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Ah, the Freedom! Some people prefer and genuinely enjoy traveling alone. I’m not one of them, but I do it anyway. If I traveled only when a suitable companion was available, I’d seldom get to go anywhere. Going somewhere interesting alone is almost always better than staying home alone, but I don’t see what’s so wonderful about it beyond that. The one possible advantage I’ve found to traveling alone is that it lets me focus on photography. If I need to take half an hour getting the composition right or waiting for the sun to emerge from behind a cloud bank, I can do that without concern for whether a non-photographer travel companion is bored or impatient. But that advantage disappears when the sun goes down, at mealtimes, and during those infuriating waits in airport queues or on clotted freeways. Those who rhapsodize about solo travel emphasize the freedom and the opportunities to meet new people, benefits that supposedly aren’t available when burdened with a travel companion. I’ve certainly experienced ample freedom, which I consider a simultaneous boon and bane. But I’ve found rather little of the touted opportunities to meet and connect with new people. While some of that may have to do with not making a special effort to mingle, it also seems I have two strikes against me: I’m a man, and I’ve done almost all my solo travel in the United States. I very rarely see any unattached travelers of either gender during my travels in the United States. And I usually haven’t found the couples, families, pairs of friends, and groups I do encounter particularly approachable or interested in talking to me. There have been a few exceptions— mostly non-Americans— to whom I’m appropriately grateful. I suspect that a solo woman might find a warmer reception than a solo man. For Women Only? Over the years I have sought out lectures, classes, books, articles, Web sites, and travel forums about solo travel. The remarkable thing is that the speakers, teachers, authors, Web site owners, and most forum participants are exclusively women. If solo travel is mentioned at all in mainstream guidebooks, it’s almost always under the heading “For Women Traveling Alone.” But if you’re a widower or a divorced senior man, definitely look for adult-education classes on solo travel. There’s probably no better place to meet widows! This gender imbalance may reflect reality, at least in the United States. It seems that rather few American men past “student” age take solo vacations. Many of us men take pride in the unused vacation days we give back to our employers each year. That may be due to “success”-driven ambition, or the fear that employees who use their vacation time are more vulnerable to layoff than those who forfeit it. And we often prefer to spend what time off we do take playing golf, working on cars or “projects,” watching sports, or possibly on weekend camping, fishing, or outdoor adventure trips with buddies. When we do reluctantly tear ourselves away from the office for a vacation, it’s often for a summer family trip instigated by the wife and kids, or a romantic getaway at the insistence of a wife or girlfriend. (I don’t know enough “men who prefer other men” to have an idea of whether their attitude toward vacation travel is any different.) Yes, that is most definitely a sweeping over-generalization, to which there clearly are many exceptions. And some “successful” women compete very favorably as workaholics. But it’s consistent with what I’ve seen and experienced in my own workplace, on Web travel forums where women discuss plans for solo trips or seek female travel companions because “the DH [Dear Husband] doesn’t want to go,” and even in my own family. Without my mother’s continued “insistence,” my father would have never even considered the trips to Europe we made in the 1970s. Companies that offer tours and cruises for solo and single travelers consistently note that their customers are overwhelmingly female. Shouldn’t that provide a compelling reason for single men to take some time away from the office? The Web site for one those companies speculates that women enjoy the “social aspects” of their tours while men prefer “independence.” The recent proliferation of women-only travel services lends some validity to that theory, but I suspect the real reason is that many more women than men enjoy travel. Men may occasionally write books and publish journals about solo trips. Two of my favorites on the Web are Philip Greenspun’s Travels With Samantha and Del Leu’s diary of his travels in New Zealand, Australia, and the United States. I actually suspect that plenty of men do travel solo, but they just don’t feel a need to talk or write about it. Conversely, women who regularly travel solo are often effusively enthusiastic about solo travel itself. They’re evangelists who promote it as the best way to go, even for those who have a choice of companions. Also, enough women apparently need help overcoming fear and apprehension about taking a solo trip to create a viable market for books and articles. Men never have those problems. Join the Foreign Legion? Solo travel devotées often insist that only foreign travel is “exciting” enough to make an enjoyable solo trip. The language and culture barriers in foreign countries are also supposedly necessary to encourage and facilitate interaction with new people. To my nose that smells of rubbish heavily laced with snobbery. The United States is large and diverse enough to provide ample excitement and adventure for anyone. But there may be valid reasons to prefer foreign destinations. Solo leisure travel carries a stigma in the United States. Some of that stigma is admittedly in solo travelers’ own minds, but that doesn’t make it any less real. Americans have been brainwashed to believe that leisure travel is exclusively for couples, families, and (when there’s no other option) friends vacationing together. That’s the dogma incessantly preached by a vacation industry that sells its products only in “double occupancy” and “family plan” sizes. They don’t merely ignore solo travelers, but actively discourage them with hefty extra charges for single occupancy. The official term for that extra charge is supplement, as if it were some kind of healthy vitamin pill. Some tour operators charge a fair and reasonable “supplement,” perhaps no more than about 25%. But the single-occupancy surcharge for other packaged travel, particularly cruises, is so exorbitant that the only accurately descriptive term for it is penalty. People in the travel industry take offense at that word. They invariably insist that “the supplement is not a penalty, but a necessary and unavoidable consequence of economics.” This implies that double occupancy is an inviolable law of nature, like gravity or the speed of light, that can neither be changed nor questioned. But the “economic reality” is more like this: Filling hotel rooms and ship cabins with as many people as possible is the most efficient and profitable way to do business. So we market to couples, families, and groups; and we price our products “per person, double occupancy” with discounts for additional people who share the room or cabin. If you want to take advantage of the bargains we can offer from doing business that way, invite a friend. If you don’t have any friends, we might be able to do you a favor and assign you a roommate. But if you insist on your own room, you’re really asking for a special exception to the way we do business. That costs us extra and causes us a lot of inconvenience. So we think it’s appropriate and fair to charge you a large nonconformance penalty for that privilege. We call that a “supplement” rather than a “penalty” because if you’re a solo traveler willing to pay a steeply inflated price, we’re certainly willing to take your money. That’s all fine, but I have real trouble believing that it’s impossible for a travel operator to run a successful business that doesn’t penalize solo travelers. Solo travelers can avoid the penalty by forgoing packaged travel, and instead shopping carefully for their own arrangements. The most common justification tour operators give for the “supplement” is that hotels charge them the same rate for one person in a room as for two. So they have to pass along the extra cost. While that’s unfortunately true in most places, you can get around it. Tour operators negotiate volume contracts with large hotels that can provide blocks of cookie-cutter double-occupancy rooms for tour groups. You can often find comparable (or better) accommodations for a lower price at smaller hotels. You might also get a better location and more local character that way. It’s not as easy to get around the stigma. According to a report the Travel Industry Association of America released in April 2007, 11% of leisure travelers in the United States take solo vacations. While that surely adds up to millions of people, it’s still a rather small minority. So solo travelers continue to be perceived and treated as dodgy aberrations. Or, most commonly, they’re simply ignored. The Web site of a well-known hotel touts “the perfect vacation for everyone,” with links to detailed pages for “Families,” “Couples,” “Honeymoons and Anniversaries,” “Family Reunions,” and “Seniors.” If the hotel is supposed to be “the perfect vacation for everyone,” why is there no mention at all of “Singles” or “Solo Travelers”? Is it a simple oversight by marketeers who just aren’t aware of how many of their potential customers take solo vacations (and almost always pay the same for their room as a couple)? Or do they really not want single people to spoil the atmosphere for the wholesome families and romantic couples? Either way, I’m left to wonder whether I’d be welcome there. I would take my business elsewhere, except I won’t find mention of “Solo Travelers” on any of their competitors’ Web sites either. It’s a small but very typical example of the way the American travel industry stigmatizes solo leisure travelers. And it’s replicated thousands of times in brochures, advertisements, and Web sites. The stigma may also be a side effect of long working hours and extremely limited vacation time available to American workers. That creates the understandable desire to make those two weeks— or too often much less— “highly effective,” with a packaged tour or cruise that packs the most into the limited time (and that penalizes solo travelers). Conversely, Europeans or Australians enjoy substantial vacation time as a fundamental right. They may thus feel free to explore whatever unstructured or “inefficient” forms of travel suit them, including extended solo trips. Their cultures are also not dominated by the fear that has become the all-pervasive characteristic of American society. So the solo traveler could possibly feel more welcome and have a better experience there. I did notice (and appreciate) during my trips to Alberta and Québec that Canadians seemed noticeably friendlier than Americans. And I have had a few interesting conversations with Australians who were spending a month or more on solo explorations of North America. Are they really friendlier by nature, or could the culture barrier perhaps have been just enough to facilitate interaction, eh? Solo, Single, or Something Else? One essential fact tends to get ignored in most discussion of solo travel: It need not be an all-or-nothing proposition. For many solo travel enthusiasts, meeting new people is at least as important a part of travel as exploring new places. Some of them advocate a money-saving strategy of seeking out temporary travel companions to share the costs of transportation and accommodations at each destination. This may be most feasible outside the United States, where the “infrastructure” of trains and coaches, ferries, and bed-and-breakfasts provides more and better opportunities for getting to know other travelers than the more isolating airplanes, cars, and motels Americans prefer. When I’ve been able to take trips with friends, we often book a two-bedroom condo or separate hotel rooms. We also sometimes agree to spend our days apart but meet up again for lunch or dinner. I think this approach really offers the best of both worlds. But for an entire trip, this works well only with someone you know is compatible with your habits and interests. It’s too often difficult or even impossible to find someone who meets those essential criteria, and who is available when (and where) you want to go. And good friends don’t always make good travel companions. That difficulty isn’t confined to single people, as otherwise-happy spouses or partners can have incompatible work schedules and/or travel interests. What if you want to take a tour or a cruise? Making your own arrangements is almost always the most cost-effective approach for solo travel. But sometimes packaged travel really does have compelling advantages. It may be the only practical option for some destinations. And for those who truly are uncomfortable with traveling alone, the shepherding and potential companionship of a tour or cruise may provide a welcome alternative to staying home. A few tour operators do offer reasonably-priced single accommodations, but those offerings are neither plentiful nor easy to find. The ones I’ve seen are in Britain and Europe. They seem to have figured out how to violate the Law of Double Occupancy and still make a profit. That’s possibly because solo travel is more accepted there than in the United States, so they have incentives to find ways to welcome singles as valued customers rather than penalizing them as troublesome nonconformances. Some travel agencies advertise tours and cruises for single and solo travelers. “Single” and “solo” aren’t necessarily synonymous. A single traveler is (usually!) unmarried or unpartnered, and may or may not go with friends to share the cost and the fun. Either way, meeting other single people is an important part of the agenda. Conversely, a solo traveler is an individual of any marital or relationship status who travels alone, by choice or by default. Meeting people on trips may or may not be important to the solo traveler. Some travel operators understand this distinction, while others ignore it. Organizers of singles or solos travel usually buy a block of cabins on a cruise ship or spaces on a tour, which they resell (with the appropriate markup) to their customers. Occasionally they might reserve an entire tour or ship. Sometimes they restrict particular tours or cruises to specific religions, age groups, or interests. What they add to the package varies considerably. They may arrange a full program of special parties, dances, matchmaking, and other activities for their groups throughout the trip. They might even manage the bookings to ensure a gender balance. Or else they might just set up a room for a “get-acquainted mixer” at the start of the trip, after which everyone is on their own to sink or swim (as it were). If you’re single and looking to meet and mingle (or more), a singles tour or cruise can be a fun travel option. If you’re solo and aren’t specifically looking to mingle, it could also be a good choice because you can at least avoid the possible discomfort of being the only singleton on a boat or bus full of couples, families, and (increasingly) groups. You needn’t take the group shore excursions, or attend the speed-dating and karaoke parties, unless you want to. Unfortunately, singles or solos packages provide no exemption from the Inviolable Law of Double Occupancy. If you don’t bring a roommate, the packager will assign you one. If the organizer offers the option of single occupancy, it comes at the usual punitive price. As always, there are some rare exceptions. Whatever you’re looking for, a travel agent who cares about and has experience with solo and single customers can be very helpful. He or she can ferret out the scarce reasonably-priced single-occupancy packages that are available, and recommend destinations where you’re likely to find other single or solo travelers rather than legions of honeymooners or families if that matters to you. But you’ll probably have to work with a distant agent by e-mail and phone. It might be difficult or impossible to find one with this very unusual “niche” specialty in your area. Lost At Sea? Cruise lines are notoriously hostile to solo travelers. They typically charge singles twice the full “brochure rate” (or perhaps a 75% “supplement” if you’re lucky), even though most couples and families receive substantial discounts from that official published price. To keep their ships full, cruise lines frequently make very attractive discounts available through agencies and “consolidators.” But if you call about one of these offers, they’ll often tell you that it’s not available for single-occupancy bookings. Then they’ll quote a “single rate” that’s the full “brochure rate” plus the penalty, which can add up to substantially more than twice the discounted price you called about. That’s because the business model for most cruises relies on packing discounted cabins with couples and families who then spend lavishly on the shore excursions, drinks, photographs, gambling, shopping, spa treatments, and numerous other overpriced extras that generate the actual profits. A cabin occupied by only one person thus represents very significant lost productivity. The industry term for that is spoilage, which might explain why “soloists” are often treated like sour milk, broken jars, shoplifted candy, or rotten eggs. Cruise lines must then charge single passengers a penalty sufficient to indemnify their shareholders for all the revenue and profit their missing cabin-mates could have produced. There are occasional exceptions, and it’s sometimes possible to find a cruise that’s reasonably-priced even with the penalty. Look for a special discount offer that is available for single-occupancy booking, a cruise in a competitive market with a dirt-cheap “brochure rate” that’s still reasonable even when doubled, or perhaps an off-season cruise for which the operator is willing to reduce— or, rarely, even eliminate— the penalty to fill empty cabins. But some cruise lines apparently would rather have an empty cabin than allow a single person to (partially) fill it without paying the full penalty. Since that doesn’t make business sense, I have to conclude that they really don’t want individual solo travelers as customers. (They presumably want them to sign up with a singles cruise organizer who pairs up strangers to maximize cabin utilization and provides a “party atmosphere” that encourages spending.) Even so, bargains do exist. But finding them will definitely require some work. Luxury cruise lines tend to charge singles much lower “supplement” percentages than the mass-market lines; they also make more of their promotional discounts available to singles. Their higher fares and “discerning” clientele mean they rely much less on the relentless hard sell of overpriced extras for their profits. They also want to retain loyal widowed customers who had enjoyed cruising with their late husbands. The cost of single occupancy on a luxury line with a promotional discount can be similar to that of a mass-market cruise with the usual penalty. You might not save money, but you could get something better (and dressier) for the same price. A mass-market cruise on a large ship may not be a good choice for a solo vacation. Cruise lines aggressively market them to families, extended families, and groups. They just as aggressively discourage singles by charging them a full 200% “supplement,” plus two of the sneaky new per-person “non-commissionable fees” that let them advertise a deceptively low price while cheating travel agents out of a chunk of their commission. So the manifest is unlikely to contain many other “soloists.” Locating those few (if any) single needles in a haystack of 3,000 or more passengers may be very difficult, and the staff will likely be too preoccupied with crowd control— and too unfamiliar with the needs of solo passengers— to offer much help. That’s not to say a “soloist” can’t have a great vacation on a mega-ship, but merely that he or she will have to overcome the built-in obstacles and challenges. An extroverted, ebullient woman who can readily get “adopted” by a family or a group probably has the best chance. A smaller ship may provide a more congenial environment. Again, a travel agent with the right experience can help you find a cruise where you’ll feel welcome and comfortable rather than lost at sea in a crowd of close-knit families and groups. Roommate Roulette and Hobson’s Choice If the single-occupancy penalty for a tour or cruise is more than you’re able or willing to pay, the obvious first choice is to invite a friend, relative, co-worker, or acquaintance. Going with someone you know will likely work out better than taking pot luck with a stranger. The very significant cost saving might be well worth spending a little time identifying any known incompatibilities and agreeing on an amicable strategy for handling them, at least for a week or two. If that’s not an option, investigate “travel companion exchange” forums or “share a trip” ads. These at least provide an opportunity for getting to know a potential companion. A common recommendation is to assess compatibility with a local weekend jaunt before committing to an expensive trip. Like most solo travel resources, these may be more useful for women than for men. When I checked out some “travel exchange” Web sites, I noticed that the postings purely about travel were from women seeking female companions for specified trips. Men’s postings resembled dating personal ads seeking women (or occasionally men) with specified physical attributes, presumably as companions for something more than travel. Finally there’s the share program, where the tour or cruise operator lets singles avoid the single-occupancy penalty by assigning them same-gender roommates. The entire packaged travel industry seems to have decided on this as the only concession they’ll allow for singles, as it conveniently pounds the square peg of the solo traveler into the round hole of double occupancy. The companies that offer it represent themselves as “single-friendly,” and probably deserve partial credit for at least trying to meet the needs of solo travelers. But a share program is really nothing more than a Hobson’s choice of penalties: Either share accommodations with an unknown stranger or pay a large, possibly prohibitive “supplement.” I consider this roommate roulette game an insult that only affirms the pariah status of solo travelers. Sharing accommodations with an assigned stranger is otherwise associated with boarding schools, university residence halls, hospitals, mental institutions, nursing homes, and prisons— places where the immature, the infirm, the insane, or criminals do not enjoy the full rights of citizens and are treated as something less than fully-qualified members of society. For many people, the inevitable annoyances, conflicts, and stress that go with sharing often cramped accommodations with a total stranger can seriously mar the enjoyment of a vacation. That seems entirely incompatible with the oft-touted concept of a vacation as a relaxing escape from daily stresses. On the one cruise I’ve taken so far, my cabin truly was closet-sized. It was adequate for one person, and a romantic couple might not mind the “coziness.” With a good friend it might be uncomfortable, but sharing such close quarters with a total stranger would seem more appropriate for incarceration than a vacation. For that matter, filling a room or cabin with four people would be more efficient and profitable than with two. Travel company executives might privately dream about the “economics” of a “quad-occupancy” standard; but they know couples would never accept sharing accommodations with strangers. Why should singles be any different? That said, some people do win at roommate roulette. The odds of winning are surely better for those cheerful easygoing souls who can happily get along with anyone. The game may even be desirable for those fortunate few who see a share arrangement not as a risk or source of stress, but as a delightful opportunity to make a new friend. Assigned roommates sometimes do become good friends and subsequent travel companions. Even those who don’t win may nonetheless find that being able to take an African safari or Antarctic cruise without that outrageous penalty is worth any roommate difficulties. Economics, Inertia, and Necessity Travel operators increasingly are abandoning share programs. It seems that instead of the expected outpouring of appreciation from grateful participants, they’ve been getting too many complaints (and possibly lawsuits) about roommate problems spoiling vacations. The executives may have been surprised about this, but I’m not. Did they really expect that customers would not complain if sharing cramped quarters with a total stranger hampered the enjoyment of their trip, for which they paid good money? The discontinuation of share programs has left some solo travelers frustrated. Despite the inherent problems, an assigned roommate provides the only way they can afford the tours and cruises they enjoy. Organizers of single and solo travel are increasingly filling this void. It’s an advantageous situation for the tour and cruise operators. They’re happy to sell blocks of seats or cabins at discount prices to third-party agencies, who then take on all the hassles and possible legal liability of pairing up strangers, along with the costs of marketing to individual customers. The number of “singles and solos” tours and cruises is small compared to the industry’s entire range of offerings, but it’s growing. Still, solo travelers who want the benefits of packaged travel surely deserve better than a choice between paying a possibly unaffordable “supplement” or gambling on an unknown roommate. According to the Census Bureau, over 27 million Americans live alone, accounting for 26% of all the households in America. That’s more than the 22% of households that are “traditional” nuclear families with children, and also more than the 21% of households that are married couples without children. Executives who ignore or actively discourage such a substantial group of potential customers surely can’t be serving their shareholders’ best interests. I strongly suspect that if any of them really wanted to profit from this market, they could use their negotiating clout to start changing the supposedly sacrosanct “economics” that “require” them to penalize solo travelers. The “economics” are an entirely artificial creation of the travel industry, perhaps reflecting decades-old demographics. They can change to reflect today’s demographics. Large numbers of people live alone. And those who can best afford packaged vacations often have “successful” careers that make coordinating vacation schedules with spouses, partners, or friends difficult if not impossible. I think it’s a matter of somehow convincing even one influential executive that millions of people would eagerly spend good money on their products— if they’d only offer those products at reasonable prices that don’t require bunking with a stranger. It would certainly help if single people stopped resignedly accepting inferior treatment and actively let the executives of travel companies know what they want. But I’ll admit that will be an uphill battle. If the travel operators continue to fill their cabins and motorcoaches with satisfied customers who travel in pairs, families, and groups, what incentive do they have to change a successful practice firmly embedded in the very foundation of their industry? Rather than trying to move mountains, solo travelers would do better to reserve packaged travel for when they can find either a compatible companion or a rare single-occupancy bargain. In the meantime, they can plan and enjoy their own independent adventures. I remain skeptical of the claims various (female) writers make about the desirability, superiority, and even spiritual advantages of traveling alone. Some day— perhaps during a solo trip?— I might experience an epiphany and finally understand what’s so great. Until then I can only regard traveling alone as a practical necessity: I can’t let the lack of a travel companion force me to stay home! But I am grateful to those ladies for all their efforts to legitimize solo travel. By specifically encouraging women to venture forth boldly by themselves, they may speed the development a critical mass of solo travelers sufficient to overcome the lingering stigma and make solo travel better for everyone. Maybe that will ultimately persuade travel industry executives that their shareholders will indeed prosper from extending a genuinely warm welcome to their valuable single customers. The Solo Traveler’s Manifesto (well, sort of) This isn’t really a “manifesto,” but let me leave you with a few thoughts and suggestions.
(See About Freaky Weather and Travelling Alone for more about solo travel.) |