from Hacker News

The magic of traveling alone

by aizyuval on 3/16/23, 5:32 AM with 48 comments

• by sussexby on 3/18/23, 8:14 AM

  Travelling alone for me has yielded two massive benefits:

  * I see more than I am expecting as I meet more people. Solo travel is lonely and you want to speak to others, when you do you get new experiences. Theres nothing stopping you talk to people when you travel with others but the yearning for interaction isn’t as strong. Ex: meeting someone in Beijing and going for a proper local breakfast eating things I’d never imagined.

  * It challenges me to overcome my comforts. I’ve experienced far more by pushing my boundaries beyond what I thought possible. Ex: cycling the US Pacific Coast and needing shelter/resources and accepting the help you can get only to find kind people, new experiences and great local recommendations.

  Almost every time I share stories at least a couple of stories come out of times I have travelled solo.

• by surfsvammel on 3/18/23, 5:53 AM

  I spent years travelling alone for work. I grew bitter. I hated it. I started to hate travelling.

  Some years later, I decided that I wanted to be able to enjoy travelling alone. So I did, for 30 days, in France. I made rules for myself:

  - Don’t stay in the same city more than two nights.

  - Go do all the touristy stuff, eat at all the restaurants, etc, that I would do if I was not alone.

  - Speak to people.

  It was the best vacation of my life… I have so many stories from those 30 days.

  Travelling alone is as hard, uncomfortable or increasingly good, as you yourself let it be.

• by Svip on 3/18/23, 7:52 AM

  Back in '17, I took my car across the Atlantic to the US, and drove coast to coast and back again for a total of 10 weeks. The majority of the trip was spent driving alone.

  My original plan had been 12 weeks, but coming around the 7th-8th week, as I was driving back to the East Coast, I was hit with a severe sense of home sickness, so I decided to cut my trip short.

  It was a great trip, and I met a lot of people on the way. Also met my now wife -- though, ironically, on the last day of the trip.

  I will recommend these sorts of trips, particularly to younger people before they settle down. But - as pointed out elsewhere - remember to talk to people. Still made me feel home sick; and exhausted from the constant bombardment of new experiences.

• by blowski on 3/18/23, 6:25 AM

  The “magic” seems little more than not having to compromise, allowing you to be selfish without the guilt of hurting others.

  With friends, the magic comes when the holiday has finished and you start saying “remember that thing on that holiday!”. The worst form of loneliness is only having memories nobody else shares.

• by grrdotcloud on 3/18/23, 1:34 PM

  I've traveled alone, with family, with friends.

  My best travels have been with two other members forming a group which now includes a charter making it the envy of many others.

  The rules are defined. We rotate hosts. The host is responsible for arranging lodging, destination, and guide. No additional members or visits to others. Rules require we share all meals, exploring, lodging. This syncs up schedules and garnishes agreement.

  This is our tenth year. The rules were codified in the third after an ongoing disagreement that now serves as a long running joke.

• by DiscourseFan on 3/18/23, 10:28 AM

  I've backpacked all over the world by myself, but last time I flew out I just kind of got idk, bored of it? There's only so much to do if you're by yourself in a place where you don't know anyone or speak the language very well (if at all). You take walks, you go to museums, you eat the local foods and go out clubbing at night, see if you can't get laid, maybe go to the beach if there is one. And then you can do some hiking if you're in the wilderness.

• by dietr1ch on 3/18/23, 5:29 AM

  > At the start, I had some doubts. A sense of loneliness emerged. I was a bit confused. Though, this turned out for the best, serving as a tool for freedom.

  Around at which point does it start getting good?

• by hungryforcodes on 3/18/23, 7:19 AM

  Traveling with people is a nightmare. They always want to get up at different times to do things, see different things than you, stay longer at certain places or shorter.

• by shostack on 3/18/23, 5:24 PM

  Traveling alone through Europe during college as an American was one of the most amazing and life changing experiences of my life.

  It was what yanked me firmly out of my US-centric world view and I realized how profound it was on my return trip back seeing all the people in line and being able to so easily spot "obvious Americans" (or at least that's what my brain at that age thought).

  I also surprised myself with how confident it made me in myself and socially with some of the random connections I made that led to once in a lifetime adventures like meeting a woman on a bus in Italy, dining with her and her brother+wife at the oldest restaurant in Rome ordering all off menu+house wine, then getting a personal insider tour of Rome by night in their convertible.

  Or getting lost in the Vatican, missing a museum tour, then realizing the crowd I was watching was listening to the Pope on his balcony.

  Or wandering through the Lanes in Brighton at night with a pint on the street while visiting my college roommate who was doing a semester abroad there.

  Or visiting our other roommate who was from Vienna and at home who gave me a guided tour of the mountains and then made me terrified for my life driving down them in a torrential downpour in his tiny smart car.

  Or happening to be in Siena during the Palio horse race, completely unplanned.

  It wasn't quite as extreme as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, but about as close as I've come. It has the potential to change you in ways you cannot expect.

• by satvikpendem on 3/18/23, 5:24 AM

  Shoutout to /r/solotravel back when I was first traveling alone, great community there that has some great tips.

• by mettamage on 3/18/23, 8:35 AM

  I met interesting people, which is why I travel solo. Whenever I see someone with an interesting style or energy, I tell them. It usually leads to nothing. Sometimes it leads to magic :)

  Definitely a fun way to become a bit better at dating too!

• by tekla on 3/18/23, 12:22 PM

  Traveling with people SUCKS. The best times of my life have been being by myself a hundred miles from civilization. I can do whatever the hell I want when I want, and no listening to whining or posing for instagram moments.

• by deafpolygon on 3/18/23, 7:49 AM

  Travelling alone sounds like a dream. But I'm an introvert on the ASD, so... I'm probably the exception.