Traveling alone - C/D?

Totally classic during the day. It can be lonely at night, though, driving and sleeping alone with no one to talk to.

it's the same as doing anything else on your own. how self-sufficient/solitary are you in everyday life? how much time do you really want to waste with people with totally different interests?

i'd say the freedom is more exciting over shorter durations and more of a hassle/lonelier over longer ones.

awful, and i would never consider it for a second in future

(and i LOVE time alone)

the day/night dichotomy is pretty otm

that is what alcohol is for

travel during the day is wonderful, drinking alone in a city you don't know, where you don't (preferably) speak the language at night ... one of life's greatest pleasures

What I'm thinking is, there's more adventure if you're on your own. You can do more on a whim, and it's easier to meet new people if you aren't tied up with people you know from home. WE'''''''llll seeee.

note: this travel does not involve driving long distances like, cross country in a hippie mobile or something.

awful, and i would never consider it for a second in future

-- electricsound, Friday, 22 February 2008 03:38 (4 hours ago) Link

(and i LOVE time alone)

-- electricsound, Friday, 22 February 2008 03:38 (4 hours ago)

Yep, same here.

if you're open to meet new people when you're alone, you will. but gabbneb otm.

lol

I wouldn't be able to do this, I enjoy being alone in bars etc for short periods but get restless after longer than an hour or so. I want to be able to share my travelling experiences.

Actually, in all honesty, it's more likely that if I were travelling alone I'd spend less time seeing and doing exciting things and more time trying to have sex with complete strangers.

I fantasise about roaming the world on my own. Wd want to do it with class tho.

as long as they speak a different language.

x-post

noodle please do it, then write about it

My dad doesn't work for the Guardian :(

Also - family might have reasonable objections, couldn't afford to stay in proper hotels

http://blog.kingsoutdoorworld.com/wp-content/newcover.jpg.jpg

???

I don't think I'd be that keen on it, like Matt DC I get bored in bars on my own after a drink or 2, and I do like getting drunk with bros with different kinds of buildings around me. I've been on shortish trips around N America twice, but each time I went with at least one other person. Still managed to have adventures on my own, as my travelling buddy would sometimes call it a night early and I'd stay out with whoever we'd met that night.

It is really just about the nights though, I think I'd be fine going around during the day on my own.

I think I just listen to Lodger too much.

I haven't been travelling alone since May 2002, but I was lucky enough to have someone excellent put me up and look after me, and I knew enough people in the city for it to feel like there was companionship anywhere I might go. I'm not sure I'd want to travel properly alone unless I was good-looking and/or charming enough to be reasonably assured of finding a bedmate wherever I went, because meeting people *without* an ulterior motive is paradoxically even harder than trying to pull.

On the other hand, trying and failing to pull is at least an evening spent talking to someone!

i did this a lot, the aloner the better. i still like geography and the time it takes you to cross it.

it's hard to do it now, as much, because i want ass. i'd love to try a solo road-trip soon and see if i can still make it matter.

x-post

Well, exactly. (xpost)

I did this once, as I was recovering from major surgery, and the doctor suggested I should do this to get some head space after spending most of 1987 in hospital or recovering at home.

It does force you into social interactions, and a couple times that 'talking to someone' was um, cool? I may or may not have been charming/good looking enough to 'pull', but I was in no fit state really, and for a number of reasons I won't go into, in fact sentence ends...

:)

i've had changes of scenery make me more upset about the last change of scenery.

http://www.heritage-village.us/facilitypics/xmas-golden-girls.jpg

I actually think that striking up casual conversations with people when you're on holiday is very easy, especially if they're on holiday too. You've got a fairly large bank of automatic shared interest. I just don't want to have to rely on it if I end up in, say, a town where seemingly everyone there is septugenarian, as recently happened.

Cougars, huh

Those the breaks. When in eastbourne, you either eat scrambled egg, or find out where the staff go...

Mark that's disgusting!

No it's not. I'm not meaning meaphorically..

Agree with the day v night discussion. I love travelling alone during the day - I get to do and see and go wherever *I* want, without having to make any compromises. But I when I travel, I want to also go to nice restaurants and bars and clubs etc, and if I try to make conversation with a guy they think I'm hitting on them (or they'll hit on me) and girls can be VERY difficult and catty to make friends with on a whim. Especially if they're out with their girlfriends. Or they'll feel threatened by you if they're with their guy friends. Generalisation, perhaps, but that's been my experience.

That said, travelling alone and staying at youth hostels etc = greater chance at making new friends and being able to go out with them = woo.

I would automatically assume that any lone woman who started an unprompted conversation with me in a bar was hitting on me, so it's not that gross a generalisation.

Classic at all times, especially if you are trying to 'find yourself' like I unfortunately and cheesily was.

Hostel-hopping made it easy enough to make temporary friends to go out with, I found.

Classic. I've done it twice and not regretted it at all either time. Occasionally lonely, but the freedom more than makes up for that. Stay in youth hostels and budget hotels and you'll meet plenty of people in the same boat, and maybe even someone to venture off the beaten track with.

dangerous/dud in certain parts of the world if you're a young woman

works well for me, as middle-aged male grouch of unknowable menace.

I was about to bring that one up (bell labs)

Morbius I love you so much.

having done a short (month long) inter-rail european tour with four people i get along with, i'd go alone next time, or maybe with one very good friend.

I've been wondering about this. I might have the chance to do it next year, but I'm not that great at striking up conversations with random people, and I don't know any other languages. Seems like it could be cool and force me to get into some interesting situations, or really depressing.

went hostelling in scotland alone last year and i'd recommend it highly. went to a club with a bunch of canadian girls i was sharing a room with, not as exciting as that may sound but was still cool and on another night ended up partying with a load of pot heads in the village where they filmed the harbour scenes in the wicker man. also had to hitch hike after misjudging the time when walking to the (pretty remote) falls of glomach in the wettest and windiest weather they'd experienced in years (according to hostel manager) and missing the last bus. on the way a truck had blown over on a causeway and we had to shelter in a pub til the road was cleared. happy times.

I'm not that great at striking up conversations with random people, and I don't know any other languages. Seems like it could be cool and force me to get into some interesting situations

I thought this before I did it for the first time and I was shitting myself. But there comes a point where you just say 'fuck it' and put yourself out there - if you don't like the people you end up talking to or vice versa, you never have to see them again. Also, backpacking is a far different social enviornment than any you're used to - go into the common room aof the majority of hostels, and loads of people will just say 'hey' to you without you even doing anything (this is more true in Europe than it is in Oz or Asia, where people are generally trying to be cooler).

Do it, I think it made me a lot more outgoing.

i would probably be doing this right now but what put me off is literally the travelling between places (altho have enjoyed this in the past). i just want to be in certain places without having to get there and back. i'd fear not being able to make connections with anyone new in the process which is an annoying downward spiral in confidence terms. maybe i will just do it anyway, eventually.

Invention of the teleport is only 50 years off, apparently.

Classic FFS.

Have you tried this?

It kinda makes the whole thing halfway, and you usually have someone to have a drink with.

ah, 2006...

the last time you were had by some blankets?

It was a romantic evening and blueski's mind turned to thoughts of...blankets.

Hmmm, how do you find these hostels in Europe? Is there a website or something? North America is by nature pretty cheap, so that's not too much of a worry.

An excellent way of interacting with the world. Probably more intense and up and down, and much more likely to have shit happen to you. Also you get sole authorial control telling stories back home.

Hostels: I looked at websites like http://www.hostelbookers.com and http://www.hostelworld.com to look at the reviews and ratings. Having said that, the closest I got to staying in a hostel properly was 2 nights in Melbourne and a 'hotel' annex to a hostel in San Francisco.

I kind of travelled alone last year, though I was only really on my own for two weeks of that, staying with relatives in other places. Hostels are great for meeting people, although full of 18 yr olds (well the ones I stayed in) wanting to just get drunk. However they are more likely to have other people who are travelling on their own.

Meeting up with people you know (or don't really know) along the way is also a great way of dealing with the night times. In Seattle I met up with the ilxors based there for one night, as well as spending a couple evenings with some friends who happened to be there at the time.

Yeah, I use Hostelworld and Hostelbookers as well. The latter is better because it doesn't charge a commission fee.

Hostels are great for meeting people, although full of 18 yr olds (well the ones I stayed in) wanting to just get drunk.

That really depends where you are; they are invariably full of people wanting to get drunk, but stray just a little off the main backpacker trails and they will be slightly older, more interesting, culturally minded drunks.

Not that hanging around with pissed up 18-year olds can't be fun for a brief period, particularly when you tell them your age and see their half in awe, half pitying expressions.

otm xpost

when i did europe - i did it on my own and it was fine. easy to meet new people and see whatever you want when you want. i've traveled the weirder places with people and you might not agree what to do all the time you don't need to be together all the time either. you're not forced to meet new people tho - but you have another person with you to help figure out the foreign weirdness that might seem overwhelming at times.

so both C and D, imho.

I don't find traveling alone that appealing, especially over long periods (sometimes a couple days away is great). I don't see it as a choice between getting drunk in bars and clubs with strangers or friends, because while this is mostly what people in hostels want to do, I don't actually spend that much time with my good friends getting drunk in bars and clubs. So traveling alone is either lonely, or it's more expensive ('cause of nights out) and less fulfilling than going with friends. Also, I like having someone to share things with, eat meals, walk alone in unfamiliar cities, etc.

I'm 90s: I need someone to make lame observations and sarcastic comments to

That's exactly what I don't like when travelling; ironic detachment is a way of not engaging honestly with the different environment, of playing it safe, and if there's any reason to travel, for me, it's precisely dépaysement.

comments and observations are not "ironic detachment," jerk

The only time I've traveled with a group recently was to Cuba 4 years ago when it was necessary for practical and legal reasons. But the most memorable night was probably walking through Old Havana alone at night.

starting up a little importing/exporting business there, morbs? ;)

no, I was watching beisbol with Monte Irvin!

comments and observations are not "ironic detachment," jerk

But when you make them while travelling, they tend to be immediate, they tend to reference your pre-exisiting cultural references and expectations. The joke you can make to a friend while you're walking down a foreign street is very often not one you could make to a local, especially if the local language is different. It's not as if I'm totally humorless, Nabisco, (God knows I've made plenty of 'lame observations and sarcastic comments') but I'm very suspicious of the kind of people who always have to have an English-speaking travel companion or a friend from back home, and I'm far more interested, personally, in coming back with some insight into a foreign culture, than having some one tell me that they remember the Havre-Caumartin RER station as Harvey Corman or that eighty-five in Italian almost but not quite sounds like 'Grandpa's got a big cock' in Japanese.

I think it's a peculiar underestimation of other cultures to imagine that tramping around solo gives you some magical entry into them unafforded to people discussing what they're doing with companions, or to imagine that not having anyone to point out an interesting view to mystically frees you from your "pre-existing cultural references and expectations"; I think it's snobby and dickish to presume "ironic detachment" from people who just don't happen to spend much time chatting up strangers in any environment; I love you but I think you're being a total ass

I tend to prefer a mix when traveling. It's wonderful to be on a bus or train by yourself; it's equally wonderful to meet friends for dinner or in a pub. Of course I haven't been anyplace really dangerous: I'd probably change my tune then.

Ideal sitch is visiting someone alone so you can do whatever you want during the day and hang out and get drunk with a great friend at night.

I am not presuming to suggest that I have gone to the heart (or even near it) of any culture over the course of a mere trip, no matter how earnestly I may be trying, but I can hang with Americans and English speakers anytime and I like to try to see how I get along when I try to speak a bit of the local language and check out things the locals find of interest. I may quite certainly be a total ass, Nabisco, but I don't have any fun traveling any other way than the way I've described, though tbh, I do chat up strangers in almost any environment.

I like to try to see how I get along when I try to speak a bit of the local language and check out things the locals find of interest

Two things you are legally prohibited from doing if you happen to be standing next to someone you know? Christ. I really don't care how you enjoy traveling, but if you do it alone, that might be a more convenient time to expel your sermons about how "ironic detachment is a way of not engaging honestly with the different environment" or whatever.

"Ironic detachment" in this case meaning "I appreciate having someone I know around while traveling so I have a friend to talk to about the experiences we are both having"

I mean, I could hardly care less about traveling styles at all, I just can't believe you had to take a joke about enjoying having someone to talk to while traveling as an opportunity to go all high-horse about your impressive level of engagement and immersion in the difficult and exotic cultures of western freaking Europe

Dude, what's the deal? Have I touched a nerve? I have just had really horrible experiences with friends travelling, horrible to the point where we could no longer be friends, 'cause they wanted to keep a certain detachment from the local viewpoint (whether they were conscious of it or not) and I knew I could never quite get the local view point but I wanted to 'wear' it as much as I could.

I have been to other places than Europe, too. Geeze. I even went *gasp* on a tour package to Egypt, which was fine, in the end, it's just that, generally, I like to have some or all of my traveling time on my own so I can soak it up as I like.

Question / Wild Guess: could you no longer be friends because they'd say stuff like "hey, look at that interesting building" and you'd go on and on about their "unconscious detachment from the local viewpoint" and your moral and aesthetic superiority to same?

No,'cause I'd say, let's hang out with these Syrian chicks I met at this disco in the countryside and he'd say, "Nah, I'd rather hang with these English guys I met," (we we're in France doing a study course) who were the kind of oafs who thought that pointing out the similarity of bouteille to booty was so hilarious. So he got to point out all summer how naff French pop was with his rosbiff friends and I danced at some hilarious provincial disco, got a basic education in the cuisine and wines of the Loire even traveling around a bit not on the school-arranged excursions by bus but with people I'd met, actually learned some French and got laid like nobody's business, and yes, just like you, apparently, he thought I was such an insufferable snob.

Boy, you'd be so fucking cool if I were in fact that guy, wouldn't you

you guys have been dating for how long?

and this is the first time you've been to a movie in the theater together?

:)

Nabisco, you and I both know you are anything but that guy, it's just that I like to fly solo when traveling. I'm gregarious and I meet people easily and I like to get away from home and everything that reminds me thereof.

Argh, dude, I don't care how you prefer to travel! The reason I'm finding you insufferable right now is your assumption that anyone who enjoys having a traveling companion is in fact That Guy, or suffering from "ironic detachment," and that no one else in the universe is capable of traveling as adequately as you while in company, and that someone cannot engage "honestly" with another culture while still preferring to, say, go on trips with his girlfriend. God's sake.

More precisely, I think you're a dick for replying to my joke

I'm 90s: I need someone to make lame observations and sarcastic comments to

With this "oh I would never" high-horse nonsense about detachment

That's exactly what I don't like when travelling; ironic detachment is a way of not engaging honestly with the different environment, of playing it safe, and if there's any reason to travel, for me, it's precisely dépaysement.

See also: "Tall, smug white guy floats around developed world with blissful confidence that people of every culture will be nice to him"

People who speak the same language and come from the same country are more likely to insulate themselves from a foreign culture when abroad then people alone are. I just think that's a basic truth. See a gaggle of Italian high school students in Prague as I did last year, or a busload of German tourists in Paris (as I have a million times); they don't even engage with the locals. They see the Church. Very pretty! They see the Castle. Wow! (We have a better one at home, though.) They look for what they want and what comforts them. Of course a solitary traveler can hang out in spots he knows will be catering to his country or to a certain international clientele, but it's not quite as easy as it is for a couple or for a group.

It's not a crime. I never said it was. I merely said that for me, I like to feel a little disoriented by the experience of travel.

m. white's decided lack of actual smugness about anything is precisely why everybody is nice to him

It's not just been the developed world and they most certainly haven't always been nice to me.

Anyway, I'm off. Have a good weekend.

I think traveling with a companion actually helps me engage more with the local culture, as I'm very cautious when traveling alone and less likely to engage as much with locals than if I'm with someone and feel safer. (I think this is probably a gender thing.) And traveling with someone doesn't stop me from trying to use the local language as much as I can, unless the local people I'm talking to are more comfortable with English and it's most painless for all of us that way. You can seek out new experiences with others who are interested in them just as well as you can when you're alone...the key here, I think, is traveling with someone who's interested in the same things, and not being herded around on a bus tour where you're insulated by definition.

There is something insulating about not being alone, just because you're less emotionally dependent on strangers in foreign places, I will admit. But if you are traveling alone somewhere very culturally different, with a different language, for a long time (but not long enough to actually become fluent, make close friends, and settle down), then lacking that insulation can feel really deeply lonely in a way interacting with people you just met in the local language can't alleviate. I don't think all discomfort while traveling is good and educational and broadening, I think sometimes it's just hard.

nabisco not otm shocker

The backlash begins.

I have made no claims to be not-OTM about, except that M. White is being a dick today, which I really don't require anyone's agreement about

M. White's advancing "basic truths" about other people possibly require more backup

I think if he'd mentioned that he dislikes the possible outcome of people insulating themselves from the local culture through comedic sarcasm, it's a bad result that he's seen. He kind of came off as if he thought that was the only possible outcome, which probably isn't true, but he didn't really clarify when nabisco took offense.

I've had both experiences -- sometimes I completely freak out when traveling alone and end up just retreating to a corner somewhere to read a book while I catch my bearings, but I've also traveled with others and ended up just talking in a small group with them at a bar. I think the best traveling is where you go somewhere and try to see what it's like to live a different life, as if you're just another person on the sidewalk for a few days. It really depends on what kind of traveling you're doing.

On that note, I have a friend who has gone to Las Vegas solo. That, I cannot quite do.

(x-post)

Yup that's the one. I kind of feel that you rushed to take offence.

He expressed a contrary view in the way one does in conversation; I don't see that he was advancing his view as a universal truth. Or that holding a contrary view makes him a dick.

TBH, you seemed to go from 0-60mph in a couple of seconds from lighthearted to ultra-pissed off and it's difficult to keep up and judge mood and respond appropriately on a message board.

Nabisco, I'm sorry if I came across as sanctimonious or supercilious. My sense of humor has indeed been blunted by the fact of having spent a feverish week sick in bed. Of course I enjoy traveling with my girlfriend. Last year I even enjoyed traveling with her, her half brother, our neighbors, my putative mother in law, and a friend but even still I reserve some time to set off on my own. I don't mean to suggest that mine is the only way to experience travel but that it's the only way that I enjoy travel. As to the issue of detachment, I still think that many people respond to foreign cultures with fear and ignorance and produce lame jokes and ignorant and facile observations born of idées reçues. I am not only sensitive to this because I have seen my compatriots make fools of themselves, but also because I have seen foreigners say some of the stupidest things about the U.S. and it just seems such an embarrassing waste. If people were capable of leaving themselves out of the equation in a kind of experiential abnegation, they would often be the richer for it. At least that seems to have been the case for me.

As to being a dick, at least I made no mention of your race or vertical endowment which you have yet to prove, beyond mere prejudice, as the basis of my attitude, however smug it may be.

Lordy lord, I am just peopled out and I am really hankering to do THIS. Nothing ambitious at all. I really would like to visit just a podunk but pretty town like Socorro, NM, and just eat at Waffle House and read in a hotel and watch birds for five days or so. This would be easier if I had a car but I could just rent one I guess??

I just did this last month and HIGHLY recommend it.

If you do rent a car, try to avoid Enterprise as (at least in the west) they specifically prohibit travel more than one state away.

Any places you would recommend for renting one?