Nomadic Spirit is a weekly newsletter for travelers who care as much about the why as the where.
In this issue
This issue is about going alone. In the Dispatch, we make the case that solo travel has become something people choose on purpose, and why the travelers with the most options are increasingly the ones choosing it. A Chosen Place heads to Edinburgh, one of the best cities in Europe to see on your own. The Vantage takes on the single supplement, the surcharge solo travelers have long paid, and what a fair price should look like. In the Journey, Charlie Brown is thrown from his dog sled in the Arctic and meets a different kind of solitude, the kind that leaves without you at fifteen miles an hour. And in Further Afield, a handful of picks for going it alone, from Edinburgh reading to a book on the pleasures of solitude to trips without the solo penalty.
The Dispatch
Where Travel and Life Intersect
Going Solo, by Choice
More and more travelers with full lives and every option are choosing to go alone.
I’ve always loved to travel. But for most of my adult life, there were two kinds of travel, and they had almost nothing in common.
The first was work: two or more flights a week, usually alone, with a running tab of guilt for the time away from home. The second was a real getaway, and that meant people. My wife, family, friends, and a full table.
Going somewhere just for the pleasure of it, on my own, was the rare exception, and never something I went looking for.
Then, a year ago, I stepped back from full-time work. My wife didn’t. We’ve spent our whole marriage planning the next trip together, and we still do.
But my calendar cleared, and hers didn’t, and it hit me that I’d been treating “we’re both free” as the only green light worth waiting for.
Not who you’d picture
So, I started reading about solo travel, and the first surprise was the company I had. The people doing this are not who I pictured. One long-running survey of solo travelers found that more than eight in ten were women, most of them past 55, most with a degree, most taking more than one trip a year.
Interest has only grown. Searches for solo travel are up about 230% over the past decade, according to Google Trends data.
The industry has finally noticed. Analysts estimate U.S. solo travel at nearly $95 billion and expect it to double by 2030.
The thing I had wrong
Here’s what I had wrong for thirty years. I treated solo travel as something you settled for, either because it was work or because no one else could come.
It turns out almost nobody sees it that way. Asked why they go, only about 7% of solo travelers point to a lack of anyone to go with. The rest give reasons that sound like a first choice: their own pace, their own plans, the freedom to change the plan on a whim.
And a growing number have simply stopped letting someone else’s calendar decide whether they travel at all.
Married, and going alone
That last part is where I found myself, and it turns out plenty of people are standing in the same spot.
Road Scholar, the non-profit that has run educational trips for the over-50 crowd since 1975, has watched its solo bookings rise for a decade. When it looked at who those travelers were, 60% were married and traveling without their spouses. The reasons were the plain ones: the husband or wife wasn’t interested or wanted something different from a trip.
And because it’s a non-profit, Road Scholar doesn’t mark up the solo traveler the way most operators do.
I still haven’t booked anything. My wife and I are already mapping the next trip we’ll take together.
But I’ve stopped assuming that’s the only kind worth taking, and one of these mornings, while she’s at her desk, I think I’ll go ahead and plan one of my own.
Reader Comments:
“I may be getting older, but I don't feel old so I don't want trips for old people.
The trips that stay with me aren't the relaxing ones. The adventures that push me beyond my comfort zone, get my adrenaline pumping, and remind me that I'm truly alive are the ones that create memories.
Those are the moments that make me feel most alive.”
— Laura Tramontin
A Chosen Place
Destinations worth traveling for — and understanding once you arrive
Edinburgh, Scotland
Edinburgh is one of the best cities in Europe to visit on your own. That has little to do with safe streets and good transit, though it has both. It’s a good city for anyone and an easy one to be in on your own.
The city itself
Edinburgh is really two cities. The Old Town is dark stone, with a steep climb to the castle on its rock. Below it is the New Town, Georgian and orderly, with wide gray streets. They sit a few minutes apart.
It’s a capital, but it stays small and walkable, and you can get the lay of it in a day. It’s also a serious place: the seat of the Scottish government, the home of the Scottish Enlightenment, full of bookshops and writers, and host to the world’s largest arts festival every August.
There’s open country inside the city, too. Arthur’s Seat is a real hill, an old volcano, and you can climb it for a view over the rooftops to the water beyond. You can do that in the morning and still have the afternoon in town.
The food and the pubs
The pub is the center of life here, and it’s the easiest evening you can have: a drink and something to eat in a warm room out of the rain. Edinburgh takes its whisky seriously, with bars that pour hundreds of bottles and bartenders happy to help you choose.
Scottish food had a bad reputation for a long time. That’s no longer true. There’s fresh seafood from the cold coast and good haggis if you want to try it.
The pub is also where you notice how friendly the city is. People talk to you in the shop, on the next stool, in line, and they’re dry and funny about it.
Getting out of town
Edinburgh also works as a base. From Waverley station, the trains run to Glasgow in under an hour, to Stirling and its castle, across the Forth into Fife and its fishing villages, and north to the Highlands when you want bigger scenery. The seaside towns of East Lothian are half an hour out.
Give it a week, and you can see a good part of the country from here. Spring and autumn are the best times to come, quieter and a little gold. August is the Fringe, the world’s biggest arts festival, when the city is packed, expensive, and a lot of fun. Go then, if you want that, pick another month.
Going it alone
All of this is why it’s an easy place to be alone. A city full of people who will start a conversation takes care of a lot when you turn up by yourself. Sitting at a bar on your own is normal here.
There’s always something close by, so a day fills up without much planning. Find a pub with music, and your evening is set. The gray, bookish mood of the place suits walking around on your own.
Edinburgh is good for everyone who visits. It’s an easy one to enjoy on your own.
The Journey — Voices of the Nomadic Spirit
Stories from travelers who have been changed by where they went. If you have one to share, please reach out to [email protected] for writing guidelines.
The Dogs Did Not Stop
Not all solitude is chosen. Sometimes it leaves without you at fifteen miles per hour.
by Charlie Brown
I had just started my dog sled trip in Kiruna, Sweden, the country’s northernmost town. The famous Icehotel is nearby, in the village of Jukkasjärvi. I traveled there from Chicago, flying through Copenhagen and Stockholm with my friend Mike McCarthy. We had signed up for a 100-mile, 6-day Arctic Circle trip through the mountains in the north. We met at the dog sled camp, stayed there overnight, and the next day rode out to the trailhead with the dogs in cages and the sleds strapped on top of the trucks. The five other guests were from Germany and France: a married couple, and a father and his teenage son. Our guide was Martin.
We were given control of the sleds with minimal instructions. Our sleds were loaded with our food and ten huge frozen dog-food patties of meat, each the size of a couch cushion.
We moved in a cavalcade of seven sleds across the beautiful, snow-covered landscape at about 15 mph.
I was the last sled. My team was four Siberian huskies, each about thirty to forty pounds. They pulled relentlessly and happily, long tongues hanging down. The sun was out against a beautiful azure-blue sky, and I followed the sled tracks of our group. There were no other people or signs of civilization in sight.
After lunch, the flat landscape gave way to a long, steep, wide downhill stretch. It was wide and open. We picked up speed, and I applied the brakes so as not to run over my industrious dogs. I was the last in line of the seven sleds.
Off the runners
The trail was uneven, and I needed to concentrate to keep my balance on the sled runners. I did not see the dip or bump. The sled kicked, and I was thrown off. It happened fast. One moment I was standing on the runners, the next I was in the snow.
I shouted uselessly for the dogs to stop.
They did not stop.
They kept moving, pulling the sled behind them. Helplessly, I watched them continue. In a flash, they disappeared downhill.
It got quiet after that as I wondered what to do.
I stood alone on the slope. There was no one in sight. There was no sound.
I realized I did not know what to do, and I was very alone.
I had no sled, no gear, and no plans.
I stood there for a short time, thinking. I wondered if the dogs would stop on their own. I wondered if someone ahead would notice I was gone.
The long walk back
Then I started walking, following the sled tracks.
All my supplies were on that sled. Everything I needed for the trip was there.
I kept walking.
It was not panic, but it was close. I did not like not knowing what to do or the next steps. There was no noise except the crunching of snow under my big snow boots.
After some time—maybe fifteen minutes—I saw someone ahead.
Mike McCarthy stood on a rocky outcrop. He raised his arm and waved. I waved back and walked toward him.
When I reached him, he told me what had happened. The dogs are not trained to stop when the mushers call out. They kept going until they ran into the team ahead, forcefully, with no operator at the helm.
We walked back together to the sleds.
After that, I understood more about how it worked. The dogs would run. The sled would follow. And if you were not on it, it would not wait for you. While falling, it was best to push over the sled, stopping it. I applied this method when I fell - the next five times.
Charlie Brown is a practicing attorney who was raised and works in the Chicago area. He is married with four children and two grandchildren, and loves adventure travel
The Vantage
What the travel industry is getting right — and wrong — for Nomadic Spirit readers. |
Stop Paying for an Empty Bed
Book a tour or a cruise on your own, and you’ll run into a charge that shows how the industry sees you. It’s the single supplement, and it means you pay more, sometimes much more, for the crime of not being a couple. The fee ranges from 10% to 100% over the standard rate. On cruises, paying double for a cabin meant for two is normal.
The bookkeeping is real. Operators price a room for two, splitting it, and an empty second bed leaves a hole. But that is a decision, and a revealing one. For years, the industry priced around couples and families, leaving the solo traveler to cover the difference. The supplement tells you exactly how the industry has traditionally valued solo travelers, and the number is low.
The rollback is uneven
Solo travel is a $482 billion market, and the industry is discovering these travelers and walking it back. Some of that is real. A few cruise lines build solo cabins for one, and some operators set a flat, modest supplement. But much of it is show: short promotions, cabins that sell out fast, and “no single supplement” deals with a higher base price. Even some of the companies that pioneered solo cabins haven't expanded them as quickly as demand might suggest. For most trips, you pay as if the trip were sold out when it isn’t.
What a fair price looks like
There's a legitimate argument behind the fee. On a sold-out departure, a solo booking really does cost a fare—the second traveler who’d have taken that bed —and a premium is fair. But tours and cruises rarely sell out, and the supplement gets charged flat, as if they all did. When a space would have sailed empty, a solo guest at the single rate is found money. It’s why waivers cluster at the last minute and in the off-season, when the empty-bed excuse falls apart. A fair supplement would track occupancy: smaller as a trip fills, gone on the empty ones, shown in the first price you’re quoted.
What you can do about it
Your power here is real, even when it doesn’t feel like it. Ask what the supplement is before you book. Walk when it stays high on a trip that clearly hasn’t filled. Spend with the operators who set the price of the room you sleep in. Money following the fair players is all that’s ever moved this industry, and solo travelers are now big enough to move it. We should act like it.
Further Afield
Reading worth your time.
Edinburgh, on your own
Through a Travel Lens
A resident’s case for Edinburgh as a first solo trip, built on the same friendliness and walkability we wrote about. She points new solo travelers toward Stockbridge and Leith, two of the gentler corners of the city, and makes the safety question feel small.
The Stockbridge walk
Wander Scotland
The exact riverside route we singled out, mapped from Stockbridge along the Water of Leith to Dean Village. Lesley Stewart, who used to live in the neighborhood, adds that the coffee stops and the wine bar are worth ending at.
Alone Time
Stephanie Rosenbloom, Viking
The New York Times travel columnist spends a year testing solo travel in four cities across four seasons: Paris, Florence, Istanbul, and her own New York. Published in 2018, it is the most graceful argument we know for the pleasures of going alone, and a fitting read for anyone talking themselves into a first trip.
No single supplement, found for you
Solo Traveler World
Looking for operators that don't penalize solo travelers? This is the best place we've found to start. Solo Traveler World keeps monthly updated lists of tours and cruises that drop the single supplement, so you can find fair operators without combing the fine print yourself.
The Art of Stillness
Pico Iyer, TED Books
A short, lovely book by a writer who has been everywhere, arguing that the deepest travel sometimes means sitting still. Iyer widens the question past solo trips to the value of solitude itself, which is what this whole issue is about. Published in 2014, and readable in an afternoon.
“The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.”
— Henry David Thoreau, Walden
