Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Would you go travelling on your own?

2

Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 8,202 ✭✭✭07Lapierre


    Hammer89 wrote: »

    What say you? Would you travel the world completely on your own initially?

    I think the only way to travel the world is on your own! Now if you were going to Spain for a week, then bring a friend,


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,318 ✭✭✭✭Menas


    I would prefer to travel alone. You get to do your own thing. Go where you want. Be more flexible.
    I would love to be planning a solo trip now.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,995 ✭✭✭lc180


    The best bit about travelling on your own is doing whatever the f**k you want without having to compromise.

    Sounds like I was in the same situation as you OP. Was impossible to get my mates to go anywhere for a night away let alone abroad for a few days. It just got to the stage where I said f**k it and I booked flights. My first solo trip was Barcelona and I've been hooked since. That was 5 years ago and I've probably been to 20 countries on my own since.

    My recommendation would be book yourself a weekend away on your tobler first. Somewhere cheap in Europe and just test out if solo travel is for you before booking mad expensive flights to Asia. Best of luck.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 23,646 ✭✭✭✭ Irene Glamorous Headroom


    I prefer travelling by myself. You go where you want. Do what you want. Get up when you want. You're not being dragged around to boring places. It's perfect.


  • Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    I went to Africa alone. It was a fantastic experience. I was also amazed at the amount of single women who go travelling alone.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 5,232 ✭✭✭Elessar


    If it's what you want, try one trip abroad on your own to see if you like it. I never travelled but honestly I just don't have any interest in it. If I was to go, I'd feel a bit weird going on my own, I dunno I just see it as a bit sad. Experiences are better when they're shared I feel.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,477 ✭✭✭✭sryanbruen


    I would like to go on me own as I would be able to do whatever the heck I want but I don't think I would manage all the responsibility well, so no I wouldn't go travelling on me own.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,644 ✭✭✭Wanderer2010


    I often travel alone because both I don't have a lot of friends and the ones I have are tied in to contracts/children etc and cant commit. I would say though most people as they reach their 30s and beyond would have trouble finding a few people to go on long haul holidays so for the people who say they need people to travel with, I feel sorry for you as you are missing out on different experiences and a sense of independence.

    I have travelled to Asia, America and Australia alone and it has many advantages like dictating your own itinerary, meeting new people and enriching your experience.


  • Registered Users Posts: 33,721 ✭✭✭✭RobertKK


    I was not going to go on a holiday this year but changed my mind. I will be going on my own because I want to do my own thing and not expect others to want to go by my schedule.
    It will be my first time and I am not concerned about what people think or whatever else.
    I will be off to Austin, Texas for the F1 race which comes with a Taylor Swift concert, and I will probably spend anther week traveling around.
    It is good to be independent, I don't see that as being weird. If you were afraid to do stuff on your own and as an adult needed someone to hold your hand when perfectly capable of doing it yourself, that would be weird.
    I plan on going to the US next year again on my own to see the solar eclipse, this time part of a tour for lots of sightseeing and adventure.
    There is so much stuff to miss out on if you expect others to dance to your tune.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,667 ✭✭✭CelticRambler


    turnikett1 wrote: »
    I've travelled by myself alone loads. The first time I went travelling I was 17, completely by myself, hitch-hiked from Norway to Spain with nothing but a bag of clothes and a €5er in my pocket!

    Amongst continental craftsmen, particularly in Germany, there is the "journeyman" tradition where trainees finish their apprenticeship by setting off on a three-year adventure. They are not allowed return to within 50km of their hometown for any reason other than a dire family emergency, they're not allowed carry mobile phones, and (if they stick rigidly to the tradition), they must leave with 5€ to their name and return with not more than 5€ to their name. They live from day-to-day, are allowed collect contacts en route and do any work that comes their way, but they're not supposed to make definite plans.

    From what I've read 10% of German journeymen these days are young women. I've met three of them wandering the byways of France - a tailor, a flute-maker and a baker, and listening to their stories, it makes young Irish emigrants seem like a bunch of molly-coddled softies! :pac:


  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 833 ✭✭✭Riverireland


    Amongst continental craftsmen, particularly in Germany, there is the "journeyman" tradition where trainees finish their apprenticeship by setting off on a three-year adventure. They are not allowed return to within 50km of their hometown for any reason other than a dire family emergency, they're not allowed carry mobile phones, and (if they stick rigidly to the tradition), they must leave with 5€ to their name and return with not more than 5€ to their name. They live from day-to-day, are allowed collect contacts en route and do any work that comes their way, but they're not supposed to make definite plans.

    From what I've read 10% of German journeymen these days are young women. I've met three of them wandering the byways of France - a tailor, a flute-maker and a baker, and listening to their stories, it makes young Irish emigrants seem like a bunch of molly-coddled softies! :pac:

    Now that's what you call a character building trip of a lifetime.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,667 ✭✭✭CelticRambler


    There's something in that, but it's not always the case that "it only lasts the night and the following day". I picked up a couple of hitch-hikers a few years ago (Germans again) and brought them home for the Easter Weekend. They were trying to warm up after a month in the frozen wastelands of Scotland and northern England (the year of the bad snow) and SonNo.1 needed to practise speaking German for his oral, so it suited everyone. They've kept in touch, irregularly, but it's still more than a one-off.

    The flute-maker mentionned above was another hitch-hiker. We might cross paths again in July as I'm on the organising committee of a instrument-makers' festival so I told her when and where it'll take place. When you're in a couple/group, your focus is inevitably on the shared experience - which is great for reminiscing about - but it does mean you can be distracted/dissuaded from taking a chance on something that might be nothing ... or a great opportunity.

    Edit: I combine working away with solo travel. The weekend before last, I finished an hour later than I should have, so abandonned my plan to go to one event and went west to a dance instead. There, I met a Swiss girl who I'd met for the first time over a couple of weekends last autumn in a completely different part of France. Great dancer (former ballerina). She's got engaged since last year ... :( You'd be surprised at how often one-off encounters don't stay one-off ...


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 88 ✭✭Liberosis


    you have no one to reminisce with about your experiences when you travel alone either

    I think having no one to reminisce with about your experiences is better than not having, and ultimately missing out on those experiences, if that makes sense.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,318 ✭✭✭✭Menas


    Liberosis wrote: »
    I think having no one to reminisce with about your experiences is better than not having, and ultimately missing out on those experiences, if that makes sense.

    It does. No point in not going somewhere just because there is no one to share the experience with.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 22,559 ✭✭✭✭AnonoBoy


    I honestly worry about people who won't go to the cinema on their own.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,547 ✭✭✭Agricola


    I'd certainly like to try it as I'm very comfortable with my own company and many people really sell it to you, but I wonder if it's not something more suited to a people person ironically enough!
    I wouldn't relish constantly meeting new people and having to do that simply to have another human being to chat to. I've read enough travel books to know that solo adventures can be quite lonely experiences for the more naturally introverted person. Of course it would get you out of your shell and new experiences, new places and all that but I would much prefer to do it with long time friends. The craic would be 100% mightier for me personally. But as for many people just on the wrong side of 30, it's a bit of a pipe dream now.


  • Registered Users Posts: 11,249 ✭✭✭✭salmocab


    I went twice on my own once for 6 months traveling and then back to Australia for a year on my own. Your never alone its easy to meet people and easy to leave them again. I have a friend who has done 7 months in India on his own 23 months in asia on his own and recently 15 months in central America. The upside is you can change your plans on a whim and don't need to justify it.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,083 ✭✭✭Rubberchikken


    op how narrow minded you are to consider people who like travelling alone as losers or imply they have no friends.
    with that sort of attitude maybe you should stay put.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,468 ✭✭✭dasdog


    Love it, great learning experience. Go in to that museum? No, the weathers too nice I'll go this direction instead because it looks interesting. I especially like cities, just blending in and seeing how things operate. Did a whistle-stop tour of Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain last Autumn, easy countries to traverse and I met up with friends along the way, but I would happily have kept on going only for work commitments.


  • Registered Users Posts: 134 ✭✭cjmc11


    OP I'm kind of in the same boat as you, as regards wanting to travel but with no one to go with.
    I have no experience of travelling, alone or otherwise, but from what I have read online in different forums and websites, including this one, that travelling alone does not mark a person out as being weird or without friends.
    I'm a bit apprehensive about going alone as well, but the way in looking at it is, I want to go, I don't have anyone else to go with, so that leaves me with 2 options:
    1. Go and give it my best shot and see how it goes, I will either not like it, in which case I can just come home whenever, or, it could be the best thing i ever do and could be the making of me.
    or option 2. Don't go and always wonder what might have been if I had just been a little bit braver and taken the plunge.
    for me I more or less have made up mind I'm going to go with option no.1.
    I'm by no means a very outgoing person, but I try my best to fit in wherever I am and sometimes that means taking a bit of a leap and hoping for the best.
    anyway that's my 2 cents worth.
    I might have 2 possible candidates to go with but honestly either of those 2 would be very different type of people to me, and I'd rather go I alone than be playing second fiddle to someone else's plans, not to mention it would more than likely put a massive strain on the friendship being around each other 24/7.
    Hope this helps


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 11,035 ✭✭✭✭J Mysterio


    When youre in your twenties, hostel hopping is great craic. I spent 5 weeks going from the north of Italy down through the heel to Sicily and a couple of weeks doing similar in Spain and also a stint in Netherlands/ Belgium/ Germany.

    There are always people in the same boat in hostels who are happy to hang out and join up for a while. You can make good friends.

    Now, after 30, im less keen on sharing a bedroom with 10 people. Hostels with private rooms would be a better fit I would think.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,455 ✭✭✭maudgonner


    There's also degrees of 'traveling alone'. Just because you get on the plane from Ireland alone, doesn't mean you have to do your whole trip on your own.

    New Zealand is a great example. Most backpackers who go there will end up on one of the backpackers' bus tours as it's one of the easiest & cheapest ways to see the country. They're hop-on-hop-off buses that let you travel at your own pace and pick up/drop off at a selection of hostels in each town. So people tend to end up staying in the same place and form natural groups if their schedules coincide. If you end up with a group of people you get on with you can stick together, if not you can do your own thing.

    If you want even more of a structured holiday there are plenty of companies that do group tours for solo travelers. A friend of mine goes with Intrepid Travel* when she wants to travel to locations that are a bit off the beaten track and she wouldn't feel confident going on her own.

    (*Beware, that sight is pure travel porn and I will not be held responsible for anyone blowing their life savings on a trek through the Sahara :pac:)


  • Registered Users Posts: 11,035 ✭✭✭✭J Mysterio


    cjmc11 wrote: »
    1. Go and give it my best shot and see how it goes, I will either not like it, in which case I can just come home whenever, or, it could be the best thing i ever do and could be the making of me.

    Do this, but make sure to cutt yourself some slack. Most people, when setting out alone, have a momentary freak out (say after arriving at a destination city): 'what am I doing here' kinda thing.

    You need to allow yourself to overcome your fear. Then you will be more confident in yourself and open up to the variety of experiences that await.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 652 ✭✭✭DanielODonnell


    For me I would only go travelling if I was on my own as I am not used to travelling with people.

    I am a loner and I enjoy it , i have no interest in having friends, I don't like going to bars and clubs like most people so having friends would be no use to me anyway.

    I would like a wife in the future though I am not sure how it would work as I would want to go on holidays on my own and I would get fed up having to spend my evenings with the wife, I would probably be split up within the year.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 652 ✭✭✭DanielODonnell


    timthumbni wrote: »
    I would but I wouldn't want my kids to when they are older. I think you are really risking things when you go travelling on your own. (assuming you are talking about very foreign travel and not just a weekend to Paris)

    No one to check if you are missing, etc. I will follow my kids like the fecking golem...

    You've been watching too many Liam Neeson films, unless you are in the Australian outback or somewhere I don't think there is a big danger in disappearing


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,003 ✭✭✭Hammer89


    op how narrow minded you are to consider people who like travelling alone as losers or imply they have no friends.
    with that sort of attitude maybe you should stay put.

    Shut up pal. You're the only person from 55 who read my post and interpreted what you're suggesting.


  • Registered Users Posts: 134 ✭✭cjmc11


    J Mysterio wrote: »
    Do this, but make sure to cutt yourself some slack. Most people, when setting out alone, have a momentary freak out (say after arriving at a destination city): 'what am I doing here' kinda thing.

    You need to allow yourself to overcome your fear. Then you will be more confident in yourself and open up to the variety of experiences that await.

    Sorry ya of course I wouldn't make my mind up after a day, or even a week in a place, you need time to settle in and adjust, what I was trying to say is that its not a prison sentence, just because you're away doesn't mean you have no choice but to stay away, for me there's a comfort in knowing that home will be there for me when I want to return.
    I'm sure its different for everyone, depending on experience of travelling and living away from home, but I'd say I will have to allow myself at least a month, before I get comfortable with travelling, maybe I'll need more, maybe less, but I wont know until I'm actually doing it.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 84 ✭✭Goat Paddock


    Just make sure you have all your other sh1t together before you go.

    If your on a holiday yeah bus tours are a great way to meet people and if it's to live then hostels or sharing a flat/house


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,667 ✭✭✭CelticRambler


    Agricola wrote: »
    But as for many people just on the wrong side of 30, it's a bit of a pipe dream now.

    G'way out of that. I'm well on the "wrong side" of thirty - doesn't stop me living the dream (or occasional nightmare). The only thing that really changes is that you become the really interesting person that someone else meets on the bus/train/road/mountain (just because you've lived longer than them) ... :cool:


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 1,253 ✭✭✭Stonedpilot


    Always travel on my own, can't stand listening to others whinge when you travel with them.


Advertisement