Who hasn’t, after a dreadful week at work or a sleepless night with the children, been tempted to chuck it all in and travel the world instead? Lounging in the shade of a palm tree with a mojito in one hand while planning another trip remains a fantasy for most of us, but there are brave souls who have done just that, and Alex Starr is one of them.
Born and raised in Manchester, she assumed she would follow the traditional route of job, marriage and kids, just like many other nice Jewish girls. But it was not to be. “I’d been teaching for about eight years in a state school and I just decided I’d had enough,” says Starr. “I wasn’t happy so I quit and went travelling. I came back and went straight to a wedding and just thought, I feel so separate from this now. I realised that I hadn’t met the partner and had the children, and life could be exactly the same as this for the next 50 years, so either I can make a change and make something of my life, or I can just exist for the next 50 years. So I chose life. I quit and have never looked back.”
Instead of being stuck in a classroom, Starr took her skills online and forged a new career writing, proof-reading and tutoring — all things which can be done from anywhere in the world if you have a laptop and internet access. “I work with an education charity, the Commonwealth Education Trust; they are trying to improve teaching standards in under-resourced settings, so I do a lot of communications work.”
Upon learning of her decision to quit the nine-to-five routine and become what she calls a “digital nomad”, friends expressed admiration — and envy. “The amount of colleagues that said to me, ‘I wish I could do that’! There are people who have young children and who have said, ‘Maybe we should have done that before we had children’, but ultimately people make their choices and they’ve got beautiful children they are not going to regret.”
Starr decided to write a book to help those considering such a life-changing move and Plan Safe Travel Solo is her guide to transforming dreams of travel into reality. Since 2016, when she left her teaching job, she has visited more than 100 countries and met countless interesting people along the way.
“I spent a month on a cruise ship working for Dustin Hoffman’s wife. She is very kind and very sweet. We spent Rosh Hashanah together and she spoke about how she was going to go home and host the family dinner because that’s what she does every year.”
Not all her experiences were as pleasant. While working for the government in Costa Rica, she was attacked. “I was walking to work, it was nine o’clock in the morning. A man just hurled me to the ground. I landed on my back and I had my backpack on. I had whiplash and ended up in hospital. But he couldn’t get to me — Costa Rican women don’t fight back, and I did. That’s what made him run away. It was because I was kicking, screaming and doing everything to defend myself.”
No one came to help her. “Once he had gone, a woman came out of her house and said she had heard the shouting, but it’s not what you do over there, you don’t go to someone’s help. This was one of the weird things that led me to write the book, because I had been travelling on my own and I had learnt a lot of lessons and the first chapter is about assessing the country.
“I had assessed Costa Rica. I knew attacks on locals were incredibly high and I went anyway, and I ignored all my research. It’s not that I deserved it, and it’s not that I’m taking the blame, but ultimately, I did the research, I ignored it and I got attacked.”
She has sound advice for those contemplating a nomadic way of life. “Follow your gut. Whatever your instinct tells you. I’m a big fan of instinct. If something feels right, do it. If something feels wrong, don’t do it. Have the confidence to say yes, and have the confidence to say no.”
Despite that attack, she nevertheless remains positive about her experiences abroad. “We have to be safe and careful. People either go two ways: they look at Instagram and they think, everything is idyllic and then they just go for it without thinking of anything, or they are so cautious that they don’t give themselves any freedom at all. What we forget is that most people are kind. The minority of people give the majority a bad name.”
It makes you wonder what her parents think about her unconventional lifestyle. “They told me that I should have quit [teaching] a long time ago. I’m very blessed that they have been so supportive because they are traditional and for them to say that is huge. They continue to support me to this day.”
Starr is rarely completely cut off from the Jewish community. “Chabad for me has always been something that I can turn to, no matter which country I’m in. I make the effort to try to communicate with them and reach out, because it’s about familiarity. When you turn up and you are eating a roast chicken, and that’s exactly what you would do at home, it can make you feel less alone. Not that I ever feel lonely, but it’s about home comfort. It has been something that provides reassurance.”
Travelling alone has also made her emotionally stronger. “I think what is interesting is that people think you are vulnerable. What people don’t realise is that it takes strength to go alone. People think that they have the right to say anything to you. They have come up to me and said, ‘Well, how can you afford to do a trip like this?’ And a woman once came up to me and said, ‘Aren’t you going to freeze your eggs? You’re too old to be doing this’. Hang on a second, you’re a stranger, why do you think you have the right to ask me that question?”
Like everyone else, Starr was unable to travel internationally at the height of the pandemic. “I had to stop, I had no choice. I knew that I didn’t want to be abroad without being vaccinated so I stopped. I lost quite a lot of work. It was only when I was double vaccinated that I was ready to go, but I’m not going to travel the same way I did where I used to jump from one country to another. I’m trying to plan it safely.”
Does she ever consider returning to a life in Manchester and settling down? “For me, what is important is that I continue to choose happiness, and whether it be tomorrow that I find somebody and end up marrying them and having children, then that’s fine. It’s not that I’m against that, it’s just that I want to choose to be happy and I want everything to be a conscious choice. That might mean buying a property tomorrow and coming back to Manchester, but it might not.
“I feel very blessed and very lucky. Sometimes it’s a bit like a fish swimming upstream. There are huge expectations of a 36-year-old woman, especially in our religion and society. I should be married, I should have children, but that’s not the way life has taken me and it can be hard, but I feel really happy.”
Plan Safe Travel Solo by Alex Starr is published by Clink Street Publishing (£5.99)
