Boldly Go Solo

Hot spots for dining solo in New York City

 The New York Observer has issued its top 10 list of best restaurants for dining alone. The reviews don't describe what makes the establishments comfortable, or fabulous, for solo diners. Although the write-ups are most drool-worthy.

We'll have to hope they chose them for good reasons.

A reader added his own critique of a restaurant not on the list. Joe's Shanghai at 9 Pell Street. "They have tables for 10 and a single diner can be seated at any one of them and feel very comfortable." He says you may be alone but you won't be lonely.

Having grown up just north of NYC, my family toured and dined a lot in "the Big Apple." And visited grandma on the Lower East Side. New York is one of those cities where you can do just about anything - including play the guitar on the streets half naked or have hair died in a range of primary colors, and few people will blink.

More than just about any place, New York seems an easy city in which to dine alone because of that anything goes attitude. Plus, there's just so much to gape at! For those of you who worry the whole world's watching, my guess is the fact that you are eating alone won't even register with other diners.

And New Yorkers being the outspoken people they often are, you might find that more people strike up conversations with you there than in most other cities. I can't say that for certain, but it's such a bustling place that I think you'll find going solo a snap.

Photos: Veselka; Cafe LULUc

A spa in California, the land of sunshine

In Ojai, a charming old California town crammed with art galleries, is a spa called The Oaks. Margaret Lukens, from the San Francisco area six hours away, booked a visit for this month, having so enjoyed her first trip. Though married with grown children, she often travels solo, especially to spas.

The Oaks is gracious but also casual, she says. "No competition for the latest designer workout gear here." Sounds good to me.

Last time, Lukens stayed in the main building with its Spanish style decor. This time she treated herself to a small private cottage and brought along books to indulge in during her down time.

Lukens, who does business coaching and consulting, takes relaxing spa classes, such as yoga, and less typical ones, such as West African dance and qigong, (which is spelled any number of ways, but has to do with working with the body's energy). The spa offers up to 16 exercise classes a day.

The world's view on dining by yourself

Still chicken about dining solo? Read the Fodor's Website thread about how others feel about dining by themselves and what they do to alleviate their discomfort.

And if you comment, tell them boldlygosolo sent you! They're expecting you. (See my post there from September 10)

Photo: Ellen Perlman.

1. View from Point No Point Restaurant, Vancouver Island, B.C.

2. Front, Point No Point Restaurant, Vancouver Island, B.C.

A yoga retreat in California welcomes all kinds. Single. Married. Bun in the oven.

Recently, I sent out a request for people to send me their stories about going solo to a spa. A lot of folks who land on my site are searching for solo spa vacations. So I figure I should write about more of them. But since I've only been to two (here and here) destination spas, (as opposed to day spas or massages in hotels,) I don't quite feel like the expert.

Over the weeks, I will be telling you about some others' spa experiences. But I had to start with an email exchange that cracked me up. It was from a pregnant woman. Not exactly my regular readership.

Go to classes to learn how to whip up Thai food. That's one way to solve the dining-alone problem

National Geographic came out with a book last year called "Journeys of a Lifetime, 500 of the World's Greatest Trips." The entry called "Thailand Cuisine Tour" was written by yours truly.

Taking a Thai cooking class or going on a culinary tour would be a good way for a solo traveler to go to Thailand alone and feel at ease. You will be cooking side by side with others. Talking, laughing, chopping, cutting, bleeding. It's downright social!

Gourmet on Tour offers lodgings and cooking classes in Bangkok, Chang Mai and Phuket. You can find cooking classes on cruises, in rural areas, outdoors and on farms. The Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School opened in 1993, and is run by an international Thai chef. Move over, Rachael Ray, if you're not whipping up some Pad Thai.

I have at least two friends who learned the art of mixing rice or noodles with fish sauce, lime, oil, chopped peanuts, cilantro, egg, and more in Thailand. They came home enamored of their Asian culinary skills.

Of course, cooking classes are just one of the things that draws visitors to the land of wats and rice fields, mountains and night markets, bamboo huts and a beloved monarchy.

But for solo travelers, it's a good entree to it all and a way to socialize and sit down and eat with others for a few days at some point during a vacation to Thailand.

Photos:

1. By Goab, a friend who visited a Thai festival in Washington, DC, that included fruit carving.

2. By Ellen Perlman. A scene from rural Thailand.

Good places for dining solo in London

A three-month-old blog I came across today has a post on London restaurants good for solo diners. I can't vouch personally for the choices but the descriptions indicate the blogger gets what solo travelers are looking for.

For instance, one restaurant offers reservations for a seat at the bar, a place where many solo travelers feel more comfortable than at a table for one. Another offers large communal dining tables. Yet another offers "quick and convenient" eating. See for yourself.

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.

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.

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.