<p>I like hiking the national parks which is best done with someone else for safety’s sake. You just don’t want to have an accident and have no one there to help when you’re in the wilds. </p>
<p>However, in other situations I do travel alone and enjoy it for the most part. It is nice to be able to do whatever you want and not have to accommodate anyone else. Traveling with people who constantly have to eat, or look for a restroom or who want to shop or who get up late etc. etc. are trying to travel with.</p>
<p>The best travel is with like-minded people if you can find them.</p>
<p>I’ve traveled to Scandinavia and Italy by myself. Traveling alone is a unique experience. I just love the ability to act impulsively, choosing where to go, what to eat, what to see without consulting someone else. Even when H and I travel together, we take periodic day long breaks from one another to do a little exploring on our own.</p>
<p>I’m going to Brazil alone immediately after my HS graduation, so this summer. I’ve spent the past 4 years teaching myself Portuguese to fluency. I’ve completely immersed myself in Brazilian culture, and I’ve fallen in love with it. Since I put so much time and effort into this, I am going alone. My parents want to come too, but they understand that for me, this trip is a pilgrimage to Mecca. It’s the culmination of my obsession for the past 4 years. While there, I will visit 5 different friends in 4 different cities, and I will be there for nearly three months. Everybody always says I should wait two years and go during the World Cup, and while that would be amazing, I don’t want to go at a time when the entire world’s attention is on Brazil and the streets are flooded with tourists. I want to go and experience the real Brazil, and for that, I need to go alone.</p>
<p>I travel alone all the time for work and love to squeeze in an extra day to see a city on my terms. I have lots of energy and would rather eat an energy bar on the go, rather than sit down for lunch and miss an hour of sightseeing when I have limited time. Unfortunately my family does not share this style of travel, so we need to compromise. </p>
<p>I have taken 2 beach vacations to Ft Myers Beach FL on my own before. It was wonderful! The second time I mentioned the trip to a friend the week before and she got some cheap airfare and we split the condo & car rental, but agreed with each other that we were just going to ‘chill’ and sit around the pool or walk on the beach. (I will probably go again this spring, as we don’t have a warm weather family vacation planned)</p>
<p>saman - enjoy. Brazil is crowded enough on a daily basis, the World Cup will just be plain crazy! Please watch yourself, Rio & SP have become less safe for tourists & business people in recent years. I was in SP in June and we had a car take us everywhere. In the small cities, I had no concerns.</p>
<p>Re post #19–refreshed after some time of just being me…
Traveling alone gives you a real sense of identity. You have to make decisions in a strange environment, entertain yourself (you’ve only yourself to blame if you don’t have a good time), put yourself out to strangers a lot of the time.<br>
(I still like to share experiences however!)</p>
<p>I am an extrovert but I still enjoy traveling alone. I can always find something to do and have no problem eating in restaurants alone. Flying alone is great.</p>
<p>When travel is business related, I prefer to travel by myself. I like to explore my desitnation on my own and not be forced into drinks/dinner/conversation with people I work with.</p>
<p>For pleasure, I want to share experiences with my wife. We ride 15k miles a year on our motorcycle. I love having a person two feet behind me to whom I can say, “wow! look at that!”.</p>
<p>I pretty much always travel alone, from one-day or weekend getaways to week-long vacations! I think it’s absolutely wonderful! With the exception of a person I really connected with, I would pretty much travel alone over traveling with anyone else. Also, I do find that it’s a great way to overcome the awkwardness that is unfortunately inherent in our society associated with doing things alone (meals, etc.)</p>
<p>For me it depends on who I’m traveling with. </p>
<p>If the person is reasonably adept and efficient about traveling and is interested in at least some of the same things and activities that I am, then I prefer to have company. I like to have someone to read the map while I’m driving in strange places, or someone to whom to say “Oh, look!” at the sight of some foreign marvel.</p>
<p>But if the person is a whiner who is overly-annoyed by the attendant hassles of travel, or is the “Ugly American” type who is put out because the locals don’t speak English, or the food is funny, or s/he is missing some insipid TV reality shows back home, then I’d much prefer to travel alone.</p>
<p>Yes, I think many people prefer to be with other people; some people, however, seem to feel embarrassed to be alone, while others absolutely fear being alone.</p>
<p>I don’t like traveling on my own. Makes me nervous for some reason. Maybe because I haven’t done a lot of it. The thing I do prefer to do on my own is shopping. I never seem to get much done when I have company but can really “power shop” when I’m on my own.</p>