There I was, alone on a mountain in southeastern France, feeling both giddy from one of the most beautiful hikes of my life and utterly confused about how I had just managed to swallow a chunk of my own tooth.

The mishap came at the halfway point of a hike in mountains overlooking the charming Alpine town of Chamonix. The hike begins after ascending one of the region’s sleek cable cars and offers stunning views of Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps at nearly 16,000 feet and blanketed in snow even in August.

I was sweaty and out of breath at an elevation of 6,500 feet when I decided to stop for a snack, a local chocolatey treat filled with nougat. I knew something was very wrong shortly afterward when my tongue came across what felt like a shard of glass instead of my lower right wisdom tooth.

I quickly realized that my tooth must have broken while I was eating and that I must have swallowed part of it.

The emotions that followed ranged from revulsion to guilt for not having seen a dentist since before the pandemic. And then I needed to figure out what to do

I was alone on a hiking trail without service, I speak limited French and whatever dental work I could obtain had to be finished within the next 36 hours because I was starting a 12-day trek in the Alps, much of which involved limited access to civilization.

It’s just the kind of pickle you don’t want cropping up while traveling solo in a foreign country. But like any travel, solo or otherwise, there will be hiccups: missed trains, transportation strikes, canceled flights, and sometimes, a broken tooth.

Because I wasn’t in any pain, I decided to follow my plan for the day and finish the hike. When I reached the end point, I couldn’t resist riding up another cable car up to a restaurant with even better views of Mont Blanc and the surrounding scenery.

I drank a beer and carefully ate a croute, an open-faced sandwich of country bread soaked in white wine and smothered with melted cheese and ham. Then I ordered another beer.

What I didn’t do is let a broken tooth break my mood. I figured I could still savor the day and solve my problem back in town.

I found a dentist online and looked up how to say, “My tooth is broken,” (“Ma dent est casée”). When I arrived, the dentist office was inexplicably closed and my cellphone wasn’t working. I popped into a wine shop next door and told the purveyor about my tooth, after which he kindly walked me to another dentist’s office nearby.

The dentist fit me in right away, quickly patched up my tooth and charged me €45. She said the patchwork would last a month or two but that I’d need to get all my wisdom teeth out when I got back home to the states. It didn’t bother me again the rest of the trip.

I tell this story because I think it shows both the beauty and the adversity of solo travel.

With solo travel, you’ve got to rely on your own wits. It can be challenging and it can be scary, especially on your first few trips. But I haven’t experienced anything as rewarding.