Boldly Go Solo

How to set out solo, but not travel alone: Trips, tips and ideas for the active traveler.

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  • Travelers stranded solo in big snow = a blast

    Parked cars, DC-Ellen Perlman What the heck would you have done if you had been a solo traveler to Washington, D.C., this weekend in the middle of a snow storm that's been called both "Snowmageddon" and "Snowpocalypse?"As well as one, big, "Historic Mess?"

    And suppose you'd been here on Saturday when all the museums were closed? As well as most of the restaurants?

    Yet you had no one to hole up with and be entertained by in your hotel room because you were traveling alone?Parked cars3-Ellen Perlman, boldlygosolo

    And unless you had great planning and research skills, you probably wouldn't have rented a pair of snowshoes or cross country skis in advance of the storm, and have been rarin' to go out and take on the drifts.A path through

    BUT…

    You still would have had the time of your life. IF you're a snow lover. Yes, you would have.

    For one, you could have made your way to the massive snowball fight at Dupont Circle and either watched or joined right in. People were throwing at strangers. And playing target with same.

    You could have walked around in awe, taking in the sheer beauty of nature's little snow joke.IMG_0810

    You could have just walked up and down the streets and found yourself smiling at everyone, noticing that most everyone was greeting you and smiling back.

    You HAD to communicate because shoveled paths were so narrow that people had to step aside and take turns letting one another through.

    (More photos on next page)

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  • Solo female travelers shouldn’t let safety concerns put the world off limits

    I've often been terrified before traveling to foreign countries outside of the "safety" of Europe.

    I planned a trip to Ecuador and worried for weeks before going. Someone told me about a woman he'd met in Brazil who'd been harassed in Ecuador. I read about pickpockets and thieves and how careful women had to be at night.Giza Pyramids and camels

    The same thing happened before going to Egypt. All I could think of was the massacre I'd remembered that had taken place there 15 years ago. As if the next one were planned for the very time, place and day I'd be at, say, the Valley of the Kings or the Pyramids at Giza 15 years later.

    And people around me freaked out when I said I was going to Mexico last fall. They'd read too much about kidnappings and drug-related killings. As had I. Although in that case, I wasn't very concerned. Can't explain why.

    But while staying with a family in Guadalajara, Mexico, taking the city bus to Spanish classes and sightseeing around the downtown, I have to say, I didn't see one person carted off by a drug cartel member or shoved into a car and driven off for a ransom call.Guadalajara family-Ellen Perlman

    Life seemed pretty normal despite the horror stories in the paper. Which are mostly about the border states, in any case, not all of Mexico.

    This kind of thinking is understandable (I've GOT to say that, don't I, since I engage in it sometimes) but also not particularly rational.

    I live in Washington, D.C. I watched the smoke from the 9/11 plane that crashed into the Pentagon rise into the sky as I made my way home that day. Terrorists had attacked within two miles of where I worked and within five miles of where I live.

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  • News on solo travel from Reuters

    Is the market for solo travel slowly turning our way? Is the industry finally willing to cater to the solo traveler?

    Hard to say.

    But I would love to take at face value the following quote and others in a story about how the industry is wooing solo travelers irritated by the extra charges they face as a party of one:

    "The tour industry is making way for the single
    traveler," said Margie Jordan, spokesperson for the American Society of
    Travel Agents. "This is nothing that's going to go away. The single
    traveler is going to have as many opportunities as anyone else."

    She says that cruise lines, in particular, are offering solo travelers opportunities to travel without paying the single supplement. And indeed I've written about a few that have waived the single supplement charge.

    I'm not much into cruises myself. But how about we get the word out to tour operators?



  • Solo tai chi and cooking classes in Vietnam

    800px-Tai_Chi_Chuan-china1 My friend and former work colleague "P," used to rush from work some evenings to make it to her tai chi class. She found it to be a relaxing respite from work tasks and household duties.

    When she and her husband booked a trip to Vietnam this past December, she decided she was going to take the opportunity to practice tai chi in a place where it was a common pastime.

    So while on vacation, she left husband M behind and headed to a park in the wee hours of the morning to participate in a public tai chi session. Here's her story:

    "I have done what I came to do. Achieved my minor dream. Gone out on my own, with the help of a guide, to Hoan Kiem Lake (pronounced Juan Kim) that is to Hanoi what Central Park is to New York.

    And there, at 6 in the morning, just as the sun is coming up (though, it doesn't feel like a sunrise since it's overcast and drizzling and pretty dark even when it's daylight), my guide steers me past the doubles teams playing badminton (yes, badminton is still alive and well somewhere in this world) and the men lifting barbells to groups of ladies doing tai chi.

    This is what I wanted to do: Tai Chi in a park in an Asian city.

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  • Win a phrase book to help you banter with the locals on your next foreign adventure

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    Don't you just hate it when you're in a bar somewhere in Rome or Florence or Barcelona and you just can't think of how to say, in the native language, "I would love to, Handsome?" Or, "That shirt doesn't go with those pants?"

    Yeah, me too!Hide this book extreme, Ellen Perlman

    That's why you might want to have a copy of "hide this book EXTREME." Yes, it's kind of an odd name. And it seems meant to appeal to teens and young adults who will learn "dirty words" and funky expressions that will make them laugh or maybe actually learn something.

    However, it could be useful and amusing for adults too. We all learned in our school language classes how to say, "Where is the bank?" and "Which way to the Eiffel Tower/restaurant/center of town?

    But who wouldn't want to know how to say, "There's no toilet paper?" Or understand clearly when the bartender says, "Tonight, beer is two for one?" Or have in their arsenal, "If you touch me one more time I'll break your face?" Especially solo travelers, on that last one!

    So, in the first ever Boldly Go Solo contest, I am going to give away one book each in French, Spanish and Italian. Kindly provided to me gratis by the publisher of the books.

    All you need to do to win is contribute a phrase or a story via email (above left, click on "About").

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  • 17-plus ways to meet people when traveling solo and other solo travel tips

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    Today's post is a roundup of solo-related pieces I found on the Web in the past few days.
    0291-Paper mache giraffe, Tonala, Mexico-Ellen Perlman

    First, in a continuation of travel deals from my last post, there are two cruise lines that are waiving the single supplements on certain voyages. 

    Avalon Waterways has some European river cruises available with no single supplement. And Norwegian Cruise Line has introduced what it's calling Norwegian Epic Studios, "contemporary
    staterooms priced for the solo traveler."     Cruises still are
    pretty pricey for my taste, but hopefully my cruising readers can take
    advantage of these deals.

    For more info NCL's solo cruises and others, see this story in Cruise Critic.


    The rest of these posts offer reasons for traveling solo and good places to do so.


    The Travel Channel has a nice post on solo travel on the topic, saying that "few
    experiences offer the inspiration for self-growth and discovery as does
    the act of hitting the road solo." Despite the the apprehension one
    might feel before setting off.

    For one, local women in countries in the
    Middle East, North Africa and Asia, are
    quick to approach single female travelers with offers of hospitality, the writer found.
    Such as a a meal at their homes. Something that is less likely to
    happen if you travel with others. The post offers thoughts for traveling in India, Morocco, Iceland and Vietnam.

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  • 10 tips for avoiding the single supplement

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    In preparation for being interviewed
    on the BBC World's travel program    , called "fast:track," I asked experts
    if they knew of tour operators that waived or markedly lowered the
    single supplement. (Who knew the BBC piece was going to involve a boy blowup doll?!)800px-Cruise_ship

    Many
    respondents told me about companies they knew or, or represented, that don't charge the single supplement. But I
    know better than to believe that right off.

    And indeed, after some
    simple checking, it turns out that for many tour operators only waive the single supplement
    if you're willing to share a room with another person signed up for the trip. I don't think that's what people
    are looking for when they ask about the single supplement. But it's a
    relatively common option and a saving grace for those looking to save money, and who don't mind sharing a room that they won't be spending much time in anyway.

    Here are some other tips for avoiding the single supplement:

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  • Six tips for a great solo ski vacation

    Park City, Utah, skiing-Ellen Perlman Although my friend Elaine is skiing in Park City, Utah, alone, she's making friends right and left. Okay, they're friends for five minutes, but what's the difference? She's being entertained, being social and not feeling lonely.

     "I have five-minute relationships with people on the chair lift," she says. "Then it's, 'Have a nice life.' " And off she goes, carving her way down the snowy mountainside.

     I worried that Elaine, who has gone solo on plenty of biking, skiing and other group adventure tours, would not have a good time going skiing for a week in Park City, Utah. All by herself. In a condo without her pals.

    Instead, I'm envious of her vacation. No, it isn't perfect. Nothing's ever perfect. She misses the camaradie from the time a couple of years ago when she, our friend Andrea, and I traipsed out West together, eating out, waiting for each other on the slopes and laughing. A lot.

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  • Travel solo or buy more stuff?

    What makes you happier? Possessions or experiences?Felucca (sailboat) on Nile, Cairo, Egypt-Ellen Perlman  

    I came across a blog post by someone who decided to fulfill his dream of living on a sailboat. He wrote four lessons on what he had learned from his experience.

    Two resonated with me and will for most solo travelers: 

    1. Life is about the experiences you have, not the possessions you own.


    I wonder about this sometimes. When I return from a vacation that
    cost me, say, $1,500, I sometimes think, "That's over now. And what do
    I have to show for it?"

    What I mean is with $1,500, I could have had a
    new computer with accessories that would last me years. Or a nice, new
    piece of furniture. Or who knows what else?

    But travel is in a separate category of spending. A must-have category. My
    life would feel empty if I didn't go somewhere each year. I like
    things, but I like travel experiences more.

    Other people feel
    differently. Some want to renovate their homes. Others want expensive
    new "toys," whether cars or boats or, I don't know, race horses. And will put off traveling.



    If you're reading travel blogs like this one, you're likely in the "prefer experiences" category. (And aren't in the market for a horse any time soon.)

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  • Solo sightseeing in Can Tho, Vietnam

    800px-Waterfront_-_Can_Tho_-_Vietnam My friend P, and her husband M, are in Vietnam, sweating through a very non-white Christmas season. The white stuff wouldn't last a second in Southeast Asia if it ever managed to head that way. It's broiling hot, she says.

    Between the heat and the fumes from the "hundreds of thousands of mopeds that fill the roads at all hours," on the streets of Can Tho, a big city on the Mekong Delta, P felt a little woozy.

    She decided to pass on a pre-planned bike ride. M went, which meant P could explore the back streets on her own. Which she LOVED.

    She emailed me from an Internet cafe, another thing that's difficult to indulge in when you're traveling with others. They either have to want to use email too, or you have to make them wait for you, or you have to arrange to meet them somewhere when you're done.

    And then you have to make sure you're done when you said you'd be done or you're making them wait. Details, details, that you don't have to deal with when you're on you're own. 

    Anyway, she wrote that for the afternoon, she was "boldly going solo" for two hours. With someone she called a "guide in training." So she had the company of a Thai local. 800px-CanThoFloatingMarket "It's more interesting because I can ask the questions I want to ask without M going off on his tangents."

    See, my faithful readers, even the person who's nearest and dearest to your heart, that traveling companion you supposedly can count on, can get in your way. Or on your nerves.

    It's not always a blessing to have that familiar person by your side, as I've said before.

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