Once Considered a Problem, Traveling Solo Now Has Advantages

There’s a growing consensus that single people should travel alone. In seminar after seminar, arguments are made that unaccompanied adults become more sensitive to the local culture and language, and that they are more likely to meet people when they travel without a friend of their own background.

Though I’ve been married for most of my life, my profession as a travel writer has required that I travel alone for large parts of the year. And though I missed my wife, I value the rewards of solitary travel: time to ponder, reflect, absorb and “listen” to foreign lifestyles.

But what about when women travel alone? There are fewer problems than there used to be. People no longer stare at a woman dining alone. Countries such as Spain and Turkey no longer treat the solitary female traveler as if she were a libertine. With the increasing participation of women in business travel, attitudes have improved toward solo women in almost all parts of the world, other than in some rigid societies of the Middle East. That’s not to say that a woman tourist should go strolling the docks of Liverpool. There are obviously common-sense limits to observe. But by keeping to safe areas and adopting normal precautions, many women have found that it is sometimes advantageous to travel alone.

What problems remain? The big bugaboo is the single-room supplement, which can’t be overcome; it is part of the economics of hotel-keeping or cruise-operating that most rooms and cabins are capable of being occupied by two people. Therefore, the single traveler may pay the same amount for that room as two persons would pay. The solution? Bargaining. Just as many Americans have learned that hotel prices are sometimes negotiable, a single traveler should be conscious of his or her right to request a better price and to “shop around” until such a rate is secured.

And might I suggest that single travelers consider the various learning vacations and volunteer vacations that are currently given such prominence on the Internet? On a volunteer vacation, where people are focused on a goal outside themselves--for Earthwatch, say, or Habitat for Humanity--the fact that one is traveling alone and not as a couple becomes unimportant.

Beyond that, the “alternative traveler” usually stays in a dorm. On an educational trip, like an Elderhostel study week or at foreign universities, the same applies.

If you feel you must travel with a companion (but don’t have one), remember that both commercial and nonprofit services exist to aid you. Jens Jurgen’s long-established Travel Companion Exchange, (631) 454-0880 or www.travelcompanions.com, enables singles to advertise inexpensively and effectively for a travel partner.

One other solution? Seek out a travel companion, perhaps using the above service, but hedge your bets. Tell the prospective companion that sharing costs is your main aim and that you will be sightseeing and dining alone, unless the two of you prove especially congenial. I know someone who has done that on numerous occasions and enjoyed the best of both worlds.