Boldly Go Solo

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

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  • Hilly Valparaiso, Chile, has gone to the dogs

    House_on_a_hill_valparaisoellen_p_2
    If you are prone to vertigo or have weak legs, the port city of Valparaiso, Chile, may not be the place for you. The city, a     UNESCO World Heritage site, has more than 42 hills, some of them heart-poundingly steep. But if you can deal with some leg work, or find a nice taxi driver, you will find interesting and intricate vistas up many a winding road.

    I had just one day to visit Valparaiso from Santiago. I debated whether to take an organized bus tour or go on my own. I chose the tour, mainly because I didn’t get my act together to research bus schedules or what I should see.

    It was a good choice. It turns out that buses pull in to the lower city. Then you have to find your way up the hills to the sights. If you’re looking for something in particular and start up the wrong vertical street, it’s a steep investment in going the wrong direction. 

    You can get up hills by foot or by ancient ascensor, the Spanish word for funicular. Check out this video of a ride up an ascensor. It really gives the feel of the experience:


    Our tour’s first stop was at one of Pablo Neruda’s houses. The Chilean poet had three. The two others are in Santiago and La Isla Negrita. The Valparaiso one, La Sebastiana, is on a steep street that our bus driver got the sweats navigating. I found myself wondering about how the strength of the emergency brake and its ability to hold a huge vehicle on that steep a pitch.     Roofs_of_valparaisoellen_perlman

    Neruda’s airy four-story house faces the sea, which he loved. The "crazy house full of stairs," as described by the Pablo Neruda Foundation, is packed with nautical knick-knacks. I mainly know Neruda from the Italian movie, Il Postino, about a postman’s admiration for the poet, who comes to the postman’s village for a season.

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  • Plan your solo vacation yourself or let someone else do it for you?

    USTOA says you can save a lot of money on vacations by signing up for packaged tours instead of planning a trip on your own. Well, of course, they’d say that. Their members are the ones packaging those tours, and making money from them.

    Empress_hotel_victoria_bcellen_pe_2
    The thing is, they’re right in a lot of cases. Particularly if you’re not the backpacking, sleep-in-hostels kind of traveler. And for solo travelers, specifically, a package tour provides community.

    When I went to Victoria, British Columbia, last weekend, I tried to do it as cheaply as possible. I was only going for a few days. On the Internet, I found a relatively inexpensive hotel and a downright cheap car rental. Or so I thought.

    That $35 a day car rental turned into $80 once I had to add on gas, overnight parking and taxes. Yowza. I knew there’d be extra charges but wasn’t expecting the total to be more than twice the price. The meals added up too.

    And although the hotel was cheap-ish, it smelled funny. And whoever decorated the joint has a grim way of coordinating dull brown furnishings with dull brown bedding and rugs. Blech.

    I had no one to complain to except myself. I wasn’t able to check the hotel out before I got there, except online, and it seemed fine. (Maybe someday they’ll offer a scratch-and-sniff feature for online lodgings.) Tour operators, however, know who and what they’re dealing with. Or find out soon enough and don’t repeat a negative experience. And if things are bad on a tour, you might actually get money back after complaining.

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  • Hiking 15 miles on Martha’s Vineyard, then sitting down for an intimate dinner for a dozen

    Turtle_on_trail

    <–Turtle sighting!

    I did not go solo on a 15-mile hike on Martha’s Vineyard on Saturday. Six of us set out on the annual cross-island walk. That turned into a whopping baker’s dozen during a mid-morning break. That’s because my friend Joan, whose house we were staying at for the weekend, knows about a zillion people.

    But we did take a solo traveler under our wings. As we
    waited at Duarte’s Pond for our 9 am start, a petite woman walked up to a clump of us. She told us she was there on her own. So we enlarged our circle, introduced ourselves and drew her into our conversation.     Early_on_in_the_marthas_vineyard_cr

    Her background fascinated us. Joan Ambrose-Newton has traveled all over the world for work. And for play. For 10 years, she was a freelance
    war correspondent for Pacifica Radio and the BBC, CBC and NBC. She was jailed for a short while in El Salvador for something she didn’t do.

    In her lilting accent, this South African-born
    writer explained that she likes solo travel because she "can’t be bothered" with people who don’t want to take off to the places she’s interested in. That includes her husband.

    He doesn’t
    like to travel, so she goes without him. “I don’t want to force people to do
    what they don’t want to do.” On the Martha’s Vineyard hike, she met and talked to about a dozen new people. That wouldn’t have happened if she’d come with friends, she pointed out.Near_the_end_marthas_vineyard_cross

    The hike was leisurely and beautiful. And long. We walked through land bank properties that the island has saved from development, and took breaks at a school where a soccer game was underway; at a farmer’s market that was just ending; and on a wooded path along Tea Lane Farm.

    At lunch, where we ate sandwiches we’d brought along, Ambrose-Newton mentioned a great and hilarious tip for dining alone. She calls a restaurant and reserves a table for two, to avoid getting seated near the bathroom or kitchen.

    Then, after she’s been seated for awhile, she tells the waiter that the creep she was waiting for must have stood her up. "Every waiter in town is going to be so nice after that," she laughed. Ingenious! Although, I’m not sure I have the nerve. Or that I’m a good enough actress.

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  • Dining alone on Vancouver Island, at the best seats in the house

    Most people don’t like eating alone at fancy
    restaurants. What they mean by alone is not having company at their table. How about being the
    only one in the whole restaurant? That’s what happened to me the other day.Heron_on_the_rocks_sooke_vancouver_

    I got a same-day reservation at the Sooke Harbour House on Whiffen Spit Beach on
    Vancouver Island on a Saturday. The place is famed for using local ingredients, including many
    from its front yard. Its back yard is the ocean. The only time available was
    5:30 pm. That was okay because I was still on East Coast time. So it was going to feel like 8:30 pm anyway.

    When I left Victoria that morning, I hadn’t planned on sitting down for the four-course,
    fixed-price meal. It wasn’t cheap. But several things sold me on the place. One
    was the idea of the fresh ingredients from local farms that the restaurant uses. Another was its lack of pretension. And it’s such a pretty place, tucked into a neighborhoodSalad_at_sooke_harbour_house_vancou
    near a little park, with funky yard art, beautiful flowers and its very own totem pole.

    When I stopped in to ask about reservations and the dress code, the woman at the front desk smiled and told
    me anything goes. Dinner is about the food, not the clothes. Bikers in Spandex
    also sit down for a fine meal here, she said. I was sold.

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  • Opium dens, gambling and other features of neighborhoods in Victoria, British Columbia

    Totem_pole_thunderbird_park_victori
    I feel like I have hit every block of Victoria, British Columbia, in the past two days. In Chinatown, I visited the Gate of Harmonious Interest and Fan Tan
    Alley    , Canada’s narrowest street, and former home to gambling joints and opium dens. First thing in the morning, I was at the First Nations (Native Americans) exhibit at the Royal B.C. Museum. Then I walked around the Inner Harbour where the ferries and seaplanes come in.

    I’ve been packing in as much as possible. That’s how I like to travel. Not everyone does. So I don’t tend to do as much when I’m with friends. Particularly ones who sleep in or tire easily. We spend time waiting for each other and deciding things.

    No trip is perfect. When you travel alone you wish you were with someone from time to time. When you travel with people, you often can’t wait to be on your own. This trip is no different. But for the most part, I’m glad to be here by myself. Why?


    Ice_cream_scoops
    Because I have made no less than 5,257 decisions, give or take a thousand, over the past couple of days. And not once did I have to pause and say, "Is it okay with you if we go to the museum first thing?" Or, "Do you mind if I stop for a sec in this British sweets shop?" Or, "Hang on, I want to buy this Chinese-style shirt."

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  • Comfortably eating alone in Dublin

    Here are the top five Dublin restaurants for solo travelers, according to venere, a European hotel booking site similar to hotels.com. The site chooses these eating establishments for pluses such as:

    Avoca: "…the staff won’t blink at lone diners…"

    Cake Cafe: "…half the city is unaware of it’s location so you’ll almost always be able to snag a table."

    Dunne & Creszenzi: "…no one will rush you through a glass of wine in order to flip a table."

    The Bistro: …"the staff are always solicitous."

    But the one that sounds the best to me is:

    O’Neill’s: "Even as a single diner you won’t remain anonymous if you stay at O’Neill’s for very long."

    Go to the site for more details.

  • Friends in foreign places can be found anywhere, even behind the wheel of a taxi

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    If I hadn't traveled alone to Ecuador, I wouldn't have met Ariana, a sweet six-year-old who sings one heck of a Christmas carol. I met her dad Agustin towards the end of my 10-day vacation. A travel agent in Quito arranged for him to drive me to     the monument and museum at Mitad del Mundo. That is, the middle of the world. That would be the equator.
    She told me he didn't speak English but that my Spanish was good enough. Ha!

    He picked me up in the morning and as he drove, we conversed in Spanish. Somewhat. If you count pointing and nodding. If I had been with other people, I wouldn't even have tried.

    When we got to the museum, he told me he'd wait for me in the parking lot. I toured the exhibits. The museum feels touristy – maybe because it's full of tourists – but I learned a lot about indigenous people around the country. 

    Then I took the mandatory photo of me with one foot in each hemisphere. The equator was marked by an orange painted line. However, I've been told that the line is off by a fair distance.  Augostin_and_arianaellen_perlman

    I found Agustin and asked him to drive me to the nearby Pululahua Crater. This time he came with me and we hiked part way down, skidding on the dirt path occasionally. I could feel the temperature variations from the various micro-climates found at the crater.

    Agustin pointed out a trail visible on the sides of the surrounding mountains. It's for hikers who tramp around the crater. Two people and a horse walked past us, headed for the bottom, where some houses sit here and there.

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  • Travel on your own to these seven spots, and all over the world

    The editors at Frommer’s recently chose seven places suited for solo travel, from Istanbul to Mexico to Texas. Great trips are to be found in many places they left out, obviously, but they state their case for each pick. So, here, forthwith, are the: 7 top spots for the solo traveler.

     

  • The fine details of booking a trip to Victoria, British Columbia

    I’m in the middle of booking a four-day weekend in Victoria, British Columbia. Now I remember why I like traveling with tour operators. What a hassle it is to make my own arrangements!
    Clipper_ferry
    I’m going to Seattle for my day job and decided it was a great excuse to do something else in the Northwest or beyond. Especially since the conference I’m attending ends on a Friday and the company has paid for my airfare.

    And so the arrangements began. First I went for the flight. Checked out the cheapest airlines with the best times. USAirways won.

    Then I went to the Clipper Vacations ferry site, which serves Vancouver Island, but didn’t want to book right away. Not until I figured out where the pier was, in relation to the airport, for when I return. So instead, I clicked around for airport and city maps. 

    Colorful_ice_cream
    Then a hotel. Looked all around the ferry site’s package offerings but couldn’t get something I wanted in my price range. Asked the tourist board for a list of reasonably priced hotels. Went on Web sites or called. Some were booked one night or the other. Some were too expensive. Finally settled on the Dalton Hotel & Suites. We’ll see how that goes.

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  • Snag a snug and down some Irish whiskey

    Robinsons_bar_belfastellen_perlmanEver sit in a "snug?" In the Crown Bar, a former gin joint also known as the Crown Liquor Saloon, the snugs are private, carved wood booths. Wait staff can pass drinks over the top of the cubicle-like snugs, or open the door and hand them in.

    The Crown Bar is in the heart of Belfast. But isn't Belfast dangerous, you ask? Not any more so than other urban area.

    Peace broke out in Northern Ireland, as of the signing in the 90's of an agreement between the Catholics and the Protestants. "The Troubles" are no more, although you can see much of the history of them via huge murals on walls and houses around the city. And people still hold grudges and have prejudices, like human beings everywhere.   

    But tourism is coming back. The Crown Bar, near the Grand Opera House, was hopping on the Saturday night I wandered in. What a fine, historic interior. Etched and painted glass. Brocade walls. Red granite topped bar. And a lively crowd, packed in all possible spaces.

    I was in Northern Ireland with a tour group but I had time to wander off on my own each day. Including after dinner, which is when I explored the Crown.

    Another afternoon in Belfast I found "Joy's Entry" and several other narrow, maze-like pedestrian passages between buildings. You enter these walks and find "secret" pubs and restaurants like McCrackens or O'Neill's.

    A sign on a brick wall near one of the entries says they are "the close-knit passageways where Belfast was born and bred." I can imagine a great movie scene where people being chased slip into one of these entries and lose the car that was after them. Loyalist_mural_belfastellen_perlman

    I also took a "black taxi tour" and learned a lot about the history of The Troubles. My guide, Ken Harper, explained the symbolism on some of the murals. For instance, an "H" is for H block in a Northern Irish prison where Bobby Sands, an Irish Republican prisoner went on a hunger strike and died.

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