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| Solo | 66% | 383 votes | Total: 577 votes | |
| Guided | 34% | 194 votes |
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Add to FavoritesTraveling Alone: Tips for Traveling Alone
Traveling alone does not have to be a lonely experience. It can be the most exciting travel experience of your life. Here you can find solo travel tips that will help you make the best out of your individual traveling experience.
Before You Travel
Planning a vacation where you will be traveling alone is not much different from planning a family vacation. It is even easier because only one persons preferences and interests have to be taken in consideration. However, here are a few do's and don'ts for traveling alone.
Do your homework so you will have at least the basic knowledge of the area you are traveling to. Read about your destination; learn about its culture and what the area offers to tourists.
Do include in your plan going to tourist centers where you can meet other individual travelers like yourself. Even if you are not looking for traveling partners, it is always nice to share your experience and learn from others experience, and at the very least it can offer some company for a short while.
Don't include places described in guidebooks as the ultimate honeymoon getaway or the best place to travel with young children. You are most likely to feel awkward surrounded with honeymooners and or families.
Make sure to carry a book and a notebook. A notebook will allow you to write down all the different things you see and experience during your vacation. You will appreciate their company in airports, train stations, restaurants, etc.
You may think it will be cool to not make any plans for where to stay and just "wing it", but it is highly recommended that at least for the first night you should have a reservation someplace for the night. Landing in a foreign country is strange enough without having to wander around with your bags in search for accommodation.
Do prepare a basic schedule for the first days. You can always stray from it, but it will provide you with some peace of mind knowing what the activities for the first day or so will be.
While You Travel
So, you woke up in your hotel room, had coffee in the coffee shop that was highly recommended by the Lonely Planet, got lost while looking for the museum and when finally found it you discovered it is closed on Wednesdays. What is next?
One step at a time: start by talking with the hotel staff. Ask them for recommendations and guidance. If you are very nice, they might even take you to cool local hangouts that you will not find in a travelers handbook, and in my experience usually lead to a better time.
Dormitories style housing, like hostels are better places to meet individual travelers than luxurious hotels. For example, tourist information centers, Internet cafes, restaurants and bars will also provide you chances to meet other travelers.
Don't be antisocial talk to strangers. Try out this simple trick: when you are having your breakfast, approach the tourist next to you and ask him or her about their plans for today. In the worse case, you would be rejected, hopefully in a polite manner. In most cases, you would get an answer and maybe even find a traveling partner.
Go to local travel agencies; see if they offer day trips or special packages.
If you are embarrassed to dine out alone, get over it. Skip the candle light restaurants and go to travelers cafes where you will not be the only guest who sits by himself and there will sufficient light to read or write in your journal.
Do not be afraid to approach other solo travelers and ask them to join you at your table. Again, they might refuse and they might gladly agree. However, even if it turns out like a big mistake and you can find yourself spending an evening listening to the most boring travel adventures you have ever heard, chill, you will not hear them again.
Learn more about this author, Ellie Schneider.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
Guided
This is a tough debate, solo or guided. It is a tough one, for I usually travel solo when I travel, and it would seem that I should write for the solo side.
The toughness comes from my profession. For the last 25 years I have been a tour guide for incoming tourists to my country (Israel). My perspective may for this reason be different from most here.
Because I predominantly travel solo when I travel, I see the pros, but I also know the cons. When traveling solo, you and only you are responsible for every aspect - where to sleep, where to tour, where to eat, what to tour, how to understand what you are looking at. I find I spend a lot of time reading the travel guide, which takes away precious time from experiencing the country, its people and its nature. When traveling solo, even with friends, we use a lot of time, which can be extremely fun time, finding our way around, getting lost driving and having to backtrack to get to where we want to go.
Of course the up side is that we are only accountable to ourselves, we don't have to be somewhere at a certain time, and even if we are late, it matters not. If we want to change our travel plans, we can do so at any moment.
Guided tours have the great advantage that you know in advance what you will be visiting. Guides for the most have undergone extensive education and can link many events and times together. The guides and bus drivers are usually totally professional and will serve the visitor to the utmost. On a guided tour you should receive the most important information not just about the place being visited, but you also have direct access to someone who can answer your questions, who will tell you about many aspects of the country or town or site that you are visiting, who will look after you should something happen, knows his/her way in the country, knows the opening and closing hours of the places to be visited, and usually also of places not on the schedule, and much more.
You are never stuck without company, unless you choose to be by yourself. This one point can be the reason why you may NOT choose a guided tour. You know you are going to see all the sites promised, and if lucky even a bit more, usually at no extra cost.
The cost is also an aspect to consider. It is usually much cheaper to travel with guided tours. The two places where prices become considerably lower are airfares and hotel accommodations. These two instances generally give much lower prices to organizing travel agents. There is so much less worked involved when dealing with group bookings than dealing with individual travelers. When participating in group tours the cost of the guide and touring vehicle is shared equally and of course included in the overall price. There are many places where entrance fees are reduced for groups.
There is however a third way of traveling, at least in my country, Israel. That is by privately guided cars, taking up to maximum 10 people. This is usually done for people who want the advantages of a private guide, and don't want the hassle of finding their own way round. This option is probably the most expensive, and the airfare and hotel is on a FIT (free independent traveller) basis. There are no others to share the cost of the car and the guiding. But for many this is the ideal way of travelling. The best of both worlds - freedom to go where and when you want, see what you want to see, start and end the day to suit you, and at the same time having the wisdom and knowledge of the local guide.
In my capacity as a guide I also meet FITs traveling solo, as do most of my colleagues. All too often the visitor is lost, missed the opening hours, and has no way of getting back to that site they had dreamed of seeing, have missed the public transport they had planned for, and must now wait hours for the next or find alternative method.
All in all the three ways of traveling all have up-sides and down-sides. It is up the the individual to decide which ups are good for him/her and which are not.
Joyful traveling
Learn more about this author, Birte Edwards.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
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