London was the plan. A small Essex airport most people have never heard of is where I actually became someone who could land alone in another country.
My first-ever solo international landing wasn’t in London. It was in a small Essex airport most people have never heard of, and I remember every second of walking out of that terminal alone.
It was my first Eurotrip, first time landing anywhere abroad completely by myself — no group, just a passport, a friend’s address, and a lot of nerves at immigration. There was no iconic skyline waiting outside, just a quiet Essex town and a friend picking me up. And somehow that unglamorous, low-pressure landing is exactly what made “first time abroad alone” feel survivable instead of overwhelming.
I found out much later that Stansted started life as a WWII airbase, its planes flying over the Channel on D-Day — a place with real weight to it, long before it became the quiet start of my own first solo trip.
London was the plan. Stansted was where I actually became someone who’d landed alone in another country for the first time. That part happened here, not there.
— Suparna