Solivagant

There is an old English word for someone who wanders alone.

A solivagant.

The word itself has been quietly travelling through the language on its own since the seventeenth century. Built from the Latin solus, meaning ‘alone’, and vagans, ‘wandering’, it describes a soliary traveller: someone content to explore without company. The sort of person who relishes the solo train journey, wandering unfamiliar streets or setting off on a hike with nobody but their own thoughts for company - knowing that curiosity can be companion enough.

At first glance, it sounds like a word about movement. Yet the more time I spend with it, the more it seems to lead me somewhere else entirely. The curious thing about a solivagant, for many of us, isn’t the wandering at all. It’s the fact that some choose to do it alone.

Mention that you’re travelling by yourself and the conversation often takes a familiar turn.

“Who are you going with?”

“Nobody.”

“Oh… are you meeting people out there?”

“No.”

“Is it a group tour?”

“No.”

“Won’t you get lonely?”

“Absolutely not.”

It’s remarkable how quickly people begin searching for the missing person in the story. Very few simply ask where you’re hoping to wander.

That instinct is hardly surprising. For most of human history, companionship wasn’t simply comforting; it was practical, almost necessary. Families shared labour. Communities offered protection. Partnership wasn’t merely romantic but economic, social and, for many, essential to survival.

The modern world still carries that inheritance. It doesn’t merely assume adulthood comes in pairs; it often rewards it. Hotel rooms, railcards, gym memberships, family tickets and even the arithmetic of council tax all quietly assume that company is the norm.

None of this is an argument against companionship. Far from it. Friendship, love and family are among life’s greatest gifts, and few of us would willingly exchange them for permanent solitude.

But somewhere along the way, we began treating alone and lonely as though they meant the same thing.

They don’t.