This blog is mostly about solo travel. But sometimes the best stories happen when you've got a car full of people, a rental that's slightly too big for your comfort level, and a GPS that is confidently, catastrophically wrong. This is one of those.
If you read Post 5, you know I flew to Hawaii in a snowstorm, caught the last flight out of Newark, and pulled off the greatest surprise of my life.
If you didn’t, click here and go and read it. It’s ok. I’ll wait…
What I didn’t tell you, is what happened a few days later.
We’re going to Pearl Harbour.
It’s a beautiful Hawaiian morning. In the last few days, we’ve done the pineapple plantation, eaten Dole Whip and been to the Hard Rock Cafe. We’re relaxed, happy tourists having the absolute time of our lives.
Pearl Harbour morning we wake up, sit outside listening to the birds, have coffee, and then climb into my oversized rental car, ready for our adventure!
I got the really big SUV. You know the ones that fit everything and the kitchen sink? One of those. If fits all four of us adults, my 18-month old niece in her car seat, plus her pram, whatever else we take every time we leave the house, and there’s still room for shopping.
It’s basically a truck.
Google Maps is open, and I’m confidently following that little blue dot like an absolute boss.
Which is where it all goes wrong.
The little blue dot shows that I have to be in the far right lane. And we’re on a highway that has three or four lanes, so I move as far right as possible.
The road splits, and we come off the highway.
Something looks wrong, and I realize about two seconds too late, that I had gone too far right, and was no longer on a public road.
We’re driving up to the entrance to a United States Military base.
Shit.
Gates. Road cones. Security cameras. A boom gate across the road. A small hut.
I say out loud to everyone in the car: “Umm, guys, I think I went the wrong way.”
Nobody disagreed with me.
I stop in front of a row of cones, and before I can figure out what to do next, a man steps out of the hut.
With a rifle over his shoulder.
Double shit.
He walks up to my window and asks for my driver’s license.
I hand it over and explain, very politely, in a voice that I hope sounds like a completely innocent person who has definitely not just accidentally driven onto a military base, that I am so sorry, I was following the GPS and that I must have taken a wrong turn, that we’re trying to get to Pearl Harbour.
He looks at me.
He looks at my licence.
He looks at the car full of people, including my 18-month old niece who has absolutely no idea what’s happening and is just chilling in her carseat, minding her own business.
He says okay, goes back into the hut, comes out with what I can only describe as a golf club with a mirror attached to the end of it, and proceeds to walk slowly and thoroughly around the entire car, inspecting the underside.
I stare straight ahead.
The adults in the car say nothing.
My niece continues to mind her own business.
It feels like a lifetime.
It is probably 6o seconds.
The inspection finishes.
The guard returns his golf club to the hut and when he comes back out, he moves the road cone, lifts the boom gate, and says: “Follow me.”
Umm, where?
But I do as I’m told, because he still has a rifle on his shoulder.
And he still has my driver’s licence.
I follow him through to a turning area where he points to the exit, hands me back my licence and says: “Don’t worry about it, happens all the time. Aloha.”
I’m shaken.
I’m relieved.
Do I laugh?
Do I cry?
Every single feeling I have is happening all at the same time and I have no idea what to do with any of them.
And then, about thirty seconds down the road, someone in the car says something.
I don’t even remember what it was.
But we all start laughing, and we laugh for a very long time.
Eventually, we made it to Pearl Harbour.
It was incredible. Moving and sobering and humbling in the way that only truly significant places can. The kind of place that makes you go quiet and really appreciate your life, without realizing that that’s what you’re doing.
We finished the day with a rum tasting, which felt like the most appropriate response to the day we’d had.
I still have the little tasting rum glass and every time I look at it, I remember the day we I drove onto a military base.
It’s 2026 and we still talk about it.
Any time someone gets lost: “At least you didn’t drive onto a military base.”
Any time GPS goes wrong: “I got lost.” “But did you drive onto a military base though?”
It has become the benchmark. The gold standard of getting it wrong in the most spectacular, most innocent, most this “isn’t my fault, the GPS is to blame” way possible.
And I hold this title with complicated pride.
Do you think I should put it on my resume?
Here’s the thing about travel, solo or otherwise. Things go sideways. GPS lies. Roads split in ways that are genuinely not your fault. You end up somewhere you absolutely did not intend to be and you have to figure it out with whatever you’ve got in that moment.
That day, what I had was four adults, one 18-month old, a rental car, and the ability to be very polite to a man with a rifle.
It worked out.
It always works out.
Now go book the trip.
Nobody’s Watching You Eat is a blog about solo travel, solo dining, and all the things you figure out when the only person you have to answer to is yourself. Subscribe below so you don’t miss the next one.
