Every Decision Is Yours

Most solo travel advice opens with the risks, and the safety questions deserve straight answers in any trip planning. The greater risk gets less attention: once you have spent a trip making every decision yourself, from when to eat to when to move on, it is hard to go back. Solo travel is how a very large number of experienced travelers prefer to move through the world, and industry surveys consistently find that the majority of them are women. Trip planning at Scott Monaco takes that seriously, which means accommodation choices and safety planning by destination are part of every solo itinerary, regardless of who is traveling.

Solo also does not mean isolated. It means you decide when to be alone and when to have company, whether that is joining a walking tour in the morning or a conversation with the table next to you at lunch. Scott Monaco also treats solo travel as something you can do inside a bigger trip. Two people traveling together can spend a day apart, one at a museum and one on a long hike, and come back having both had an amazing day. Some of the best trips are constructed this way.

The through line is control over your own time. Whether it is your first solo trip, a solo day carved out of a shared itinerary, or a month-long solo journey across a region, traveling alone is the most direct way to spend a trip entirely on the things you enjoy most. Every solo itinerary Scott Monaco plans is built around that, and the experiences below are good places to start.

Stories from Scott Monaco

In You’ve Probably Been Traveling Wrong Your Whole Life, and later adapted for the Toronto Star, Scott Monaco argues that the travel industry defaults to an extrovert’s idea of a good trip, and that introverts see more of a place when they set their own pace.

In You Weren’t Supposed to Be Here, Scott Monaco gets on a Tokyo bus with no destination and follows the sound of drums into a neighborhood summer festival he did not know existed. It is the case for leaving room in every itinerary for what cannot be planned and heading out solo to see what you might find.

In Most Travel Advice Is Written for Someone Else, Scott’s Istanbul restaurant recommendation goes wrong in a way that has nothing to do with the restaurant.

A Few Solo Experiences Worth Building A Trip Around

Dining solo, from street food to fine dining — At a hawker center in Penang the solo diner is the default customer, and the meal is done in fifteen minutes. A table for one at a serious restaurant works just as well, whether you bring a book or give the meal your full attention, and the Food & Cuisine page covers where to go for the eating itself.

A solo rail journey across a country — Train travel is built for solitude, with a window seat and a landscape that changes while you sit still. From a luxury train across southern Africa to Japan’s network, where a solo traveler can change plans as often as the mood does.

A safari, traveling solo — Nothing about a safari requires bringing your own group. Lodges and national parks across southern and East Africa routinely seat solo travelers together for game drives and meals, and the Safari & Birding page covers the destinations. Africa should not come off the list because you are traveling alone.

A photography trip with nobody waiting on you — Photography rewards exactly what solo travel provides, which is the freedom to stand in one spot or keep walking to see what the destination offers. The Photography page lists destinations worth building a trip around.

Walking a city for a week with no itinerary — A week is long enough to build routines, and a solo walker is free to follow whatever the city offers next. Buenos Aires and Tbilisi both reward aimlessness as well as any city on earth.

A meditation retreat where silence is the format — Donation-based vipassana centers across India and Nepal run ten-day silent courses where everyone is effectively alone, whether they arrived that way or not. For yoga, India remains the source, and an ashram stay costs a fraction of what boutique retreats charge elsewhere.

Spending a month or two in a single neighborhood — Rent an apartment somewhere like Mérida in Mexico and live at local speed for a month. Staying long enough to stop feeling like a visitor is the deepest version of solo travel, and it often costs less than a two-week itinerary full of activities.

A solo day inside a shared trip — Solo travel also works inside a trip taken together. Building a day apart into a shared itinerary is one of the easiest upgrades a couple can make to how they travel, and it is something Scott Monaco can plan for.

Where To Go Next

New stories from Scott Monaco are published weekly.

If your next trip is one you want to do solo, tell Scott Monaco what you are looking for.

More Ways to Travel

Explore how Scott Monaco travels: Food & Cuisine · Safari & Birding · Cultural Immersion · Photography · Cycling & Hiking · Solo Travel · Art & Artisan Craft · Books & Bookstores — or see all Ways to Travel.