While traveling solo can offer unparalleled opportunities for personal growth and discovery, it can often present unique challenges when it comes to keeping yourself entertained. Traveling alone means you have nobody encouraging you to try new things, so it’s up to you to motivate yourself to not miss out on travel experiences.
While the freedom to explore at your own pace is undeniably liberating, the challenge of keeping yourself entertained without a travel companion can often lead to decision fatigue and loneliness which can make it difficult to stay motivated and engaged.
As a person that regularly travels solo, let me offer some tips for best places and activities to seek out when traveling alone. These recommendations will hopefully allow you to avoid the potential pitfalls of solo travel and ensure you give yourself opportunities for personal growth, endless excitement, and unforgettable experiences. Don’t be afraid to go it alone, but let’s ensure your solo adventure is anything but boring.
Document Your Trip
One of the most personally rewarding ways to keep yourself entertained when traveling solo is by documenting your travels with a personal journal, public travel blog, or through photos and videos you share on your socials.
Writing about your travels allows you to reflect on your experiences, preserve the memories and emotions you felt, and share your thoughts with others or yourself at a later date. I personally find it incredibly therapeutic, providing an outlet for your inner thoughts and a way to process the many new experiences you’ll encounter on solo trips.
As a travel blogger, I am then able to share my various journeys and experiences to provide insights and tips to an audience, as well as hopefully inspire others to give solo travel a go. The interactive nature of a blog or posting to social media can also help you deal with the sometimes lonely aspect of solo travel, since it gives you the opportunity to reply to comments and feedback from readers or followers that can become a supportive virtual community of like-minded individuals.
Documenting your travels turns solo adventures into creative projects, offering a sense of purpose and achievement. By capturing your experiences through words and images, you create a tangible record of your journey that allows you and others to relive your past travels.
Go Sightseeing
Another excellent way to stay entertained when traveling alone is to push yourself to do as much sightseeing as possible. Getting out and exploring new destinations allows you to interact with your surroundings, stimulates your curiosity, and engages all your senses.
Whether it’s iconic major city landmarks or little-known hidden small-town gems, it really doesn’t matter. What matters is that you get out and explore the things that truly interest you and at the same time encourage yourself to step outside your comfort zone to broaden your horizons with places and activities you normally wouldn’t think to go see or do back home.
Exploring historical sites, such as ancient ruins, castles, and monuments, can offer a fascinating glimpse into the past and the stories that shaped a destination, while local museums can offer insight to even more history along with the culture of a destination.
To employ sightseeing as a boredom prevention tactic effectively, plan a mix of activities that cater to your interests and energy levels. Start with a list of attractions you really want to see, but then also leave room for spontaneous exploration.
Visit tourist information centers, use travel apps, and read through travel guidebooks to discover things to do and places to go. Make your sightseeing personal by seeking out landmarks or places that may have ties to your favorite celebrities, movies and TV series, or books.
Make New Friends
A huge part of travel is trying to connect with locals and other fellow travelers. Just because you are choosing to travel solo doesn’t mean you need to become a traveling hermit. Making new friends while traveling is one of the most rewarding ways to stay entertained, especially when you are venturing around the globe alone.
Interacting with new people, especially those from different cultures and backgrounds, provides fresh perspectives, shared experiences, and a sense of connection with the world. It transforms solo travel from a solitary endeavor into a social adventure, where simple conversations can lead to new opportunities or changing your rigid perspectives.
One of the best ways to make friends while traveling alone is by staying in social accommodations such as hostels or guesthouses. If you’d prefer booking private accommodation for personal or safety reasons, you can alternatively look to social apps like Meetup or local Facebook groups that often publicize various events and meetups specifically for travelers looking to connect with locals or fellow travelers who share similar interests or travel goals.
Other ways to get social while traveling solo is to attend a cultural event, join a walking tour, or take part in various workshops like local cooking or art classes. Most major cities offer free guided walking tours that regularly attract good sized groups of people, and they are often organized around a theme such as history tours, art tours, nature tours, foodie tours, pub crawls, etc.
Play Games
Games aren’t just for keeping children entertained, they’re a great way to keep your boredom at bay if you’re traveling alone, and there are a wide range of adult friendly games, depending on whether you want something to do while you’re brain dead at the end of the day, or something to keep your mind active.
You can use mobile games like Minesweeper or travel with oldschool books of crossword puzzels. This is something you can also sit with if you’re only just starting to get comfortable eating alone, ie taking games with you to a restaurant if you need to stay occupied, or in times of transit where you’re stuck in a seat.
Do Side Hustles to Earn Money
There are also many financial side hustles for travelers looking to not only keep themselves entertained, but also earn some cash in the process. Being able to earn money while traveling, whether it’s being a digital nomad or seeking out odd local jobs, will allow you to extend your travel budget which in turns means you can travel for a longer period of time.
Many travelers find that freelance work is a good option as it allows you to work whenever you want while traveling as opposed to being locked into a committed work schedule which would likely greatly impact your travel plans. Platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer offer a wide range of opportunities that can be done remotely while traveling.
Other side hustle options include teaching or tutoring various subjects whether its language learning or helping others learn a new hobby or talent.
Even travel blogging or creating a following on social media who follow your travel experiences can also turn into a lucrative side hustle. You can monetize websites with content advertising, affiliate marketing, or selling products like your travel photos or travel guides.
Finally, you can seek out part-time or seasonal work wherever you travel. Hospitality jobs are readily available such as working the front desk of a hotel, restaurant and bar staff, or cleaning jobs. Keep in mind that when traveling internationally, you will need to ensure your visa allows you the ability to legally work and if there are any specific restrictions or requirements in place.
Volunteer Your Time
What better way to fill travel downtime or boredom than to give back to the places you visit. Seeking out volunteer work transforms your travel experience from mere sightseeing to active participation, offering a deeper connection with the places you visit.
The really are so many different volunteer options available these days, which means you can always find something that will feel less like work and more like something you would actually pay to experience. You don’t want to feel like you are greatly sacrificing your travel time to volunteer when there are options that will allow you to do things you actually enjoy doing during your travels.
Volunteering should accentuate your travel enjoyment, not be something that takes aways from your travels or leaves you feeling a sense of regret. Therefore, don’t be afraid to be selective in choosing ways to help that align with your interests or abilities.
Environmental volunteerism may include cleaning up beaches or planting trees. Examples of humanitarian and community-focused volunteering include cooking and serving meals to those in need or helping to build simple housing and infrastructure for communities.
To find the best volunteer opportunities, check out platforms like Workaway, WWOOF, and Volunteer World which will outline the various opportunities that are available according to your chosen destinations, travel plans, and skills or interests.
Take Time to Read
Reading has that magically ability to transport you to another world whenever you wish and no matter what setting you may find yourself physically in. This makes reading perfect for preventing boredom while on flights, trains, buses, or waiting for hotel check-ins.
Reading also forces you to slow down and simply take in the atmosphere of a place. Whether you choose to read in a local café or at a local park, you can literally stop to smell the roses, feel the sun or breeze on your face, and take in the sounds around you.
There are of course endless things to read while traveling. You can select fiction as an escape or may want to go with a travel guide to learn about the local culture, cuisine, history, or notable people of the places you visit.
And it doesn’t have to be a novel or involved book, rather you can simply choose to read magazines you pick up at an airport lounge, travel brochures from visitor centers, or short blog articles and news stories you find online. The point is that reading will almost always provide you with either added knowledge or the ability to momentarily escape to a more entertaining world.
If you aren’t keen on reading or find that reading is difficult to do while traveling, then maybe consider audiobooks or podcasts which can also offer up useful knowledge or a temporary escape from the real world.
Connect with Nature
Whether its strolling through a beautiful botanical garden or hitting the beach, embracing nature and participating in nature-based activities will almost always leave you feeling positive and refreshed.
Taking the time to step into nature and enjoy a digital detox without the distraction of screens and social media alerts going off on your phone allows you to be present and pay greater attention to the sights, sounds, and smells of the natural world which many of us have become detached from.
Connecting with nature most often helps to clear the mind, reduce stress, and provide a wide range of health benefits both in terms of physical and mental health. Whether it’s paddleboarding along the coast, trekking through a national park, or simply visiting a city garden, nature is never far away. It’s simply a matter of seeking it out.
You would be surprised at just how much wildlife is around as well, even in the middle of busy cities. You can often find a wide range of animals living in local parks, reserves, and gardens which can offer you a chance to connect with animals if you struggle to connect with people when traveling solo.
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