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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.cheapoair.com\/miles-away\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/why-never-travel-solo-again-comfort-zone.jpg\")
<\/a><\/h2>\nI have nothing against wanting to go it alone. In fact, that\u2019s kind of my default setting. I\u2019m the first to admit that I have a bit of a loner streak in me and prefer to spend my free time — reading, going for a run, and even watching a movie — solo. So when I was making my way through the UK on my own and found myself in Edinburgh during the Fringe Fest, I ended up not going to some cool interactive stage production or to a performance by crazy band I\u2019d never heard of. Instead I bought a couple tickets to screenings for the film festival, which is great for a movie buff like me, but not all that unique an experience since the films I saw (an independent Irish feature starring Colin Farrell and Cillian Murphy and a documentary on Charlie Chaplin) were eventually released stateside just a few months later.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve found that having at least just one other person with me, wanting to do something different from my own agenda, gives me the tiny push to try something new and reminds me that travel is all about new experiences. When I visited Stockholm in 2014, my wife suggested we check out Fotografiska <\/a>(the Swedish museum of Photography), which I wouldn\u2019t have gone to on my own. It turns out that Fotografiska is one of the top contemporary art museums in Europe and we were able to see some fantastic and moving exhibits that I still think about to this day.<\/p>\n If I go somewhere on my own, I\u2019m guaranteed to see and do only the things that interest me, but if I\u2019m with other people I\u2019m much more likely to experience something new.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll never forget standing in Paddington station on the first day of my first international solo trip. I had a guidebook in one hand and rail map opened up in the other.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere do you think I should I go first?\u201d I remember asking a friendly conductor I\u2019d chatted up.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere do you want to go?\u201d He said.<\/p>\n \u201cKind of all over,\u201d I said with a laugh.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t go everywhere, Mate,\u201d he said and then advised me to pick a direction, either north or south, adding a personal opinion of those living in the south (the Welsh) that\u2019s too crude to repeat. I decided to go north and made my way to Euston station to catch a sleeper train to Glasgow. But that desperate feeling to do it all but not knowing where to start still haunts me.<\/p>\n In my experience, having too much freedom in my schedule with infinite possibilities of what to do next can be overwhelming. I\u2019ll want to do everything and get bogged down or freeze up and only realize later that I missed out on what mattered most to me. Having one or more people alongside when I explore a city, like an upcoming trip I\u2019m planning to take to Berlin with three others, forces me to edit my choices down to the most important so that we can fit in what other members of the group want to do.<\/p>\n It seems that having limited options requires me to prioritize my choices and figure out what I really want to do.<\/p>\n Unless you can afford to travel in total luxury, every trip is going to have some woe or its own unique mishap. When I was in Edinburgh, because I\u2019d arrived during the Fringe season, it was almost impossible to find somewhere to stay. Even campsites outside the city were booked up! I lucked out the first night and was able score a bed at a hostel thanks to a canceled reservation. My second night was not as fortuitous. After I was done seeing the sights for the day, I spent a futile hour or two trying to find somewhere to spend the night (this was in the dark ages before Airbnb) and came up with nothing. I wound up finding refuge in a pub until closing time and then spent a few fitful hours taking panicky micro-naps on a park bench, with my pack tied to it and me, waiting for Waverly Train Station to open around 4 a.m. so I could sleep inside while I pretened to wait for a train. It was kind of terrifying.<\/p>\n But when I had a similar experience while traveling with a big group of friends in southern France — the manager of our hostel in Nice had forgotten to mention that they lock the front doors after midnight and guests need a code for the keypad lock to get in (which he also forgot to tell us) — it was fun. Sure, we were annoyed at having to sleep rough, but we couldn\u2019t help laughing at having to curl up together in the hostel doorway. And we felt safe, sleeping in shifts so one person was able to watch out for the group at all times, in such risky situation.<\/p>\n Maybe it\u2019s the comfort of not having to face whatever travel catastrophe (major or minor) alone, but I feel braver and more adventurous when I travel with someone else.<\/p>\n I admit it: I suck at meeting new people. I am usually not comfortable striking up a conversation with a complete stranger. Even at so-called \u201cnetworking events,\u201d where the whole point is to meet people, I spend my time hanging back in the corner. So it\u2019s always bothered me when solo travel has been touted as great opportunity to \u201cmeet new people.\u201d Um, if I have trouble meeting new people at home, why would I suddenly be able to do it abroad? And that\u2019s not to say that when I\u2019ve traveled solo I didn\u2019t interact or talk with anyone. I\u2019ve struck up conversations and made connections on trains and in pubs, but they felt superficial and temporary.<\/p>\n So instead of making new friends elsewhere in the world, I like to use travel to spend time with my already existing friends. Some of the deepest bonds I\u2019ve have with the people closest to me were forged while wandering the streets of a foreign city. I\u2019ve never felt happier than exploring Copenhagen with my wife or bar hopping in New Orleans with my best friend. And instead of being the only one with a fantastic memory from a trip — when I travel with others, it\u2019s shared and something that will connect us to each other for life.<\/p>\n Oh, and the other great thing about traveling non-solo? Notice that there are no pictures of me in this post from my grand UK adventure from when I was 20. Part of that\u2019s because it was from the era before selfies and smartphone cameras, but a big part of it is because there was no one else around to take a picture of me or with me.<\/p>\n Look, in no way am I arguing that people shouldn\u2019t travel on their own. If that\u2019s how you enjoy seeing the world, go for it! But if you\u2019ve tried it and like me didn\u2019t enjoy it — maybe you should try bringing a friend or two along next time.<\/p>\n Have an opinion on group versus solo travel? Maybe you have an extra reason why traveling with others is better than solo? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below! \u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At the end of summer in 2003, I finally achieved my teenage travel dreams. Although I was technically no longer a teen — having turned a ripe 20-years-old just a few months prior — I was still excited to find myself alone in the United Kingdom with a backpack, a UK Rail pass, and two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":97186982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1836,1548,512],"class_list":["post-97186980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel-tips","tag-couple-travel","tag-group-travel","tag-solo-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cheapoair.com\/miles-away\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97186980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cheapoair.com\/miles-away\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cheapoair.com\/miles-away\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cheapoair.com\/miles-away\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cheapoair.com\/miles-away\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97186980"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.cheapoair.com\/miles-away\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97186980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97187000,"href":"https:\/\/www.cheapoair.com\/miles-away\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97186980\/revisions\/97187000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cheapoair.com\/miles-away\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97186982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cheapoair.com\/miles-away\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97186980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cheapoair.com\/miles-away\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97186980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cheapoair.com\/miles-away\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97186980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Traveling with Others Limits My Options & Forces Me to Choose What I Really Want to Do
\n<\/a><\/h2>\nGET THE TAKE FROM SOMEONE WHO LOVES SOLO TRAVEL!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/h1>\n
Traveling with Others Makes the Hardship of Travel Bearable and Even Fun
\n<\/a><\/h2>\nTraveling with Others Creates Shared Memories, Stronger Bonds, and Photos
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