Travel plan idea blog

Solo travel planning keys & learning on vacation

This article on solo vacations says that the keys are stretching your comfort zone slightly, arranging to have some company, and learning something:

I find it tricky booking a solo vacation. It is about defining your comfort zone -- and perhaps stepping out of it. It is about being independent but, at times, having company. One thing that works for me is to book a trip with a focus -- learn a language, have a soft adventure, brush up on your yoga or cook and eat in Italy.

I've talked about the importance of learning something on vacation before. I'm still trying to talk my wife into a Thai massage course in Thailand, or an Italian course in Italy (would love to return to Rome, see Milan for the first time, or maybe head back to Perugia for someplace different and nostalgic), or a Spanish course in Spain (never been to Barcelona) or possibly another Spanish speaking country.

Along the same lines, this article talks about a vacation experience where people learn golf or other things:

...learning getaways are on the upswing with vacationers not content to just sit on the beach sipping mojitos....Besides golf school, I've participated in cooking classes, snowboarding lessons, sailing schools, white-water rafting and flyfishing instructions and an array of getaways in which learning a new skill became a highlight of the excursion.

At the end of that article they have a resources list that includes information on where to buy learning vacations including vocation vacations which I mentioned about a year ago.

Solo travel fees

This article told me something I didn't know but that doesn't surprise me: "This year, a quarter-million singles 42 and older will spend more than $28 billion on travel, according to an AARP survey."

I often get requests for more articles on solo travel but it's tough. They don't seem to make the newspapers that often and when I travel I usually bring my wife (though she is threatening to send me to Amsterdam alone on my birthday this year since flights are getting more and more expensive - somehow, especially given Amsterdam's reputation, I think she'll end up coming).

Anyway, the result is that I don't write about solo travel that often on here. But that has to change. There are too many solo travelers and I will be a solo traveler again since there are things I want to do that my wife has no interest in. Of course I might end up going with a friend like I did when I went to Taiwan and Hong Kong, but I might also end up traveling alone.

So this is the first entry in a new solo travel category. This article talks about some of the single supplements, some of the explanations (the hotel room costs what it costs if you're alone or with someone), some of the frustrations (why is double occupancy an inviolable law?), and some solutions.

Solutions include companies that try to attract solo travelers. In some cases it sounds more like rewording the single supplement:

Club1, which arranges singles events in Kansas City, Mo., St. Louis and Richmond, Va., also puts together vacations for singles. The prices are per person. Period.

Guests who share can get a discount.

So solo travelers still pay more. This hotel in Crete sounds a bit better:

...the Mistral, a small, family-run hotel in Crete that has been hosting single travelers exclusively for 13 years. Prices are per person, single occupancy, in double rooms.

There are very few cruise options if you want to avoid the single supplement. The article mentions Tauck World Discovery and General Tours World Traveler as possibilities.

They also briefly mention sharing a room with a stranger but I think we need better alternatives...