Tips for traveling solo.
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Tips for traveling solo.
Please subscribe and leave a review on I-Tunes.
Feel free to drop me an email I would love to hear from you editor@thetravellingfool.com
You can sign up for my email list
Follow me on social media
Hi, my name is Bob Bales and this is the Traveling Fool podcast where we talk about travel destinations, little known places people just don't know about, the history, culture, and people of those places, along with everything travel related, including the latest news and travel trends, travel tips, and other info to help make your travels more memorable.
And welcome back to the Traveling Fool Podcast. Last episode, we talked about some of the myths, misconceptions, and fears people have around traveling solo. This time we're going to delve a little deeper into the subject. So we're going to start off with when you're traveling solo, how to take that first trip by yourself.
First of all, you don't want to jump in, go on a round the world trip by yourself. if you've never traveled alone. You're a little leery about traveling somewhere by yourself? Take it easy at first. You know, you can travel solo and still go on a group trip, so you can go on a cruise, you can take a tour somewhere with a group of people, so you're still kind of traveling solo.
You're by yourself, but you're still with a group of people. Or, start off with a small day trip. Take a two or three day trip somewhere in your car, and go somewhere, and spend a couple of nights in a hotel in one place, and a couple of nights in another, and just get your feet wet a little bit. That's the first way to do it.
Just kind of start off easy. Work your way up to where you have no fears about traveling anywhere by yourself. Now, what do you pack for a solo trip? If you're like me, you wind up packing too much, so here's a tip. Put everything out on the bed that you plan on packing, your suitcases there, everything you want to take, and then leave half of it.
Because chances are you're not going to need most of that stuff where you're going. And if you do need something, you can always buy it when you get there. Go minimal, because it's just you. You don't want to be hauling tons of luggage around. It's a pain in the butt. It's a pain getting on and off the aircraft with all that stuff.
It's a pain traveling by bus with it. You don't want to lug it all into a hotel or resort somewhere. Travel as light as you can. In other words, grab some clothes that you can use for a lot of different things. Do you really need five pairs of shoes? I mean, you, you don't need tons of jewelry. Nobody cares about your expensive jewelry.
Leave all that stuff at home. First of all, it's a security concern. People just try and rob you. Second of all, you don't need to impress anybody. You're traveling around having a good time. You don't need to carry all this crap with you, so don't take it. Where to stay safe or how to stay safe when you're traveling solo.
Now we touched on that a little bit last time. First thing to do is go to state. gov if you're traveling out of the country. State. gov will give you the security situation in every country in
the in the first place. In second... Any concerns that they have, whether it's civil unrest, high crime areas, things like this. And like I said on the last podcast, Google is your friend. Google the area you're traveling to. Do the main Google search. Also click the little news tab up top. So let's say you're going to...
Oh, I don't know. Let's say you're going to Bali. We'll just pick that. I've never been to Bali, but we'll just pick Bali. Go to Bali,
the news portion of it, and see what kind of news they've got going on there. They'll tell you everything that's happening, whether it's civil unrest, or whatever's going on. Put travel concerns. Do a little Google search and find out about the destination you're headed to. Don't just pick the first hotel that you see off of booking.
com or hotels. com or any of these other places. You see some place you want to stay? Research the area where it's at. Look at it on a map. Look at the area it's at. Is that someplace you want to stay at? You don't want to have to walk out of the hotel and be in some crime ridden neighborhood. The hotel photos may look beautiful on the internet, but when you get
a drug dealing, crack infested neighborhood, not so much. So do a little research and you can stay a lot safer when you're traveling solo. Also, be aware of your surroundings. Just use common sense. I mean, if it looks like it's a little sketchy, don't go down in that area. Just use common sense and you'll be fine.
It's no more dangerous traveling solo than it is if you just travel with a group of people. Take a few basic precautions, you'll be just fine. How to meet people while traveling solo. Uh, like I said on the last podcast, I talk to everybody. I talk to, whether it's waiters, waitresses, uh, the maid staff at the hotel, the taxi driver that's taking me somewhere, uh, the front desk people, I ask them where a good place to go is.
What do you recommend I see while I'm here in town? Where's a good place to get a burger? I mean, if you wanted to take somebody from out of town to see something that was really cool where all the tourists don't go, where would you take them? They'll tell you some great place to go.
Great people. I have no problem talking to people when I travel. Here's a little tip. Find out what your passion is. What, what do you like to do, aside from traveling? What do you like to do? Do you like to eat? Do you like, uh, mom and pop burger joints? Seek those out where you go, and then talk to the owners.
They'll be more than happy to tell you about their place of business, and you can find out some great information about them. I have met so many people just traveling around. from all walks of life that are extremely interesting. I like history. So I travel, when I travel, I go to places that have a lot of history or I find out the history about the places that I'm at.
Give you an example, I was in Manila, Philippines. I'm walking around town and I see what looks like a Buddhist temple in Manila. Now, Philippines is a Catholic, predominantly Catholic country. You don't see a lot of Buddhist temples. So I just kind of wandered over there and knocked on the door. Had a big closed off entrance.
The guy comes to the gate and he goes, can I help you with something? I said, yeah, what is this place? And he said, well, it's a Zen Buddhist temple. I asked him, can I come in and look around? He looked at me like I was a nut and then said, yeah, sure, come on in. We had a great conversation. He showed me all around the temple.
And I just had a blast talking to this guy for like an hour or so and learning about this Buddhist temple in downtown Manila. I also met a real life witch in Prague. I'm wandering around town. I was thirsty. I saw a bar. I walked in and I noticed there's nothing but women in this bar. Which didn't bother me too much.
There's a lady behind the bar, but there's all these little witches hanging from the ceiling, and I asked her, so what's the deal with the witches? She goes, well, this is a witch bar, and we're all witches. We belong to a coven. Well, now that was more than one drink and I had a blast talking to these witches and Bragg, so you could meet all kinds of people and have a blast When you're traveling.
Just put yourself out there a little bit, talk to people, and you'd be surprised who you can meet. Now, some of the best solo travel destinations, You see this on the internet, you know, it's best solo travel destinations of 2023. I'm here to tell you just about any place is great for solo travel, but some of the good ones that I've been to is Thailand, uh, London, anywhere where there's a beach.
I mean, uh, Virgin Islands, that's a great place. There's a lot of people, there's a lot of things to see and do. Um, anywhere, I've been to Asia, I've been to the Mediterranean, I've been to Europe, I've been all over the United States traveling solo. To me, as far as a solo travel destination, I don't know of one place better than the other.
Unless it's, you know, I don't know if I'd go to some place where it's maybe a honeymoon destination if you're traveling solo. That might be a little awkward, but... You can travel just about anywhere by yourself. So those are some of the things that you want to look out for when you're traveling solo, reason that you can't travel solo, see the world, have a good time, meet a lot of interesting people, see a lot of things that you wouldn't normally see.
Come back and tell all your friends about it. So make them envious and make them want to travel too. See you next time on the traveling fool. Well, we'll probably be talking about a destination the next time and some of the things to see and do there. Until then, stay tuned, go ahead and subscribe, have safe travels, and we'll see you next time on the Traveling Fool Podcast.