Boldly Go Solo

Tennis Camp, anyone?

The backhand I have today is a gift from the Amherst Tennis Camp. For two summers, I spent a week at the camp, practicing my strokes. For hours each day. The housing is in college dorms, which makes the week inexpensive. And, it enhances the opportunities to get to know fellow campers. You walk back to your rooms at similar times and eat meals together.

Breakfast and lunch are served in dining halls. The head tennis pro, Reiny Maier, usually gathers people up at night to go out to eat in town or to play pool together at a bar somewhere. Reiny's a hoot, and often the other instructors are too.

Tennis camps like this are great for solo travelers. You can be a beginner or an expert. They'll have pros to suit you. And, no single supplement because you're not in a hotel room, the basis for the "per person, double occupancy" curse. A few of them offer singles weeks. (Hm, is that singles versus doubles, or singles versus marrieds?? Be sure to ask...)

Another summer, I signed up for Swarthmore's tennis program, in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. The tennis lessons were just as fun but the dorms were awful. I see that lodging is no longer in the dorms. Smart move. But the meals are. Those too were grim. I much preferred the food at Amherst. Loads of fresh fruit and healthy choices.

I don't know where the hell Matt is now, but I'm richer for having seen where he's been

People the world over have much in common. I was reminded of this after watching a video called Where the Hell is Matt? and thinking about the time I played peek-a-boo with a young Thai child.

I was hiking in the hill tribe area. Foreigners are still a novelty there and people came out of their huts to gawk at us shyly. One little boy, wearing a hoodie and nothing else was looking at me, so I started covering and uncovering my eyes and saying "boo."

He started laughing with a really infectious giggle. His mother turned to see what was going on and then she started giggling when she saw us playing. I was delighted to see that peek-a-boo has the same effect on kids in Thailand as it does in the U.S.

Today, I watched the Where the Hell is Matt video. My office has an interior window that people walk by. I think people looked in at me wondering why I had a big smile on my face while sitting alone at work. Watch the video and you'll understand why.

Matt travels all over, doing a goofy dance. Alone. And with others. People everywhere, young and old, respond with joy to the antics. And the joy is totally contagious. You'll wish you were in any of those places on the video, dancing with Matt. Matt! You're awesome, dude! That's what many viewers have said.

How does this apply to solo travel?

The Pros and cons of group travel

A frequent traveler, who has vacationed independently as well as with groups, lays out the pros and cons of group travel in an article in the Santiago Times of Chile. Although she hits the road with her husband, the points she makes about group travel apply to the solo traveler as well.

Solo travel ideas for Maine, Chicago and Latin American countries, along with clean places to pee

This solo travel concept seems alien to many people in the travel biz. That's unfortunate. I recently sent out a query asking if anyone in the industry particularly catered to the solo traveler.

I was thinking of such things as a break on the room charge, since only one person is paying the bill. Or ways to get solo travelers to interact. Some responders got it. Others were off target, even if their vacation ideas were enticing or suggestions hilarious. 

The funniest was from MizPee, a Web site that shows you the cleanest restrooms in your area when ya gotta go. You have to own portable Internet capability if you want to find a restroom while walking down the street when the urge strikes. Which creates a restroom digital divide - only gadget heads can find the best place to go, while on the go.

But here's the thing. I'm guessing couples and families want clean restrooms just as much as solo travelers. So, though a helpful concept, how is it a boon for solo travelers?

Someone else emailed about creating your own video travel logs. And possibly sharing the revenues from selling them on this site. Again, interesting concept but as interesting for couples as it would be for solos.

I'm on the lookout for things that particularly benefit solo travelers. Several responders got it. And they have useful things to offer.

If it's Tuesday, this must be Bratislava

When's the last time you heard someone say, "I'm flying off to Liechtenstein tomorrow?" Probably not recently.  What Holly Leber loved about her solo trip around Europe in December was that she could hop to places she might not have crossed an ocean to see. It was easy because she was already in Europe, on a journalism internship in Brussels.

Originally, her boyfriend was supposed to join her. When that fell through, she took off on her own.

To Bratislava (Slovakia). Budapest (Hungary).  Ljubljana (Slovenia). Neuchatel (Switzerland). Salzburg (Austria). Vienna (Austria). Zagreb (Croatia). And, yes, Liechtenstein, the city of Vaduz. "I would get on a plane to go to Spain or Italy," she said. "Probably not to Slovakia. But I loved it."

She also loved traveling on her own. She didn't have to answer to someone else. Or wait for anyone. She packed light and was able to get around easily.

She's not a huge fan of tourist activities. She didn't scour "Let's Go" books for museums, churches and cathedrals to visit. Instead, she walked the streets and squares taking random photographs, of side streets and landmarks and people shopping for fruit.

She traveled in December and had a chance to visit Christmas markets. At every stop, she bought a gift for her sister. She also communicated with her family via email.

With just a smattering of words in Dutch, French and German in her arsenal she didn't talk much to those around her. And even those words didn't help much in Croatia, Slovakia and Slovenia.

If you don't like package tours, be a day tripper

Short tours can do wonders for alleviating loneliness when you're vacationing alone. If, after flying to your dream destination, you start to feel lonely, you can join a group activity for a day or two and have real live conversations. Something beyond, "Does this bus go to Sintra?"

I recently went on an "urban foraging" walk in downtown Victoria, British Columbia. (My cousin asked if that meant dumpster diving!)  My tour guide Kathy and I tasted our way through a tea shop, a French cafe, a BBQ place called Pig, a chocolate store and more, talking the whole way along.

Usually she won't go out unless she has a minimum number of people, but it was early in the season and she made an exception this time, me being a travel writer and all.

It was a break from my solitary city walking, although I have to say, I was doing just fine before I met up with her. For me, loneliness usually sets in during the first 24 hours. Then I find a rhythm. Or I find people.

When I met up with Kathy, I was not at all lonely. But there have been other days, on other trips, when I have wished for some company. And this would have done the trick.

Make the busboys your dining companions

On a scrap of paper somewhere, I have a recipe for a caramelized onion salad. It came from Jesus, a Cuban guy who cooked the delicious appetizer for me in an Arizona restaurant.

I was sitting alone in the mostly empty dining room. Phoenix in May is not a prime destination. It's a rotisserie. But I didn't choose it. I was there for work.

I had booked an inexpensive but very nice resort hotel. Tip: for those who like heat, Arizona prices plunge in the summer.

Okay, so I needed to eat dinner. I always go out when I travel. I find that dining in a hotel room is mighty depressing. To avoid getting back into the hotbox car and driving past a lot of strip malls, I went downstairs.

It felt odd to walk into a formal dining room that had only two couples in it. I left, and went to the more casual bar downstairs. It was pretty empty, too, and I liked the upstairs menu better. I chose to go with the better food. Back to the white tablecloths.

Hilly Valparaiso, Chile, has gone to the dogs

If you are prone to vertigo or have weak legs, the port city of Valparaiso, Chile, may not be the place for you. The city, a UNESCO World Heritage site, has more than 42 hills, some of them heart-poundingly steep. But if you can deal with some leg work, or find a nice taxi driver, you will find interesting and intricate vistas up many a winding road.

I had just one day to visit Valparaiso from Santiago. I debated whether to take an organized bus tour or go on my own. I chose the tour, mainly because I didn't get my act together to research bus schedules or what I should see.

It was a good choice. It turns out that buses pull in to the lower city. Then you have to find your way up the hills to the sights. If you're looking for something in particular and start up the wrong vertical street, it's a steep investment in going the wrong direction. 

You can get up hills by foot or by ancient ascensor, the Spanish word for funicular. Check out this video of a ride up an ascensor. It really gives the feel of the experience:

Our tour's first stop was at one of Pablo Neruda's houses. The Chilean poet had three. The two others are in Santiago and La Isla Negrita. The Valparaiso one, La Sebastiana, is on a steep street that our bus driver got the sweats navigating. I found myself wondering about how the strength of the emergency brake and its ability to hold a huge vehicle on that steep a pitch.

Neruda's airy four-story house faces the sea, which he loved. The "crazy house full of stairs," as described by the Pablo Neruda Foundation, is packed with nautical knick-knacks. I mainly know Neruda from the Italian movie, Il Postino, about a postman's admiration for the poet, who comes to the postman's village for a season.

Plan your solo vacation yourself or let someone else do it for you?

USTOA says you can save a lot of money on vacations by signing up for packaged tours instead of planning a trip on your own. Well, of course, they'd say that. Their members are the ones packaging those tours, and making money from them.

The thing is, they're right in a lot of cases. Particularly if you're not the backpacking, sleep-in-hostels kind of traveler. And for solo travelers, specifically, a package tour provides community.

When I went to Victoria, British Columbia, last weekend, I tried to do it as cheaply as possible. I was only going for a few days. On the Internet, I found a relatively inexpensive hotel and a downright cheap car rental. Or so I thought.

That $35 a day car rental turned into $80 once I had to add on gas, overnight parking and taxes. Yowza. I knew there'd be extra charges but wasn't expecting the total to be more than twice the price. The meals added up too.

And although the hotel was cheap-ish, it smelled funny. And whoever decorated the joint has a grim way of coordinating dull brown furnishings with dull brown bedding and rugs. Blech.

I had no one to complain to except myself. I wasn't able to check the hotel out before I got there, except online, and it seemed fine. (Maybe someday they'll offer a scratch-and-sniff feature for online lodgings.) Tour operators, however, know who and what they're dealing with. Or find out soon enough and don't repeat a negative experience. And if things are bad on a tour, you might actually get money back after complaining.

Hiking 15 miles on Martha's Vineyard, then sitting down for an intimate dinner for a dozen

<--Turtle sighting!

I did not go solo on a 15-mile hike on Martha's Vineyard on Saturday. Six of us set out on the annual cross-island walk. That turned into a whopping baker's dozen during a mid-morning break. That's because my friend Joan, whose house we were staying at for the weekend, knows about a zillion people.

But we did take a solo traveler under our wings. As we waited at Duarte's Pond for our 9 am start, a petite woman walked up to a clump of us. She told us she was there on her own. So we enlarged our circle, introduced ourselves and drew her into our conversation.

Her background fascinated us. Joan Ambrose-Newton has traveled all over the world for work. And for play. For 10 years, she was a freelance war correspondent for Pacifica Radio and the BBC, CBC and NBC. She was jailed for a short while in El Salvador for something she didn't do.

In her lilting accent, this South African-born writer explained that she likes solo travel because she "can't be bothered" with people who don’t want to take off to the places she's interested in. That includes her husband.

He doesn’t like to travel, so she goes without him. “I don’t want to force people to do what they don’t want to do.” On the Martha's Vineyard hike, she met and talked to about a dozen new people. That wouldn't have happened if she'd come with friends, she pointed out.

The hike was leisurely and beautiful. And long. We walked through land bank properties that the island has saved from development, and took breaks at a school where a soccer game was underway; at a farmer's market that was just ending; and on a wooded path along Tea Lane Farm.

At lunch, where we ate sandwiches we'd brought along, Ambrose-Newton mentioned a great and hilarious tip for dining alone. She calls a restaurant and reserves a table for two, to avoid getting seated near the bathroom or kitchen.

Then, after she's been seated for awhile, she tells the waiter that the creep she was waiting for must have stood her up. "Every waiter in town is going to be so nice after that," she laughed. Ingenious! Although, I'm not sure I have the nerve. Or that I'm a good enough actress.

Dining alone on Vancouver Island, at the best seats in the house

Most people don't like eating alone at fancy restaurants. What they mean by alone is not having company at their table. How about being the only one in the whole restaurant? That's what happened to me the other day.

I got a same-day reservation at the Sooke Harbour House on Whiffen Spit Beach on Vancouver Island on a Saturday. The place is famed for using local ingredients, including many from its front yard. Its back yard is the ocean. The only time available was 5:30 pm. That was okay because I was still on East Coast time. So it was going to feel like 8:30 pm anyway.

When I left Victoria that morning, I hadn’t planned on sitting down for the four-course, fixed-price meal. It wasn’t cheap. But several things sold me on the place. One was the idea of the fresh ingredients from local farms that the restaurant uses. Another was its lack of pretension. And it's such a pretty place, tucked into a neighborhood near a little park, with funky yard art, beautiful flowers and its very own totem pole.

When I stopped in to ask about reservations and the dress code, the woman at the front desk smiled and told me anything goes. Dinner is about the food, not the clothes. Bikers in Spandex also sit down for a fine meal here, she said. I was sold.

Opium dens, gambling and other features of neighborhoods in Victoria, British Columbia

I feel like I have hit every block of Victoria, British Columbia, in the past two days. In Chinatown, I visited the Gate of Harmonious Interest and Fan Tan Alley, Canada's narrowest street, and former home to gambling joints and opium dens. First thing in the morning, I was at the First Nations (Native Americans) exhibit at the Royal B.C. Museum. Then I walked around the Inner Harbour where the ferries and seaplanes come in.

I've been packing in as much as possible. That's how I like to travel. Not everyone does. So I don't tend to do as much when I'm with friends. Particularly ones who sleep in or tire easily. We spend time waiting for each other and deciding things.

No trip is perfect. When you travel alone you wish you were with someone from time to time. When you travel with people, you often can't wait to be on your own. This trip is no different. But for the most part, I'm glad to be here by myself. Why?

Because I have made no less than 5,257 decisions, give or take a thousand, over the past couple of days. And not once did I have to pause and say, "Is it okay with you if we go to the museum first thing?" Or, "Do you mind if I stop for a sec in this British sweets shop?" Or, "Hang on, I want to buy this Chinese-style shirt."

Comfortably eating alone in Dublin

Here are the top five Dublin restaurants for solo travelers, according to venere, a European hotel booking site similar to hotels.com. The site chooses these eating establishments for pluses such as:

Avoca: "...the staff won't blink at lone diners..."

Cake Cafe: "...half the city is unaware of it's location so you'll almost always be able to snag a table."

Dunne & Creszenzi: "...no one will rush you through a glass of wine in order to flip a table."

The Bistro: ..."the staff are always solicitous."

But the one that sounds the best to me is:

O'Neill's: "Even as a single diner you won't remain anonymous if you stay at O'Neill's for very long."

Go to the site for more details.

Friends in foreign places can be found anywhere, even behind the wheel of a taxi

If I hadn't traveled alone to Ecuador, I wouldn't have met Ariana, a sweet six-year-old who sings one heck of a Christmas carol. I met her dad Agustin towards the end of my 10-day vacation. A travel agent in Quito arranged for him to drive me to the monument and museum at Mitad del Mundo. That is, the middle of the world. That would be the equator.
She told me he didn't speak English but that my Spanish was good enough. Ha!

He picked me up in the morning and as he drove, we conversed in Spanish. Somewhat. If you count pointing and nodding. If I had been with other people, I wouldn't even have tried.

When we got to the museum, he told me he'd wait for me in the parking lot. I toured the exhibits. The museum feels touristy - maybe because it's full of tourists - but I learned a lot about indigenous people around the country. 

Then I took the mandatory photo of me with one foot in each hemisphere. The equator was marked by an orange painted line. However, I've been told that the line is off by a fair distance. 

I found Agustin and asked him to drive me to the nearby Pululahua Crater. This time he came with me and we hiked part way down, skidding on the dirt path occasionally. I could feel the temperature variations from the various micro-climates found at the crater.

Agustin pointed out a trail visible on the sides of the surrounding mountains. It's for hikers who tramp around the crater. Two people and a horse walked past us, headed for the bottom, where some houses sit here and there.

Travel on your own to these seven spots, and all over the world

The editors at Frommer's recently chose seven places suited for solo travel, from Istanbul to Mexico to Texas. Great trips are to be found in many places they left out, obviously, but they state their case for each pick. So, here, forthwith, are the: 7 top spots for the solo traveler.

 

The fine details of booking a trip to Victoria, British Columbia

I'm in the middle of booking a four-day weekend in Victoria, British Columbia. Now I remember why I like traveling with tour operators. What a hassle it is to make my own arrangements!

I'm going to Seattle for my day job and decided it was a great excuse to do something else in the Northwest or beyond. Especially since the conference I'm attending ends on a Friday and the company has paid for my airfare.

And so the arrangements began. First I went for the flight. Checked out the cheapest airlines with the best times. USAirways won.

Then I went to the Clipper Vacations ferry site, which serves Vancouver Island, but didn't want to book right away. Not until I figured out where the pier was, in relation to the airport, for when I return. So instead, I clicked around for airport and city maps. 

Then a hotel. Looked all around the ferry site's package offerings but couldn't get something I wanted in my price range. Asked the tourist board for a list of reasonably priced hotels. Went on Web sites or called. Some were booked one night or the other. Some were too expensive. Finally settled on the Dalton Hotel & Suites. We'll see how that goes.

Snag a snug and down some Irish whiskey

Ever sit in a "snug?" In the Crown Bar, a former gin joint also known as the Crown Liquor Saloon, the snugs are private, carved wood booths. Wait staff can pass drinks over the top of the cubicle-like snugs, or open the door and hand them in.

The Crown Bar is in the heart of Belfast. But isn't Belfast dangerous, you ask? Not any more so than other urban area.

Peace broke out in Northern Ireland, as of the signing in the 90's of an agreement between the Catholics and the Protestants. "The Troubles" are no more, although you can see much of the history of them via huge murals on walls and houses around the city. And people still hold grudges and have prejudices, like human beings everywhere.   

But tourism is coming back. The Crown Bar, near the Grand Opera House, was hopping on the Saturday night I wandered in. What a fine, historic interior. Etched and painted glass. Brocade walls. Red granite topped bar. And a lively crowd, packed in all possible spaces.

I was in Northern Ireland with a tour group but I had time to wander off on my own each day. Including after dinner, which is when I explored the Crown.

Another afternoon in Belfast I found "Joy's Entry" and several other narrow, maze-like pedestrian passages between buildings. You enter these walks and find "secret" pubs and restaurants like McCrakens or O'Neill's.

A sign on a brick wall near one of the entries says they are "the close-knit passageways where Belfast was born and bred." I can imagine a great movie scene where people being chased slip into one of these entries and lose the car that was after them. 

I also took a "black taxi tour" and learned a lot about the history of The Troubles. My guide, Ken Harper, explained the symbolism on some of the murals. For instance, an "H" is for H block in a Northern Irish prison where Bobby Sands, an Irish Republican prisoner went on a hunger strike and died.

Juan and the Bean Store: A vacation parable

I've been reading lately about a trend called "slow travel." The gist of it is that instead of the "If It's Tuesday This Must Be Belgium" style of frenetic travel, people are encouraged to slow down. Spend a week in one place. Live like a local, instead of a tourist. Don't try to see absolutely every monument and museum. Relax.

At first, I didn't think this would be a great idea for a solo traveler. It seemed as though living in a rental house alone for too long could get lonely. I'm changing my mind.

Say you're in a small village and go to the same cafe for breakfast every morning, or restaurant for dinner. Soon you're friendly with a shopkeeper or barista. Maybe you get invited to someone's home. Locals see you around long enough, they get curious, right?

When I was Barco de Avila, Spain, for a week, it didn't take long to get to know the bartender/Internet-meister in one establishment, and to nearly get fixed up with the proprietor of another.

That week, I was at Vaughantown, an English-language program for Spaniards, just outside the village. I ambled into town to use the Internet, but in strolling around, I didn't spot any Internet cafes, surprise, surprise. So I walked into a bar/cafe and asked. Someone told me to go farther up the street.

Going solo to Kalaallit Nunaat, the world's largest island

Want to kayak where the kayak was invented? How about go dogsledding, snowmobiling or on a musk ox or whale safari? Then Kalaallit Nunaat is the place for you. Also known as Greenland. A place where you can view icebergs from a hotel terrace. A place where dog sleds have the right of way. Seriously. 

I haven't been to Greenland, a nation of 56,000 people.  But the other day, in Washington, D.C., I had a chance to meet Aleqa Hammond, the country's minister of Finance and Foreign Affairs.

The United States wants to work more closely with Greenland. In 2004, then-Secretary of State Colin Power, in the shepherds' village of Igaliku, signed an agreement, along with Denmark and Greenland (which is part of the Danish realm) to expand cooperation and deepen ties with Greenland. That's why Hammond was in D.C. last week.  

As for tourism in the land of Erik the Red, there is bittersweet excitement over a new natural phenomenon. Due to climate change, the seas around the island have turned into something astoundingly different than what anyone can remember.

A good little village for drinking beer, listening to a whistler and making friends with other solo travelers

I met Marilyn the same day I met the World's Top Whistler. She's American. He's English. We all converged in Saddleworth, in the north of England. A bit of a drive from Manchester.

Surely you've heard of Saddleworth? And the villages of Bleak Hey Nook, Brook Bottom, Crompton Fold, Delph, Diggle and Dobcross. No?

Well, suffice it to say it's a pretty little village with old stone houses, flowers everywhere and a local pub called The Swan. I got there by tour bus with about 35 other people attending the Society of American Travel Writers annual convention. I didn't know anyone on my day tour when the day started.

I sat in the back of the bus, ate the huge beef and cheese sandwich our hosts provided and enjoyed a boat ride along the Huddersfield Narrow Canal during one stop.

In Saddleworth, we stopped for a pint at the pub and a look around. I ordered the Cocker Hoop Golden Bitter. On tap.

While milling about, somehow Marilyn and I started to chat. She was standing on one side of a picnic table in the pub's courtyard, debating what to drink. When she told me her role in the travel business is promoting properties, I figured  that as a marketer of sorts, she'd be a good person to run some ideas past for naming my blog. This blog.