Active trips let solo travelers skip the single supplement

You can make a case that the solo traveler is discriminated against more than any other person on vacation. Just look at the costs: The dreaded single room supplement increases a single traveler’s accommodations expenses by 50% to 100% over the amount charged per person to members of a couple traveling together.

Yet the single traveler is a mighty force in the industry. Nearly one-quarter of all U.S. travelers, or 34.8 million adults, have taken a vacation by themselves in the past three years -- double the number of a decade ago, according to the Travel Industry Assn.

I try to regularly suggest alternatives that will help lone travelers avoid single supplements. Here are some organizations that offer novel experiences for singles.

Certainly the Omega Institute at Rhinebeck, N.Y., (800) 944-1001, www.eomega.org, does that. As one of America’s foremost residential centers for exploring personal relationships and psychological issues, it maintains dormitory accommodations for singles costing $64 to $85 a night, including three vegetarian meals daily.

The Kripalu Institute at Lenox, Mass., (800) 741-7353, www.kripalu.org, is a leading yoga-based resort. It offers multibed rooms and dorms (six to 22 bunks, hallway baths) for singles at $89 per night, including three vegetarian meals. For other residential yoga retreats, use an Internet search engine and plug in the word “yoga.”

Also heavily booked by singles are the outdoors, hiking or work trips (“outings”) of the San Francisco-based Sierra Club, (415) 977-5522, www.sierraclub.org/outings. Because most of its programs utilize sleeping bags, tents or hostel-type lodges, there is rarely a single supplement, and prices usually average well under $100 a day for everything -- meaning accommodations, guides and three meals.

Another worthy organization is Earthwatch Institute, www.earthwatch.org, whose participants pay to accompany noted university researchers on projects. With Earthwatch, travelers occupy lodgings rented to serve the particular scientific project, perhaps using a sleeping bag or cot in the living room and preparing communal meals. They pay no single supplement; most Earthwatch participants travel alone.

Singles can sign up to assist noted archeologists in their fieldwork, both in the United States and abroad. Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, www.crowcanyon.org, is a nonprofit group in Cortez, Colo., that conducts archeological expeditions and solicits volunteers of all ages (mainly singles) as assistants. For a great many other such volunteer activities, contact the Archaeological Conservancy online at www.archaeologicalconservancy.org.

The best vacation trip for a person traveling alone is one focused on activities, themes or projects having nothing to do with meeting, mingling or socializing; it is a vacation in which people serve an outside cause, project or independent interest. In that setting, the single traveler does emotionally satisfying work -- and probably meets far more other singles than he or she would at any commercial resort or cruise, or on any tour.