Solo travel tips: honest answers to the five questions everyone asks first

Solo travel is exciting, and it can be nerve-wracking. I’ve done it across South America and Europe. This is the perspective I wish I’d had — especially if you’re weighing a first trip and quietly wondering whether you’d hate it.

It’s also less unusual than it feels. In a 2026 survey of 500 US leisure travellers, 59% said they’d taken a solo trip in the past five years, up from 46% a year earlier. I’d treat that jump with some suspicion. A five-year lookback question shouldn’t move thirteen points in twelve months, and it’s a small sample. But the direction holds: the industry is now building products for solo travellers that didn’t exist five years ago.

If this is your first time: it does not have to be scary. Nearly everything below is a habit or a logistics decision, not a personality trait.

Will I be lonely?

Honestly? Sometimes yes.

Solo travel makes you get used to being on your own for stretches — breakfast, the gym, the walk back at night. That’s real and there’s no point pretending otherwise. But notice that most of those are things you already do alone at home. You’re not learning a new skill. You’re doing the same things in a different country.

Will you be lonely the whole time? Almost certainly not. Between the growth of remote work and how many people are now travelling the same way you are, finding locals and like-minded people abroad is easier than it’s ever been. It’s worth knowing that about half of people worry about loneliness before they go, and that the worry drops once they’re actually there. The anticipation is the worst part.

A few things that work, depending on how long you’re staying:

A few days to a week. Start in the touristy part of the city. It’s not the authentic choice, and it doesn’t need to be. It gives you a base while you get oriented. Range out from there once you know how the place works.

Consider hostels even if you think they’re not for you. They aren’t just for backpackers any more. Plenty have decent wifi, private rooms with a door that locks, and communal events you can join or skip. You can get the social side without the twelve-bed dorm.

Two weeks or longer: look at colivings. They’re built for exactly this — people staying in one place a while who want their own space and other people around. It’s a good middle setting between a hotel and a hostel. A disclosure, since it matters: I’m a part-owner of a coliving space. I’d recommend the category regardless, but you should know that before you take my word for it.

Or just get your own place and go out. If shared living isn’t for you — or the city doesn’t offer it — book the whole apartment on Airbnb or Booking. Then lean on meetups: language exchanges, local events, whatever your thing already is. I did this in Argentina and ended up making friends I went out with for my birthday.

How to solo travel safely

It depends, and mostly it depends on what you’re used to. Having travelled to a lot of places, the honest answer is that usually you’re okay. Country-specific risk is a real thing and it’s covered in the destination guides — but these general rules apply just about anywhere:

Never walk with your phone out near the road. Snatch theft from mopeds and bikes is the most common thing that happens to travellers in a lot of cities. London is a well-documented example, and hardly unique. Step away from the kerb before you look at anything.

Never invite a dating-app match back to your place without meeting somewhere public first. This goes double if you don’t speak the language well. In some cities this carries specific, documented risk rather than general risk — the Medellín safety guide covers what that looks like in practice.

Put a separate biometric lock on your sensitive apps. If your phone is taken while unlocked, the passcode isn’t protecting your banking. Both platforms support this natively now: how to lock apps on iPhone and how to lock any app on Android. Five minutes, before you fly.

Read the street before you dress for it. When I land somewhere new, I watch what people are actually wearing. If plenty of locals have visible rings, chains and watches on, you’re probably fine. If almost nobody does, that’s the neighbourhood telling you something — leave the jewellery in the room. It’s the fastest read on a city you’ll get, and it works everywhere.

Use a rideshare app with tracking wherever one operates. Uber and DiDi cover a lot of countries between them, and a logged, tracked ride is worth the small premium over a street cab.

That’s not an exhaustive list. It’s the set I’ve actually benefited from.

Is it weird to eat dinner alone?

Absolutely not — it’s one of the genuinely freeing parts.

Eating alone means you eat what you want. Group trips tend to collapse toward the TikTok-approved list; I’ve been on short weekends where that was the entire itinerary, and it gets old. Solo, nobody has to be talked into anything. You can do the place you read about, and the place you walked past that looked good, and neither one requires a negotiation.

If sitting alone still feels exposed at first: sit at the bar or the counter. It’s designed for one, the staff talk to you, and it stops feeling like a statement after about the second time.

Where should I even go?

There’s no right or wrong answer here — it depends what you’re into. Go where it calls you. If nature’s your thing, somewhere like Chile. If you’re going for food, parts of Argentina and Brazil are hard to beat.

But the biggest factor isn’t the destination, it’s how much time you have. Spend longer in one place rather than jumping between three. You absorb a city that way — you learn a neighbourhood, you go back to the same café, things start to feel familiar instead of perpetually new. Moving every two days means arriving somewhere five times and knowing none of them.

If you genuinely can’t pick, the quiz gives you a city that fits your time off in four questions. There’s also a longer guide on how to choose a solo travel destination.

Is solo travel more expensive?

It depends — but practically, yes, doing things alone costs more per person. That doesn’t mean you can’t travel affordably, and it helps to know exactly where the extra cost comes from.

The main one has a name most first-timers have never heard: the single supplement. Hotels, tours and especially cruises price rooms per room, not per person, then charge a solo traveller extra to occupy one alone. It typically runs 25–75% on top of the per-person rate, and some cruise lines charge a full 100%. A 2025 survey found 78% of solo travellers called it their biggest obstacle to booking — so if it’s put you off, you’re in a large majority.

Two useful things. First, it’s becoming negotiable. Several tour operators now run roommate matching, and waive the supplement if they can’t pair you. At least one has moved to a flat daily rate instead of a percentage. It’s worth asking rather than assuming.

Second — the accommodation ladder in the loneliness section above is also the cost answer. Hostels with private rooms, colivings, and apartments booked for a longer stay all sidestep per-room pricing, and they’re the same options that solve being alone too much. The two problems have one solution, which is a genuinely nice thing about travelling this way.

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None of this requires you to be a different kind of person than you already are. Pick somewhere reachable, stay longer than feels necessary, lock your apps, and go.

The honest caveat

I've travelled solo across South America, Central America and Europe — not everywhere. Advice that claims to work identically in every country is usually written by someone who hasn't been to enough of them. Where the answer genuinely depends on where you are, I've said so rather than pretending there's one rule.