The Breakcation — Why Traveling Is the Only Way to Beat the Breakup Blues

The Maldives is one of the top honeymoon destinations in the world. Our author made the trip there by herself. (Martine Bury)

My first breakcation was to a remote island in the Maldives at the Four Seasons resort of Kuda Huraa during a time when my ex and I still spoke nearly every day, a habit we found hard to break. And each time we did, it was a little paper cut on my heart. I knew it was bad, he knew it was bad, but we were stuck in an addictive cycle of sharing our lives with one another.

I had no cell service in the Maldives, which forced the two of us to go cold turkey. Sure we could email. There is always a way to email (or let’s face it, to Facebook, Snapchat, or Gchat), but because it wouldn’t be as easily accessible, we agreed not to communicate for the 10 days I would be gone.

The perfect place to be alone? (Jo Piazza for Yahoo Travel)

That first night, there was a terrible thunderstorm. There is nothing reassuring about being in an over-water bungalow in the middle of the Indian Ocean during a storm that sounds like it is trying to punish planet Earth. I paced the room and discovered an evacuation life raft beneath the sink, which did nothing to calm my fears.

My first instinct was to text B. It would calm me down. He would want to know if I was about to be swept out to sea in a tsunami, which I almost certainly was going to be. I needed to say goodbye. I opened my laptop, assuming there would be Wi-Fi. There’s wasn’t. I had no choice but to sit on the bed and breathe to keep my panic attack at bay. I was going to have to get through this storm alone. I sat cross-legged in the middle of the plush hotel bed and stared out the floor-to-ceiling window at the waves crashing against the pillars of the bungalow. And for the first time since our breakup, I cried. I really cried — ugly crying, wailing really, with tears and snot running down my face. I was alone, literally, in the middle of the ocean, and I had no one to comfort me but myself.

Related: I Lost My Home, My Job and My Marriage, So I Climbed Kilimanjaro

So I did. After 15 minutes of howling like a crippled kitten, I stood up and drew myself a bath, put on gentle music, and tried to enjoy being alone.

The next morning, the sky was perfectly clear, the sea flat, and no one talked about the storm. I set out on a scuba diving expedition. Scuba diving in the Maldives is simply magical. It’s a diver’s dream, filled with whale sharks, manta rays, and all the sea turtles you’d ever hope to see. I felt good — better, in fact, than I had for a long time.

“When you give yourself the gift of travel, you are giving yourself the priceless gift of experience. Experience can lead you in many directions, but when it leads you to discovery of the outside world, it can greatly help to shift your perspective of your own,” Gatti said.  

I tested out a new underwater camera and took some amazing pictures of the sea turtles. When I uploaded them, I sent them right to my mom. Not B.

Some things are better enjoyed all alone. (Jo Piazza for Yahoo Travel)

B and I made it through that whole trip without talking or texting, and when I returned, we continued to make progress in unraveling our lives. Between June and December, I’ve traveled to eight different countries, and with each trip, I felt more and more like myself, letting go of the future I had imagined having with B. I began to craft my own narrative.

Christina Wallace experienced a similar sense of revival after backpacking solo through East Africa for six weeks and climbing Kilimanjaro to get over the breakup with the man she thought was the love of her life.

“It reaffirmed that I was completely over him. Indeed, summiting Kili was absolutely harder than mending my broken heart, and yet I did it anyway,” Wallace said. “Six years later we are great friends.”

I have since climbed mountains in Kosovo, Albania, and Ireland. I went wreck diving in Turkey. I hugged a wild Mustang in Utah.

Connecting with the wild mustangs at M.E.E.T The Mustangs in Ivins, Utah, is a healing experience. (Russell Powell for Yahoo Travel)  

When I least expected it — in Athens, literally in the shadow of the Acropolis — I found myself ready to date again, and though that brief transatlantic romance didn’t go anywhere, it reminded me that the world is absolutely filled with the possibility of new romance.

Related: How Travel Saved Our Marriage

Traveling has reinvigorated my sense of hope and possibility. I’m finally in a place where I love being with just me again. And I’m excited about the prospect that I haven’t met my soulmate yet, that he is out there, and at some point we will get to start an entirely new adventure together. My series of breakcations mended my soul and healed my heart.

Now, I’m ready.

For anything.

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