy children one day. I don’t trust big pharma.

I don’t trust anyone in power, anymore, really.

Kuwait moved fast when the Pfizer vaccine was announced, ordering one million doses right off the bat. We also got 200,000 doses of AstraZeneca, the Oxford vaccine.

When it comes to corona vaccines, there’s a myriad of reasons to resist taking one. Of course, there’s the paranoia that Bill Gates really does want to implant us all with microchips. Once you reason your way through that one, as well as the big fear of being injected with mRNA, it just seems too soon to take a vaccine — it essentially has only been a year that we’ve been dealing with corona on a global scale. And most vaccines in history have taken years and even decades to be approved, not months. There have been some scary failures when it comes to vaccines, notably by Pfizer themselves. And let’s not get started on the new British and South African strains and how resistant they may or may not be to the existing vaccines available.

All that being said, my mom signed me up for the Kuwait government’s vaccination program (I had been planning on waiting at least six months to see if there any issues or glaring side effects). I received a text message informing me of my appointment for Tuesday, February 16th, 2021, and I found myself facing a dilemma. Here were my personal reasons for and against taking the vaccines:

FOR

• Um, so that corona doesn’t make me super sick if I am to get it.

• It’s a responsible thing to do (and even a socialist one as a friend suggested) in order to minimize the spread of the virus to others (although you can still spread corona after you’ve been vaccinated, the degree is lessened).

• To have an easier time traveling in the future if there is such thing as an immunity passport or whatever.

• Being vaccinated against Covid-19 can help keep other strains from developing.

AGAINST

• Humans corrupt everything, and even the way we vaccinate is absolutely abhorrent. Kuwait is absolutely inexcusable for its classist policies, whereby nationals were vaccinated before expats.

  Read more about Vaccinationalism throughout the world, and Cuba’s approach, which is pretty interesting.

• Given that these vaccines are not as effective as we’d hope, why not wait until there’s a more effective one?

• Immunity passports have the potential to be super, super invasive of privacy.

So, I still decided to get vaccinated because my appointment was assigned before it was announced that Kuwait would prioritize nationality over need. It was a super-efficient process but my reaction was pretty severe. Thankfully, I didn’t have the terrible headaches most of my friends complained of, but I did have: a fever that came and went for 24 hours, body aches, and body-wracking chills that were unlike any I’ve ever had.

Here’s the weird part. On Sunday night (the sixth night after I got vaccinated), I was woken up by fiery itchiness in my legs. I was convinced there was a family of spiders feasting on my skin. Sure enough, I found a pretty intense rash the next day, and internet research showed me that hives and rashes are a common side effect of corona (and the corona vaccine). There’s even something called covid toes! And a really scary inflammatory response in children. I took an anti-histamine and it cleared right up.

Now that the physical reaction has faded, I have the opportunity to unpack my psychological one. First of all, I felt immense empathy with people who have had full-blown covid. The virus feels like a really unrelenting bully hopped up on ego and otherworldly powers. It really didn’t feel anything like any flu I’ve ever had before.

Second, I have a mixed reaction between feeling optimistic and pessimistic. Optimistic because I feel like my immune system has been upgraded (the first shot gives me 64% protection against corona). Pessimistic because, according to that same article, we should have actually been given half a dose to reach 90% efficacy. That intense first full dose will actually only lead to 70% efficacy once both shots have been administered. All of this research is constantly changing, so let’s see how it all plays out. For now, nothing has really changed. I’m still susceptible to both catching and spreading the disease.

It feels like what I truly need is a strong shot of patience.

From my journal in the early hours of February 17:

Up in the middle of the night after being vaccinated! Woke up shivering — took Panadol and added blankets and sweater. I’m warm now. Still alert though. Strange to be inviting this virus into my body, to have a physical representation of what we’ve been going through mentally. It’s like there’s a speed bump unlike any other people have collectively seen in this lifetime (although I’d argue that sexism and racism are just a big a speed bump)…

Corona is such a big bump that we can’t see over the top of it. And the vaccine reaction, whilst much more finite, is still your body slowing down, much like what’s happening in the world.

All in all, I feel positive that we’ve begun to give our bodies some tools for overcoming this insane worldwide hurdle. Keep climbing, wherever you are, however you can!

I was invited by Dorna earlier this year (although it feels like 500 years ago!) to give a talk on entrepreneurship. It was humbling to be considered alongside giants like Bibi Hayat and Sawsan Daana, though my imposter syndrome kicked in for a second (am I really an entrepreneur? can I say anything worthwhile?)…but then I reminded myself of what I had accomplished so far.

My freelance writing career started at Nuqat, honing the art conference’s themes and writing up their conference and workshop guides (before that I helped establish and manage the Contemporary Art Platform, Kuwait). Slowly, my client portfolio grew, and when I say slowly, I mean that it took YEARS to have more than 2 or 3 clients.

There was a growing demand for copywriting work, in both English and Arabic, and some of my biggest struggles were around finding Arabic translators and writers that were dependable, good, and affordable. The boom in the Kuwait F&B industry around 2016 led to my workload expanding (hello, third-wave coffee! Donut burgers! Indian-Kuwaiti-Latin American-European fusion food!)

I found that my business experienced the most growth when I added Arabic to our services, and when I got the copywriting agency branded and officially registered at the bank. Now, we are The Scribes. Woohoo! 

So here are my key takeaways from my Dorna talk about entrepreneurship and working for yourself:

1. Appreciate Your Privilege (but don’t undersell yourself)

There’s a privilege in taking risks. Often, starting out your business necessitates sacrifice and support, from both yourself and others. Your spouse may have extra financial strain until you start earning money. Your mental health might suffer, keeping you up with anxiety about seed money and finding office space. These stressors are also indicators that you’re pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone. Be grateful for the option to experiment and take risks.

In the beginning, I offered my services at a base rate. I charged as low as I could and sometimes did free work for students and artists.

When you’re starting out, experience matters more than pay.

That being said, you need to keep yourself motivated with the promise of a reward. It took a long time for me to get comfortable with what I charged clients, and these days what I do is break down each job by how long I think it will take and charge clients by the hour (email me or sign up for a coaching session to figure out how to price your services).

As long as you think what you’re charging is fair, DO NOT NEGOTIATE.

If you see the clients’ point — let’s say you want to charge them for 5 design options, and they only want 2 — then go ahead and lower your prices. But if they just think you should charge less because they don’t want to pay, then trust me, don’t do it. This sets a bad precedent in so many ways and can affect your self-worth. The funny thing is, those clients will usually go to someone cheaper, then come back to you to fix the terrible work they got way below market price.

2. Your business can fail but your reputation PREVAILS

The only true failure is when you fail yourself and your values. It’s super important to be kind and honest in EVERYTHING you do so that you can live without regrets.

It’s super mystifying to me when people become someone else at work, as though the more shark-like and mean they become, the more successful they will be. Work doesn’t have to be stressful. 

You don’t always have to get your way. Throughout the highs and lows of your life, I believe that staying graceful when things don’t go your way is one of the most important successes you can attain. You can be successful and treat people you work with kindly - make jokes, inquire (appropriately) about their personal lives, and comfort them when they’re worried. It’s wonderful to be known as someone who is good at what they do and is easy to work with. Your career becomes (mostly) pure joy!

3. Find Balance

There are two prevailing stereotypes of people who work for themselves: the pajama-wearing bum and the tireless hustler. Let yourself be both!

For me, this means waking up early and being pretty disciplined about how I spend the first few hours of my day since it’s when my brain is the freshest. I highly recommend the book Atomic Habits - it’s helped me see my habits as a “stack” of actions.

I realize there’s a ‘yin’ and a ‘yang’ energy throughout my days. Sometimes I’m writing, producing, ideating and other times I’m reading, researching, and listening. When my career is more ‘yang’ i.e. my schedule is more full and intense, I make sure to ‘yin’ a little bit extra in my personal life i.e. I treat myself to a massage over the weekend or salon treatment. What’s the point of making money if you don’t use some of it to treat yourself? When my career is a bit more ‘yin’ and my schedule is not as full, I take on challenges in my personal life, i.e. I re-organize my space, sign up for a course, or organize a gathering, and so on.

I even adjust my workout intensity according to what’s going on at work!

4. Female vs. Feminine Empowerment

I don’t like being called a “female entrepreneur.” Female is not an adjective. Feminine is. Often, we are rewarded for being masculine at work - for thinking in a linear fashion, sealing deals, being focused, and intent about achieving what we set out to do.

Culturally, we don’t applaud feminine behavior in the workplace, though it’s often what keeps the whole machine oiled.

Both men and women and can be both feminine and masculine in the workplace. I like to recognize that a big part of my success comes from my feminine skillset, which includes emotional labor such as:

•  Listening to what everyone has to say and integrating it into the final outcome

•  Caring for everyone’s wellbeing and doing things like organizing team retreats or ordering the food for meetings

•  Assuring everyone that everything will be ok that we will meet the deadline, please the client, etc (also known as surface acting).

5. COMPETITION IS GOOD

First of all, competition is how you know there is a demand for what you have to offer. 

Second of all, competition keeps you on your toes. It pushes you to specialize in what you’re good at and to keep learning new skills.

I prefer to think of my competitors merely as other creatures in my eco-system. I reach out to other copywriters when a client asks for something I think they’d be better at, and pass the job along to them with the hope that they’d do the same for me.

This might sound really dumb, but that’s what capitalism wants you to think. I end up with clients that respect me more, instead of ones that are disappointed with what I have to offer.

I think asking for help is one of the biggest shows of strength and self-compassion. When I ask for help, I’m also giving someone else the opportunity to feel useful. We all like to feel needed, no?

And speaking of help, please comment below with some advice for other people who want to be their own boss!