Party Of One?

The most dreaded question in solo travel is when you sit down at a restaurant and are asked if anyone is joining you, and you simply respond “no.” It can be a big negative for a lot of people. Meals are most often shared with others, as they are meant to be, but one of the sacrifices of traveling solo is likely to be a meal on your own every once in a while. If you can reframe your day and give it purpose, a dinner date with yourself can be the perfect time to reflect and get comfortable with being a party of one.

Hobbies are often done at home, but adopting a hobby that fits solo travel is highly effective in creating satisfaction with solo travel and can even provide entertainment in those moments that you find yourself missing companionship. Having goals for your trip before leaving and then helping fill them with your hobby gives purpose to your day.

While traveling solo, hobbies may matter even more than other times in your life, as there’s no built-in companion to share the memory with or to fill in the silence of being on your own. Hobbies can give your day structure where it would otherwise be lacking, and they can also shift your mindset, which is critical to the enjoyment of solo travel from a “tourist passing through” to an “observer with a mission.” Ironically, your solo hobby may also be the source of connection that you were otherwise lacking, for example, another photographer you connect with while out with your camera or an artist in an art gallery that can point you to their favorite spot to sketch or paint. When you’re able to find others that share a hobby, you build a community for yourself — even if it’s just for a moment in time.

Exploring Solo Travel Hobbies

Some recommended solo travel hobbies include: Photography, journaling, blogging, content creation, sketching or watercolor, learning the local language, cooking and food documentation and even Fitness. All are highly effective at giving your day purpose and are easy to incorporate into your daily routine.

Photography:

Picking a theme of photography can help narrow your focus even more, so options like street photography, landscapes, flora and fauna or architecture can provide not only a purpose for the day, but something to share with your friends and family back home. It can also map out your day, like catching a certain location at different times of the day in different light. It is really less about the equipment and more about the activity. Many photographers will tell you the best camera is the one you have with you. Sure, you can buy expensive equipment, but it’s not necessary, and like every hobby, practice makes perfect, so the more you repeat the more you can challenge yourself to improve your skills and learn more about your equipment.

Journaling:

Journaling is a hobby that’s been around for centuries (or longer) and is often overlooked in today’s digital world. Processing experiences alone is different than when you share them with someone, and writing things down can help solo travelers fill the gap in shared experiences. There are many different options with journaling, like focusing on why you took the trip in the first place, writing a letter to a different person in your life every day of your trip and recounting what you did and how you felt and sharing why you wanted to share that moment with them (you never have to send the letter to them, but you could). Gratitude journals and being thankful are increasingly popular and fit well in with solo travel. You may even choose to journal while at dinner and give your solo dinner purpose to remove some of the uneasiness of being a party of one.

Blogging and Content Creation:

Increasingly popular is online distribution and consumption of travel. Whether it’s a blog to keep friends and family updated on your whereabouts along with some reflective thoughts, a YouTube channel or curating the perfect grid for your Instagram. Having your own purpose, being authentic and providing factual and beneficial knowledge is what consumers are after. If you want to make it public, pick a niche — think budget travel for solo men/women, LGBTQ travel tips, solo travel while running a small business or over 50 Solo Travel — just don’t assume you are going to monetize it as that’s giving another goal to a hobby, which will likely just add stress. Do it for you and what you love to share.

Sketching and Watercolor:

This hobby may be harder to do if your trip is fast paced, but many experienced solo travelers agree, finding enjoyment in one thing is more enjoyable than running around and trying to find enjoyment in many things. Slowing down the pace of your trip is somewhat counter-intuitive to many solo travelers who often think that if they are constantly busy they won’t feel alone. A hobby that takes time to complete, like sketching or watercolor, can bring purpose in a way that will provide a deeper, more meaningful connection to the location. Maybe you find a park, a café or a library that provides a space for you to work on your hobby. It’s probably not at the top of most tourists’ “must-see’ lists,” but your chosen location may become your favorite secret spot that you tell your friends about once you are home.

Learning the Local Language:

Language learning is one of the most useful hobbies a solo traveler can embark on, and maybe you use apps or basic phrase books, or even hire an online tutor or attend a language class before you depart. Incorporating your hobby and starting it while in the planning phase can provide a lot of excitement before you leave home, and ironically, it may very well provide connection to your everyday life. Doing so inherently provides satisfaction and helps break down negative stigmas around solo travel. Even basic phrases in a local language can create connection with residents and often goes a long way in creating warmth and showing care to the destination you are planning to visit.

Cooking and Food Documentation:

Taking a cooking class in each place you visit or documenting your meals (maybe even on a blog or in your journal) can help create memories that you and generations beyond you can relive in the future. Creating something that also acts as a point of reflection years down the road like documenting the cost of the meal, noting what flavors are similar to your local cuisine or highlighting how ingredients are used differently around the world are all fast and easy ways to have fun with your day. Whether you document everything you eat or maybe have a few short questions to ask the waitstaff or bartender, it can help build connections and conversations with others and help you not feel alone on your solo trip.

Fitness and Health:

Many people throw their fitness routines out the window when they travel, but they don’t have to. Instead, fitness can become a hobby when travelers challenge themselves to walk 10,000+ steps a day, build walking tours or itineraries around the fitness component itself, take a certain number of flights of stairs per day or even aim to drink a certain amount of water per day. Instead of ditching fitness goals on vacation, travelers can make it their purpose and they’ll come home with new routines they can build on at home.

What is most important is that the hobby solo travelers choose matches their personality and interests. If you don’t want to do it at home, it’s likely not a good idea to make it your solo travel hobby. What is really (really) important is that travelers are doing the hobby for themselves and not for what looks good on social media. You want to gain enjoyment from doing the hobby, not from gaining validation from others. It’s also important to pick one or two hobbies and become good at them. Don’t try to do everything and be mindful that interests can evolve from one to the other. Maybe you start out with photography on your phone and move to investing in equipment you bring with you, or maybe you move from taking a certain number of steps per day to running 5ks in different locations you visit, it’s up to you … it is YOUR hobby after all.

Whatever you choose to do, you will likely find that the hobby becomes the best travel souvenir you could hope for, because it’s not just something that you bought, but something you created and did for yourself, and there is so much power in that. The hobbies you choose and complete on a regular basis while traveling are proof that you were fully present in that moment. Solo travel is known to be when people discover who they are, what they enjoy and what they want out of life, because they are doing it for themselves and they are doing it when nobody is watching. The hobby may very well be what gets you to change your thought process from “just me” to “a party of one.”