Boldly Go Solo

Shy people travel solo too. So says Catherine Bodry, a self-admitted, eyes-cast-down kind of person. I don’t recommend her way of coping: tears, phone calls home and beer. To "overcome my small-talk impairedness," she says.

But I do like an idea she mentions. Joining a guesthouse tour. You’ll likely spend some time with other people from your guesthouse. And that evening you’ll have something to talk about if you’re not great at cocktail chatter. "Hey, how’d you like them ruins, eh?" For example.

I’m not overly shy, but I have my moments. I don’t think I’ve stayed at any guesthouses that offered tours, as Bodry mentions. But when I was in Iceland on my own after college, I took a day-long tour that I signed up for after arriving in Reykjavik. I wanted to see as much of the "land of fire and ice" as possible.

For most of my vacation, I’d been traveling with a British friend. We parted ways in Luxembourg. On my way home to the States on Icelandair, I took advantage of the three-day stopover they offered for no extra charge.

I stayed at the youth hostel in Reykjavik for two nights. I enjoyed being around other travelers, even if the lodgings were kind of tight with all those bunkbeds squeezed in. Then I treated myself to a hotel for the final night. That was lonelier.

So it was nice to go on a tour with people. We visited geysers, waterfalls, volcanoes and Thingvellir, where the Icelandic Parliament was founded in 930. We ate lunch in a rustic building with long tables. To accommodate loads of other tourists, just like us, I’m guessing.

When the tour ended, a nice guy from Japan I’d talked with during the day asked if I
wanted to join him for dinner. I was happy to. We ordered fish that tasted like
it had just been yanked out of the nearby sea. And I didn’t feel shy at all. "Hey, how ’bout them geysers?"

Photo: Ellen Perlman. Reykjavik in winter.