During one of my recent trips it occurred to me that if having to have company to travel were mandatory I would have never gone anywhere! I have been traveling on my own for years and years, both for work and for pleasure. And I must say I have no complaints about what I have had the opportunity to experience while doing it!
Business trips are usually solo trips by nature, although occasionally I have traveled with colleagues. When going away on vacation though it has been my choice to do it on my own in most cases…well, at times I kind of ended up making that decision after trying unsuccessfully to convince a friend or some friends to come along. When matching my schedule to theirs or vice versa is just impossible, I just go ahead and travel by myself!
The perspective of a solo traveler is definitely different from that of a person traveling with friends and/or family. One thing that certainly makes it different is that being alone allows you to observe and be more aware of your surroundings. You are able to enjoy not only the views, scents and sounds of the places you’re visiting but you also become a silent spectator of the interaction of the people near you.
I find a lot of joy in contemplating couples, parents and children or just a group of friends having fun. Watching what people do can be quite entertaining too, especially at popular attractions: there are the ones who take thousands of photos of absolutely everything and with everything, there are the ones that just sit back to watch (I am one of them) and there are the ones that happened to be there physically but actually are just elsewhere (e.g. teenagers who won’t put down their phones).
Oh, since I happened to mention technology briefly, I should also include something rather trivial: traveling on your own will help you become an expert in producing good “selfies”. Yep, I have become a master in taking pictures of myself on my cell phone as not always there is someone nearby to take pics of me when I want them. The photos included in this post are a proof of that!
What to do, where to go, how much time to spend at each place, how many hours of sleep to get, what to eat…making these decisions could be the cause for serious disagreements and could result in broken friendships and even divorces. When you travel alone though, those decisions are totally up to you. You, and only you, decide what is important to see, to hear, to feel. Of course, when you pick the wrong choice, you got no one else to blame but yourself though.
Yet, I think the best thing about traveling alone is that you also have more time to be with yourself. Priceless. This is one thing that often times you do not have the chance to enjoy and your only opportunity to do it is when you are away from home. Now, a word of advice: you should only travel solo when you’re in good terms with your own self…a depression while on vacation? No fun!
There are certainly downsides to traveling by yourself (e.g. hotel accommodations are more expensive for one person, you have meals by yourself often, etc.) but I focus on its positive aspects instead…the ride is a lot more enjoyable that way! As a matter of fact, as I am finishing this post I am thinking of a lot other reasons why traveling solo is so cool…there will be a second part to this story for sure!