How Lonely are you when you Travel Solo?

And that is where they are wrong! Because that is one of the best experiences you can have traveling alone..

everybody wants to help you, people are sharing their ideas with you or even asking you to go along with them. If you are feeling lost and tend to loose your faith in humanity maybe you should go travel solo. You’ll see that so many people will help you without anything in return and withh all the good intentions.

Maybe it is more of a challenge to be alone and do your own thing. I am also busy making short clips and I want to write down my experiences along the way.. And then I want to share things already with my family and friends at home..

How Lonely are you when you Travel Solo?

But what if you do feel lonely?

Still that is the biggest argument for people not to get on that plane and go explore the world for a couple of weeks!! Going for that great adventure and only doing what you want to do!! Days while traveling are expensive days.. around 75 to 100 euros (incl airticket/bus-trainfares/food/accommodation/trips) are what your spend on average travel day and you do want to spend it on things you like, do you?

At least I want to!

So that is exactly the reason that I started to travel solo. And well.. as you see I did like it a lot and never changed my style again. It all started in 2012… Since then I traveled for over 15 months and most of them were solo travels. There are some longer travels too, in 2012 it was 2 months, in 2014 it became 3 months and in 2016 I even went for 5 months solo traveling!!

Do not want to be alone? Go visit  Roberto Escobar..

Yes… The brother of Pablo 🙂

But coming back tothat first question…

How Lonely are you when you travel solo? Don’t you miss the company of others?

To answer that I think the best way is to show you how I travel around and you’ll see that I don’t have that much of me time at all.

What do I do to get

in touch with other travellers?

The best option is to book a trip that will be organized locally and with other travellers.

With most small travel agencies you can ask them to book you into a group of other travellers and that you are not looking for a private tour. Most travelagencies will look for you and even advice you maybe to wait a day for that particular trip or go on another trip where they do have a group already!

• I booked a trip in Vietnam to the  Sand Dunes in Mui Ne, Vietnam. I met Babette the day before on a bus and she became a good friend of mine! Also Greg from New Zealand was on that trip, I met him after a year again on Sumatra.. The world can be so small!! 🙂
• Go walk an ancient old Glacier in Iceland and meet some of the best people!!
• And what about eating the best food, feel the culture and while all this talking to some great people? I did all that in Mumbai… I love Indian food!!

Those are all the best activities and days you won’t spend alone!!

How Lonely are you when you Travel Solo?

Another great idea: You can do some volunteering, make yourself useful! Do something for the community of nature while travelling.

You will get a great feeling of doing something without asking something in reture and staying somewhere not as a tourist is a totally different experience. You are not the tourist for a moment and start to look differently to your surroundings. You are part of the community for a period of time and start to feel responsible.

In september I will go to Kenia to do some volunteering at a National Park. I feel like I will be on a safari for 7 days…but I will make myself usefull for the animals I am searching for. We are looking for traps and wounded animals. We also count the ones we see for registration purposes. I see this as a great oppurtunity to do something for those wild animals!!

•  I also did some volunteering before. I went to Juara Turtle Project on Tioman Island – Malaysia

Tips and Tricks for when you go travel alone

These are all tips and tricks for spending your day while travelling. For the trips you are bound to book and will get even cheaper spending them with other travellers.

What are other fears? Spending your evening dinner by yourself?

It happened multiple times that someone asked me if it was oke to sit with me for lunch or dinner. 

How great is that?

And ofcourse you can ask that yourself too. You might be hesitant to do that but the respect you feel if someone asks you will be felt the other way around too. And it is no problem if someone says no and probably gives you a good reason.

Those time I remember gave me the best days!!

For instance:

• I met the American Marisa when I overheard her arranging a trip while having breakfast at the Peacock Logde in Myanmar. I asked her if I could join and we started to make a good program for the day and had a good time!!
• Also climbing the Mount Masada with the American Mike was a great experience after the evening that he asked if he could join my dinner table.
• Or that time I asked Amadou (only NL)  in The Gambia if he wanted to join me for some days to Wassu & Kuntaur. It seemed a better idea 🙂

Hotel or Hostel when you travel solo?

You can always choose to go to hostels and easily meet other travellers. In hostels they have lots of space for communal use. In hotels they only have a lobby that often feels very uncomfortable for sitting and socializing… as it is not meant for that use.. Hostels on the other hand are, they want you to mingle and relax and spend time inside the building.

This is one of the reasons that hostels get other travellers. The people that travel with a different point of view and most of the time a bit more time to spend in one location. I sometimes need my own room and space and not have to take notice of other people but I also spend a lot of time in hostel lately. Where I sometimes can get my own room too. There are hostel in all shapes and sizes.

And… in this time and age you can find so much online on a certain location and also about the travellers that might be there at the time of your arrival.

There are lots of Facebookgroups where I see the questions of fellow travellers. Not always about a night out in the city but also for multiple daytrips!!

• Search on the social media for your travelcompany
  

Check these groups: The Backpacker Network, Travel Europe, Australia, America and Asia (Backpackers), South East Asia Backpackers tips and so on. There are lots of groups to join when you look here. You can look in all kinds of areas for specific travel too.

• Sitting in a restaurant by yourself…and then?

And what if they do? Then it still would be something of their concern and not yours. You are there, you are enjoying a great holidy and are the king of your world!!

The other option for me would be to sit at home and eat my own cooked meal by myself.. Well.. I’d rather sit at that great location and enjoying that great local dish 🙂

And besides all that you have enough to do .. right?

• Go and look for the route of you journey, what is your next stop?
• Did you already look for that bus to take you to your next destination?
• Do you know what you need to see in the city where you are? Look at that travelguide and see if you are not missing something. Or check the internet?
• Write down your experiences of that day to not forget them
• Read that book that you brought, just to dream off for a while
• Or are you sitting on a terrace and can you practice your big hobby, looking at the people that are passing by
• Or pick that greatest picture of the day to share of Instagram or Facebook!

I always have more then enough things to do.

I am not easily bored while travelling. Always busy researching my next step and finding out how I can get the most out of my days!!

Calling Home through the Internet is Free

so getting in contact is easy

If you do want to talk to someone from back home you can easily call home in this time of age. So what is the problem?

Go on Skype, go on Facetime or what ever programm you are using. It is for free and you can, while enjoying a local cup of coffee or drink talk to eachother.

So, how lonely can you get, right? 

So being lonely is based on the fact that you don’t bring someone with you that you are close with. Like a friend of familymember that you know and he or she knows you.

After reading all this… Do you still think that you will be lonely when you travel solo? I do think this will change your mind, right?

How Lonely are you when you Travel Solo?

Did you like this?

Do share it!!

Would you like to read more about my travels?

It sounds scary! Not having a hotelrom during the day!!

Yes, I travel Alone, I’m single

How do you do it? Backpacking..

Responsible Tourism. Get off the elephant!!

Why Travelling makes me happy

Or can I inspire you to learn how to surf?

Surfing the Waves of Kartong – The Gambia

I hope you love this world as much as I do!

Safe and Healthy Travel

Jacomijn is een politieagent uit Nederland die jou graag laat zien hoe je veilig, actief en gezond de wereld kan over reizen. Safe and Healthy travel is a MUST

safeandhealthytravel.com