The Solo Traveller
Your independence, passion, and lifelong memories.
Your world. Your way.
Photographer Yakobchuk Olena
Just landed …
Departures
Your Thai Guide specialises in private, fully customisable tours led by licensed local guides in Bangkok and across Thailand. Designed with solo travellers in mind, their experiences balance cultural highlights with neighbourhood-level insight, offering freedom, context, and genuine connection without the crowds.
Published 6 January 2026
Tools and Tech
eSIMs are changing the way solo travellers stay connected. This practical, plain-English guide explains what eSIMs are, how they work, and why they’re worth considering. Written for non-techy travellers, it offers clear advice, honest limitations, and simple steps to help you decide if an eSIM is right for your next journey.
Published 4 January 2026
Tools and Tech
Travel apps don’t just help us navigate unfamiliar ground – increasingly, they reveal how travel itself is changing. When millions of journeys are tracked anonymously and collectively, patterns emerge that go beyond individual itineraries, offering a snapshot of how, where, and why we’re moving through the world.
Published 4 January 2026
Destinations
Bruny Island has long been framed as an easy day trip from Tasmania’s capital Hobart, but this unique Tasmanian island rewards travellers who stay the night, move at their own pace, and settle in as the island reveals the extent of its countless wonders.
Published 25 December 2025
Food and Wine
Behind the rankings and awards lies a simple idea: that food remains the most human way to understand a place. For solo travellers seeking connection without crowds, Secret Food Tours’ landmark year highlights why neighbourhood-led food experiences continue to resonate.
Published 25 December 2025
Learning and Creativity
Author, travel memoirist, and writing teacher Jillian Schedneck reflects on the craft of travel memoir – from shaping lived experience into narrative, to balancing scene and meaning, and why solo travel so often provides the raw material for lasting, transformative stories.
Published 14 December 2025
Cultural Immersion
In the second of a two-part conversation with Geoffrey Williams, Dr Peter Hohenhaus shares his insights into personal and psychological safety and wellbeing, balancing introspection and respect for local narratives, and the future for dark tourism destinations. Content warning: this feature contains words and images that may be sensitive, distressing, or confronting to some readers.
Published 8 December 2025
Cultural Immersion
Dr Peter Hohenhaus has spent nearly two decades at the forefront of dark tourism, documenting the places where history’s shadow falls heaviest. In the first of a two-part conversation with Geoffrey Williams, Peter explores his motivations, his most affecting encounters, and the role dark tourism can play in remembrance and understanding. Content warning: this feature contains words and images that may be confronting to some readers.
Published 6 December 2025
Departures
The Wishlist
Field Notes
Our most popular features this week …
News and Updates
Based on the total number of page views from 26 December 2025–2 January 2026
Field Notes
‘Field Notes’ is where curiosity meets practicality. Our curated solo traveller destination snapshots, ‘solo smart’ tips, insights, treasures, and listicles are distilled, direct, and ready when you are.
Our latest Field Notes …
What’s your passion?
Slow travel
Ecotravel
News and updates
Links to official travel advice and updates
Australia
United States of America
United Kingdom
Canada
New Zealand
Europe
Confidence and Safety
Solo smart, aware, and in control. Insightful stories and thoughtful strategies for travelling solo boldly, wisely, and well.
How do we navigate consent and sexual health when travelling alone in unfamiliar cultures? This piece explores the importance of communication, boundaries, and self-trust to help solo travellers stay safe and respectful.
By Geoffrey Williams | 7 January 2026
The first 24 hours in an unfamiliar city is always invigorating. From airport halls to the first steps outside, our senses sharpen as we navigate new light, air, smells, and rhythm. We invited members of our international community of solo travellers to share their insights into managing the sensory overload that is ‘Arrival’.
By Michael Webster | December 2025
Eating alone on the road is one of those defining solo traveller moments. We explore how solo travellers can reclaim the experience with confidence, curiosity, and a little help from experienced solo travellers who’ve discovered ways to match the challenge of dining alone.
By Geoffrey Williams | December 2025
Inspirations
Solo traveller reflections from the road that stir the soul. Honest and insightful solo traveller stories to inspire your next adventure.
When Jillian Schedneck takes up a position teaching English to a classroom of students in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, she is young, idealistic, in love, and ready to take on the world. But it is not exactly what she anticipated …
Travelling with purpose takes solo travel to a new level. Volunteering abroad lets you connect, contribute and find meaning beyond the itinerary – one community, one conversation, and one shared moment at a time.
In this exclusive extract from Women Travel Solo (Lonely Planet, 2025 – 30 true stories by women who dared to go it alone), Rebecca Hall boards a container ship bound for Hong Kong, discovering kinship, courage, and karaoke on the high seas.
By Jillian Schedneck | October 2025
By Emily Clarke | October 2025
By Rebecca Hall | October 2025
Departures
Meet the people behind the scenes – tour operators, guides, and local experts – who have walked the path you may be considering exploring. Insightful, unpolished, and always independent. Think of it as a window seat into someone else’s world.
Your Thai Guide specialises in private, fully customisable tours led by licensed local guides in Bangkok and across Thailand. Designed with solo travellers in mind, their experiences balance cultural highlights with neighbourhood-level insight, offering freedom, context, and genuine connection without the crowds.
By Tiffany West | 6 January 2026
For solo travellers today, Gold & Relics Gold Prospecting Adventures offer a slower and more intimate way to engage with place – part treasure hunt and part meditation – where the real reward is often the experience itself, not just what may eventually glint in your pan.
Q&A | December 2025
Girls’ Guide to the World (GG2W) has announced its most extensive annual program in its 16-year history. For solo travellers, the collection highlights a broad range of destinations and travel styles while maintaining GG2W’s signature format – women-only groups, small numbers, and individual rooms with no single supplements.
Q&A | December 2025
Destinations
Where to next? Discover places that move you, challenge you, and change you, one solo step at a time.
Bruny Island has long been framed as an easy day trip from Tasmania’s capital Hobart, but this unique Tasmanian island rewards travellers who stay the night, move at their own pace, and settle in as the island reveals the extent of its countless wonders.
Step beyond Seoul’s skyline into Seongju’s quieter world, where sacred mountains meet candlelit concerts, and melon fields shimmer beneath sacred sites, and Korea’s spirit hums softly through forest trails and temple courtyards.
Over 14 days, the ‘Sikkim, Darjeeling and Kalimpong with Garry Weare and Nawang Tsering’ journey reveals the rich heritage of West Bengal and Sikkim, from the tea-cloaked slopes of Darjeeling to the tranquil monasteries of Gangtok and Kalimpong.
By Tiffany West | December 2025
By Josh Chandler | November 2025
By Tiffany West | October 2025
Perspectives
Solo travellers experience the world differently when we move through it alone. Perspectives gathers thoughtful observations from solo travellers, shaped by what the road reveals when there is no one else to filter it.
As Bangkok reaches record visitor numbers and overtourism reshapes the city, what can solo travellers do to experience it more meaningfully? Natt Opasanon, Founder of Your Thai Guide, offers practical ways to engage with a more authentic Bangkok in 2026.
By Tiffany West | 5 January 2026
Somewhere along the way, the travel industry convinced itself that solo travellers needed reassurance – or worse, travelling companions we didn’t choose.
By Thomas Osborne | December 2025
With tourism surging, solo travellers face exorbitant prices, and crowded streets and landmarks. Smart planning and a few insider strategies can help us experience destinations fully, without getting swallowed up by the crowds.
By Emily Clarke | October 2025
Tools and Tech
From planning and navigation to safety, connection, and decision-making, solo travel asks more of us. Technology now shapes almost every stage of the journey, but not every tool earns its place. Here, we look at the apps, platforms, and technologies that genuinely support independent travellers in practical and meaningful ways.
eSIMs are changing the way solo travellers stay connected. This practical, plain-English guide explains what eSIMs are, how they work, and why they’re worth considering. Written for non-techy travellers, it offers clear advice, honest limitations, and simple steps to help you decide if an eSIM is right for your next journey.
By Geoffrey Williams and Josh Chandler | January 2026
Travel apps don’t just help us navigate unfamiliar ground – increasingly, they reveal how travel itself is changing. When millions of journeys are tracked anonymously and collectively, patterns emerge that go beyond individual itineraries, offering a snapshot of how, where, and why we’re moving through the world.
By Josh Chandler | January 2026
Transitions
‘Transitions’ is where the ‘business’ of solo travel meets the soul of our journeys. Whether you’re adjusting to time zones, navigating gate lounges, hotel rooms and transit options between meetings, presentations, gigs, or seeking meaning in the margins of a packed itinerary, this space is for you.
Friska Wirya is a self-described “borderless multihyphenate” – a person with multiple skills and professions, and whose work intentionally blurs the lines between different fields and disciplines. Modern, non-traditional, innovative, and entirely transformational.
Q&A | October 2025
For British-born, Kathmandu-based Naresh Dahal, travel is his business and his passion. “I often find myself travelling solo, exploring trails, ancient monasteries, and rivers, and even though I am a luxury travel operator, for me, travel is deeply personal, a way to feel present in each moment.”
Q&A | October 2025
Morris Misel is passionate about the idea that everyone deserves the chance to see a future and move toward it. “That comes from my own family’s refugee past, which taught me early that what really matters is being able to picture tomorrow, even when the present feels impossible.”
Q&A | September 2025
Waypoint. Your journey. Your choice.
Every journey needs a moment to pause.
Waypoint is that place – a quiet corner of connection, curiosity, reflection, and discovery.
Our monthly solo traveller dispatch includes insider offers, thoughtful travel finds, and stories that move, crafted especially for those who travel independently and love the world deeply.
Meet your Fellow Travellers …
Michael’s first solo trip occurred while he was attending college at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. Even though he had always heard good things about the college experience at the University of Mississippi, he had never travelled to the American Deep South of Mississippi before. “It was an incredible trip, as even though I had lived my whole life in the United States, I had lived in the northern part.”
Published 24 December 2025
Some solo travellers ease into independence slowly, but for UK-born Jodi, it was a one-way ticket, a backpack, and a hunch that freedom would teach her what she needed to know that set her off on what would become a lifelong journey of discovery.
Published 2 December 2025
The Big Picture
'The Big Picture' is your global window to solo travel – an interactive map linking every destination featured on The Solo Traveller – from remote islands to bustling cities and everything in between.
Zoom in, zoom out, scroll around, and follow your curiosity across oceans and continents.
Because wherever you are in the world, adventure may be just a little red pin away!
The Wishlist
Some places live in our imagination long before we ever get there – and for many of us, that’s exactly where they’ll stay. ‘The Wishlist’ is for those dream-worthy destinations where indulgence knows no limits … with coordinates so exclusive that even your GPS gives up! Impossible? Maybe. Irresistible? Always. It’s pure escapism – and we’re entirely here for it!
Go!
… where our influence quite possibly meets your next adventure! The team at The Solo Traveller strives to inspire, empower, and support you as you explore your world, your way. We are proud to introduce you to these selected adventures from our trusted friends – curated especially for the solo traveller who’s ready to move from inspiration to action.
West Africa
Kosciuszko Explorer
Samoa
Plus one …
Solo travel doesn’t always mean going it alone. We travel solo because we love the freedom, but sometimes the occasion calls for company. A friend joins for a few days or a group plan feels right. ‘Plus one …’ is all about saying ‘Yes’ when it suits you and celebrating your independence while enjoying the shared rhythm of the road.
There is a particular kind of companionship that only exists on the road. It is light by design, unburdened by expectation, and complete within its own meaningful window. You meet, you share, you part … and that can be enough.
By Emily Clarke | December 2025
When we travel solo, something shifts. We become more open, more curious, and more alive to the moment. And in that space, magic can happen – strangers become soulmates, moments become memories, and fleeting conversations can shape entire chapters of our lives.
By Geoffrey Williams | December 2025
cause …
Here at The Solo Traveller, we believe travel isn’t just about the places we go, it’s also about the values we carry with us. Whether it’s a grassroots initiative, an animal welfare organisation, or a community-owned program that empowers local communities in sustainability, resilience, education, and the environment, these are the projects that our global network of solo travellers have introduced us to – projects and initiatives that would love your support. Please consider helping them out in whatever ways you can.
Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders)
Dr Peter Hohenhaus donates to Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders), who provide crucial aid in many dark corners of the world that need help and, who knows, these places may one day even become dark-tourism destinations. You can find out more about Médecins Sans Frontières here, and Dr Peter Hohenhaus here.
Animals Australia
Postcards
In the digital age of instant everything, the humble postcard still holds its own. These photographs are our little love notes to our world, and the wonder of our solo traveller adventures. Simply click on the postcard to find out where it is from.
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Launching June 2026 …
‘The Gate Lounge’ is a premium, print on demand magazine published by The Solo Traveller Group, the creators of The Solo Traveller, published twice a year in harmony with the northern and southern travel seasons.
Wherever you are heading on your next solo traveller adventure, our aim is to have you ready for boarding – empowered, inspired and supported.
Welcome to The Gate Lounge!
We are now booking a limited number of premium placement full page advertisements, so to enquire about our suite of commercial partnership opportunities, please email Geoffrey at The Solo Traveller Group.
Please note: This cover design is concept art for illustrative purposes only. Cover image, lead content and final design are subject to change closer to publication.
