solo travel

How to Meet People When You’re Traveling Solo

by Ekua on October 10, 2011 · 2 comments in d.i.y. travel,listastic,solo travel

I tried to play it cool at the beginning of my first big solo trip, but I was pretty nervous about the whole thing.  While I value my alone time, I can also be a very social person. Going into that trip, I was worried that I wouldn’t meet anyone that I would click with and that I could have a lonely month ahead of me. Once I arrived, however, it wasn’t long until I found myself meeting all kinds of new people and forgetting all about how fearful I was at the beginning of it.

A few months ago, I wrote a post entitled 7 Reasons to Work Up the Nerve to Travel Solo. One of the reasons I offered was “To meet people you would never otherwise meet,” one of the aspects of solo travel I enjoy the most. To me, making great connections when I go abroad on my own now seems like a given, but I definitely remember what it felt like to be unaware of the possibilities you can open yourself up to when you travel solo.

In a series that aims to give people the courage to try solo travel, ideas on ways to ensure that you make friends along the way seemed like the best fit for the second post. Here are my suggestions for making your solo trip a very social trip:

» Stay in hostels.

You are undoubtedly going to meet more people if you stay in communal accommodations. When you’re by yourself, hostels provide you with several other people who are doing the same thing and a set up that makes it easier to connect with those people. I prefer smaller hostels rather than larger ones because the atmosphere tends to be more homey and community oriented. You’re likely to meet more people in hostel if you stay in a large room with a lot of bunks, but if you’re not interested in that, quite a few have smaller and single rooms available if you book in advance.

» Travel slowly.

Flitting about from place to place is sometimes necessary, but meeting new people is much easier if you stay in one place for as long as you can. The longer you stay, the more likely locals and expats will want to invest their time in getting to know you because they’ll see that you’re not just passing through. When you establish yourself at wherever you’re sleeping, you’ll begin to feel comfortable and that will lead to easy conversation with other people who are staying there. Traveling slowly also allows for time to do things like taking classes or working on an organic farm which will further enable you to meet new people.

» Become a regular.

When I stay in one city or town for five days or more, I find a spot I like (usually a cafe) and go there regularly. This is a great way to connect with the staff and also to meet locals who stop by daily. I find that eventually (if not immediately), they’ll be curious about you and strike up a conversation with you.

» Network online before you go.

I’ve made some great real life connections through travel blogging. If you read someone’s blog and enjoy it, chances are that the person will make a good tour guide or show you to really cool spots if you end up in their town. Of course, when it comes to meeting up with bloggers, it’s really helpful if you have your own online presence so that the other person feels comfortable with meeting up with you.

And of course, there’s Couchsurfing. I’ve never been active on it, but I know a lot of frequent solo travelers live by it and regularly use it to stay with and/or meet people wherever they go.

» Be open and bold.

There are often times when the people I deem to be unlikely friends at first glance turn out to be some of the most fascinating individuals once I get to know them. So even if there’s a big age gap, cultural difference or other seemingly huge difference, try breaking out of the boundaries that you inadvertently set for yourself at home. The more open you are, the better your chances will be of meeting people you really connect with.

People may approach you, especially if you’re smiling and look happy to be wherever you are, but sometimes you have to begin the conversation. With fellow travelers, the classic coversation starter is, “Where are you from?” It’s super generic, but it gets a conversation going, especially because über-travelers love to chat about places.

» Join a short tour.

Joining up with a tour group for a day or a week is a good way to make insta-friends and take a break from making your own arrangements. Tours often get a bad rap because of those gigantic ones that cart you around constantly and never give you enough time to really experience a location. They’re not all like that; there are plenty of them that arrange your transport and accommodations while leaving you free to do what you wish during the day. There are a lot of places that are really easy to travel independently where I wouldn’t bother with a tour, but I think tours make sense for some destinations and certain experiences are difficult or impossible to do without one (example: exploring the Amazon Basin in Bolivia). Tours can be hit or miss, but if you’re lucky enough to end up with the right tour group, it can be an extremely rewarding feat.

» Keep in touch.

Add new friends you meet on the road on Facebook or exchange e-mail addresses. Even if you part ways with new travel friends, you have a greater chance of linking up with them again in another city later on your trip if you have a way to contact them. Also, you can end up with great contacts all over the world who you can meet up with on your next solo trip. Maintaining friendships with fellow wanderlusters I’ve met abroad has been one of the most rewarding aspects of travel for me.

» Be patient.

It can take time to gain the confidence required to meet people on the road. Even with following all these tips, you may find yourself hiding out in your room, wondering why you decided to go on your trip alone. But it gets easier with time and soon enough, you’ll find that starting conversations with strangers has become easier and making lifelong friendships with people you didn’t know the previous week feels natural. You will be intrigued by the possibilities.

July 2009 - Making new Aussie friends on my first night in Cusco, Peru, not long after I decided to stop hiding in my hostel room and put myself out there.

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7 Reasons to Work Up the Nerve to Travel Solo

by Ekua on May 29, 2011 · 23 comments in d.i.y. travel,listastic,solo travel

For the last few weeks, I’ve been fielding a lot of questions about my potential summer travel plans. Many of these discussions end with an incredulous look in my direction and comment about my ability to travel solo. I get a lot of, “I can’t believe you just go on your own!” or, “I could never travel solo!”

What amazes me is how much most people I’ve talked with do want to travel but don’t. Aside from the average American job’s lack of vacation time or choices about where to spend money, one of the biggest travel deterrents seems to be not having anyone to go with.

This may sound weird, but it pains me a little when people let something like that prevent them from doing the things they want to do. So I decided to write a solo travel for beginners series, starting off with seven reasons why it’s worth it to take a solo trip:

» To connect with places more deeply and foster your creativity

When I travel with people I know, I value the ability to interact with them in a different setting and the closer relationships that can come with that. At other times, I want to feel my way through a place. When I am alone in the middle of somewhere new, I’m much more able to tune into the nuances of a culture or the scenery. Solo travel’s built in need to sense and observe feeds my creativity.

» To meet people you would never otherwise meet

This seems like a given, but most people I come across who are unfamiliar with traveling solo often assume it means that you will constantly be alone. If I look back to my first solo trip, this was a fear of mine as well. But it turns out that that fear was unfounded. On the road, I mostly befriend 20- and 30- somethings with similar views on life and travel, but I’ve also made friends with local people, people significantly older or younger, and a few eccentric people. Solo travel has enabled me to make life enhancing connections with the people who everyday life probably wouldn’t have led me to connect with. When you’re away from home alone, you’re more likely to do away with the ridiculous criteria for friendship that you often inadvertently establish at home.

» To experience life at high speed

Life seems to move faster when you’re traveling solo. The surface-skirting small talk portion of friendship is usually bypassed and you might find yourself in deep discussions with people you’ve met just hours before. When you’re alone in a strange place, things that are everyday experiences for the people who live there might send you back to feeling like a child when everything seemed so new and exciting. You have to start from scratch in so many ways and in a very short period of time, adjust to unfamiliar people and places. For me, somehow this sped up life seems to stick, and things that happened in just a few days on the road can be as a significant part of my life as things that happened over the course of much more time at home.

» To challenge yourself

When I visited India, I was terrified every time I set foot in a train station or bus terminal. In fact, on every trip I’ve ever been on, I have unreasonable fears about not being able to catch the right bus or train at the right time. Airports are set up to be internationally understandable, but local transport is often a lot more esoteric. So when I take the bus or the train, I typically wish I had a travel partner to alleviate my worries. But there’s something about successfully getting from place to place on my own that thrills me. On trips where I have quite a bit of stops to make, when I get to my last destination, I want to shout, “I did it!” For me, transportation is often my biggest challenge, but there are plenty of other challenges to tackle on a solo trip like cultural immersion or simply learning to sit comfortably with your own thoughts.

» To have the freedom to experience your obscure interests

Are you an American who’s down to go to Cuba? Are you more inclined to discover gritty alleys full of street art than check out established museums? Are you anthropologically driven to explore cultures in remote parts of the world? Sometimes you’re pumped up about something that doesn’t appeal to everyone. Sometimes it’s more fun to take just your enthusiasm and to explore your interest on your own and find people who have similar interests once you get there.

» To choose your travel style and maintain your friendships

When I travel, I typically stay in basic hotels or hostels, eat street food, and take ground transportation as much as possible. While I have my moments of wanting to be more in a traditional vacation mode, this is largely the style of travel I want to stick to for now. Whenever people say to me, “I want to travel with you sometime!” I run this by them. While some people I know could absolutely hang with a budget travel style, I know a lot more people who are not willing to share accommodations with strangers, are squeamish and picky about food, want to fly everywhere, and don’t want to travel for more than a week or two at a time. I’ve seen others jeopardize relationships over vastly different travel styles (as in siblings who drove each other crazy, friends not talking for awhile after returning from a trip, etc.) and I don’t want to go there. Sometimes it’s better to go solo than travel with someone whose style has the potential to be incompatible.

» Because life is too short to wait until everything is “right”

If you’ve been thinking about going somewhere for awhile and the right travel partner with the right schedule hasn’t come along to join you, you might as well just go. If you’re able bodied, a travel partner is not a requirement for traveling the world. In the end, you’ll find that it’s easier to go for it and take the trip rather than to live with the regret of letting the opportunity pass you by.

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Wanderful Words No. 27: The Secret Destinations of a Trip to India

by Ekua on May 9, 2011 · 4 comments in India,solo travel,wanderful words

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.”
– Martin Buber

A four day wedding and a little journey across northern India, that’s all. That’s what I thought before I left.

I knew challenges might accompany me on that journey, but those were largely my thoughts as I embarked on that trip. You might say that they were the underthoughts of the year.

But what does it mean to say that an upcoming trip might be challenging, anyway? You can expect challenges and know they’re coming. You can read blog entries and advice and prepare for the challenges. But you’ll never know exactly what challenges will materialize and how you’ll feel when they materialize until you arrive.

For the most part, I put myself in a position to experience India on a basic level. Because of this, and even more so because I was a solo female traveler, there was no filtering anything. India laid it all out for me — filthy accommodations, excessive staring, frustrating gender dynamics, and close-minded ideas about skin color. Once I arrived, the idea of a comfort zone became this elusive thing; something that couldn’t necessarily be reestablished by holing up in a hotel room.

Of course there were the highlights like the trip’s impetus — the vibrant and elaborate four day wedding I attended in Kolkata. After attending that wedding, it’s pretty clear that as far as traditions, decoration, and attire go, an Indian wedding can only be topped by an Indian wedding. I’m now a believer in multiple day weddings. After one day you’re just getting started, but after a few, it feels like a complete well-rounded event.

And there were the beautiful sites like the Amber Fort in Jaipur, the Taj Mahal, and the Jama Masjid that left me in awe of creativity and craftsmanship. There were a few surprises like the Jantar Mantar and the Victoria Memorial. There were the everyday views of cities captured in the early morning or from cars or rickshaws.

A wedding and sightseeing were the things I went to do and see. But of course, my trip had other destinations waiting for me. Most of these unexpected sights were internal.

I’m a strong traveler. I go solo. I go budget. I go almost anywhere. But India had a way of stripping me of this sturdy identity and leaving me feeling incredibly vulnerable. “So you think you’re tough?” it asked me with its daily frustrations and the way it disoriented me by hyper-engaging all of my senses simultaneously.

I was in India for a short time and it wasn’t long enough to reach a point of reconciliation. But it did come eventually.

“I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate.”
– Vincent van Gogh

It was after traveling to India that I knew with absolute certainty that cultural exploration is for me. It just feels right. If you’ve ready my About the Author section, you might argue that I’ve known that for awhile. But no place I’ve previously visited has tested me quite like India. And still my wanderlust is untainted, maybe even enhanced. It goes back to the sleepy, “even when I hate this, I love this,” rumination on my flight to India. It also goes back to other travelers’ sentiments that, “If you can travel in India, you can travel anywhere.” I feel even more ready for the world after visiting India.

Destinations can be like people whose friendship is questionable. They might stab you repeatedly in the front and in the back. But over time, you appreciate their presence in your life.

They’ve driven you crazy and tricked you; they’ve challenged you and poked and prodded your seemingly fragile core. But in the end, because of them, you can gleefully, powerfully, and irrevocably say, “Yes, I do have mountains of inner strength.”

If the countries I’ve visited were people, India would undoubtedly be my foe. And yet I am still damn glad to have met her.

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A 20 Hour Indian Train Experience

by Ekua on March 10, 2011 · 22 comments in backpacking,India,solo travel

4:30 pm
The panic I felt while stuck in mind-boggling traffic is fading. I’ve made it to the Varanasi Junction station in time for my 4:45 train to Agra. I step inside, and India assaults me with full force. It seems that not a single spot in the train station is unoccupied; people are sitting and laying everywhere. I’ve never seen anything like it.

I walk through the people to the train tracks. I have no clue which one I should be at. I have no idea how to find out. I begin to question how savvy of a traveler I actually am. Panic returns.

4:35 pm
I spot hope: fellow foreigners. They are a pair from France, also on their way to Agra on the same train as me. They are unaware of how they have prevented me from collapsing to my knees and sobbing. I stick with them. Panic eliminated.

If I hadn’t run into them, I wouldn’t have known that there would be a haven in the train station —  a tourist office. As we search for it, I notice a man following me, smiling at me, and generally being creepy. I walk faster.

4:40 pm
We find a tourist help desk. The clerk tells us our train will be one hour late and points us in the direction of the tourist office. As we make our way back through the crowd of people and their bags, I admire the kind of flexibility and hardiness that allows a person to endure hefty delays and just take a nap on the pavement in a humid room while they wait for a train to arrive — if it even arrives at all.

But I’m not quite ready to explore this approach. When we find the tourist ticket office, we enter a backpacker oasis with worn couches and airconditioning. Fellow tourists look up from their books and give us smiles that say, “I understand. We’re all in this together!”

The French duo and I plop down on a couch and take turns watching each other’s stuff while we try to find dinner.

5:00 pm
It’s my turn to stock up on carbtastic train station eats to tide me over until the following morning. I feel instinctively that I’m being watched. Sure enough, the same creepy man is right behind me.

“Go away,” I say firmly, as my guidebook has suggested I do in the event that this sort of thing happens. He doesn’t leave. Eventually, I think I’ve gotten rid of him. But as I resettle into the tourist ticket office, I see him standing in the doorway staring in.

5:45 pm
We learn that our train is now two hours late.

6:30 pm
The tourist ticket office is now as full as the rest of the train station. There are backpacks and backpackers on every inch of space. There are two trains bound for Agra that have growing delays. Travelers reconnect with people they’ve met previously, make new connections and continue to exchange smiles of understanding.

Every so often, the ticket agent looks up at a sign on the wall and reads it verbatim in a monotone voice. “This is not a waiting room. Do not leave your luggage in here. We are not responsible for lost luggage…” And we giggle as we ignore him and he clearly does not care enough to actually enforce the rules.

6:45 pm
Our train is now three hours late.

7:30 pm
No additional delays have been announced, so we cautiously leave the comfort and camaraderie of the tourist office and head over to the train tracks. The creepy man is once again hovering around me as we make our way up the stairs and over to the tracks where our train will pick us up from. I am relieved when he doesn’t follow me to the other side of the station. I chat with some Aussies while I wait for the train to arrive.

8:00 pm
The train arrives. I am in an airconditioned 2nd class car, the nicest they had available. All of the seats are reserved in that class, and yet people rush onto the the train in manner that would lead you to believe that we were going to have to fight for a spot.

Inside it’s nothing like The Darjeeling Limited, but it’s decent and fairly clean — much cleaner than potentially bedbug ridden  “first class” on the trains I took in Vietnam in 2008. I find my berth and settle in.

9:30 pm
I learn quickly that booking a bottom berth on and Indian train may compel you to unwittingly partake in an extended social hour. The man sleeping in the berth above me wants to socialize with everyone while sitting on my bed.

10:30 pm
I tell the man that I want to sleep. He tries hard to convince me otherwise, but I insist. The father in the family across from me looks at me like I’m crazy to not let the man continue to sit there, but his wife gives me a smile of understanding.

7:00 am
I wake up from a mediocre night of sleep to the sound of my bunk mate tapping on a table next to my head. He insists that he needs to sit on my bunk and read his paper. I shake my head to say no, point to a man across the aisle who is successfully reading a paper in his top bunk, and remind him that he should’ve booked a bottom bunk if he wanted constantly sit on the bottom bunk. He doesn’t speak English, but understands my message. The man across the aisle once again looks at me like I am crazy, his wife nods her head in agreement with me, and his daughter says, “You’re right.”

8:00 am
A chai wallah comes through the car and I snag a little cup of syrupy milky clovey goodness. My bunk mate snags the opportunity to take a seat on my bed once more. I let him have the corner. I look out the window and notice that this “express” train is moving super slowly. When are we really getting to Agra?

10:00 am
My bunk mate sees me reading my guidebook and asks to take a look at it. I hand it over. He holds onto it for an extended period of time while he chats with everyone on the train and invites them to charge their cell phones in the plug next to my bed. He eventually gets around to thumbing through my guidebook. As he hands it back, he reassures me that it is indeed a good book, even though he can’t read English.

11:00 am
When are we going to be in Agra?!

12:00 pm
More than once, I see children squatting over train tracks and defecating. Countryside has morphed into shantytown. We are passing through more and more train stations. We have to be getting close.

12:30 pm
We finally arrive in Agra, nearly seven hours late. I join forces with a fellow solo traveler I’d seen back in Varanasi, a woman from China. We successfully make our way out of the station, dodge touts, and arrange for auto rickshaws to our hotels. Next stop: Taj Mahal.

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7 Songs to Empower You for a Solo Road Trip

by Ekua on January 8, 2011 · 7 comments in solo travel,songs for the road

One of my most awesome travel experiences in 2010 was an impromptu five day solo exploration of the Eastern Sierras at the end of the summer. If you have never taken a solo road trip, I highly recommend it. It’s an exhilarating expression of freedom and you can connect much more with your surroundings when you’re not tempted to chat. And of course, you can sing loudly to whatever music you like.

Like with 7 Songs by Women to Empower You for Your Journey, I perused my music collection to come up with a playlist of more unlikely travel song suggestions for a solo road trip. I wanted to steer clear of the obvious, so no Free Bird or Born to be Wild on this list. I’ve come up with seven songs about yearning, busting out, movement, and coming home to inspire you and to sing along with:

» Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World (covered and reworked) by Israel Kamakawiwoʻole

Play this song when: You’re longing to take a road trip.

» Turn and Run by Alice Russell

Play this when: You’ve broken free and you’re leaving town.

» Gone Wanderin’ by Jackie Greene

Play this song when: You’re settling into the road.

» Feeling Good by Nina Simone

Play this song when: You’re absorbed in your beautiful natural surroundings.

» Everybody Ona Move by Michael Franti

Play this song when: You want a song to groove in your seat to; when you like your bass “loudy, loudy, louda..”

» This Land is Your Land (covered and reworked) by Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings

Play this song when: You’re seeing or experiencing a less than ideal reality of wherever you are.

» When the Night Feels My Song by Bedouin Soundclash

Play this song when: You’re on your way home.

What are your favorite road trip tunes? Feel free to suggest a song!

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