Collegiate Times

JAMIE MARTYN/COLLEGIATE TIMES

"Don't worry," I said to her. "It's me. Nobody would fake a permit."

Yes, that's right: I'm 23 years old and I don't have a driver's license.

For living in a nation that's constantly in motion, my lack of a license is a strict faux pas. My parents and grandparents constantly remind me that I need to "grow up" and learn to drive.

I feel like I know how to drive. Regularly, I have dreams where I'm cruising down the highway, completely in control. Then, the dreams turn into nightmares because the clutch is stuck and I careen into oncoming traffic. I wake up drenched in sweat.

And although I can't just pick up and go to the mall whenever I want, this reliance on alternate forms of transportation has led me to appreciate just getting somewhere.

Most of my longer journeys require some effort and planning to get exactly where I need to go. Before going anywhere new, I meticulously plan out bus routes, layover times, subway maps and just how much to tip a cabby. I figure out how far I'm going to walk, where I'm going to have a coffee and how not to look like a completely stupid tourist.

I've become resourceful.

In the end, the thing I've realized is that I've had some interesting travel experiences just because I wasn't strapped inside an automotive box.

Because of my limited mobility, I end up flying frequently. In the confines of tiny single-engine planes, I've often found myself chatting to my neighboring passenger, whom I often let have the armrest out of courtesy.

One man I sat beside on the way to Atlanta divulged - in detail - how his wife was currently in labor and how excited, yet deathly afraid he was to be fathering his first child. He smiled, he cried, he poured out theories of life and existence.

Although I should have been awkward with a stranger, I didn't feel that way. His ideas captivated me, and the few hours on the plane seemed like minutes. I offered him as much encouragement as I possibly could and extended more kindness than I ever have with someone I didn't know.

Once we got off the plane, I saw him a few times in the terminal. He wouldn't even look at me.

In Manhattan, I shared a much better moment in my transportation history: I shared an otherwise empty subway car with Kurt Vonnegut. His hair was a mess, and he was clutching a bag of books while staring blankly out the car window.

I gaped at him and said nothing. Now that he's gone, I wish I would have said absolutely anything.

In London on a crowded bus, I attempted to communicate with another tourist who was a stunningly blonde, buff guy who spoke no English. Marcus, as he was called, would point at something, name it in German and then laugh.

During this episode, Marcus pointed out a few other Americans based on their tans and Uggs boots. An instant later, he looked at me and said, "George Bush," while making a monkey-like face. After agreeing with him, he decided that I wasn't a completely ignorant American, and so we spent the night drinking in bars and having fun trying to communicate with points and grunts.

I've met many more people because of different methods of getting where I need to go. I've received a hug from a hobo in Chicago, spoken in-depth with a man who made a living taking photos of people in Central Park, and while traveling by train, listened to some of the best beatboxers I've ever heard in my life.

Meeting people while either walking or using mass transit has made me realize that when we know we'll never see the person again, we can better acknowledge each other's humanity for a brief, glittering moment.

Instead of being boxed away behind windshields and separated by plastic or steel, you actually can see and spend time with different people.

So the next time you have to go somewhere, consider getting there some other way. Maybe you'll have a close, but rewarding, encounter with an interesting stranger.

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A version of this article appeared in the Feb 5 issue of the Collegiate Times.