THE SOLO TRAVELLER
Your world. Your way.
Perspectives
Villa Monastero, a 12th-century Cistercian monastery located in Varenna on the eastern shores of Lake Como, Italy. Photographer: Travel Faery | iStock.
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Briefly …
Gerlando Fabio Sorrentino’s epic guide to travelling independently through Italy gleefully ignores many of the conventions of traditional travel publishing. In doing so, his book becomes something far less prescriptive and formulaic, and a good deal more engaging – an intensely personal, comprehensive and passionate exploration of Italy, shaped by his experience and fascination with the particular freedoms and challenges of travelling alone.
There is something inherently valuable in work that refuses to wait for permission to exist. Publishing, like travel, has accumulated its share of gatekeepers and rule-makers – people and conventions that determine what something should look like, how long it should be, how it should be structured and, ultimately, whether it deserves to exist at all.
Gerlando Fabio Sorrentino.
Gerlando Fabio Sorrentino cheerfully acknowledges that his ‘SOLO: Solo, Not Lonely – The Trusted Companion for the Independent Traveler in Italy’ “should probably not exist”, then spends more than 200 pages proving why it should. His passion for Italy and solo travel is unconstrained by the machinery of conventional publishing, and the result is sprawling, immersive, occasionally unruly and unmistakably his own. Sometimes disruption begins simply by deciding that the rules designed to keep you outside and invisible are not the rules by which you intend to play – particularly when breaking them results in such an uncommon immersion in passion and experience.
The scale of Gerlando’s ambition becomes apparent before the book properly begins. Its table of contents charts a journey from the decision to travel alone through preparation, arrival, cultural understanding and the practical business of moving through Italy independently. ‘So, you’re going to Italy alone? Good. You’re already winning’ establishes the premise before ‘Visas, documents, vibes and insurance: the bureaucratic tango’ and ‘Packing like a monk, dressing like a goddess’ turn to preparation. ‘The Italian mindset: time isn’t real and that’s okay. Siesta time’ begins the shift towards understanding Italy itself, while later chapters pose more intriguing questions: ‘Do you want to save time or money?’, ‘Do you seek invisibility or recognition?’ and ‘Do you always want to know where you are, or do you want to get lost?’.
From there, the scope broadens considerably. ‘Milan, Rome, Naples, Venice: picking your gateway into Italy’ and ‘Which place to start from, depending on your energy, interests, and capacity for chaos’ lead into ‘How to impress Italians (without being a cliché tourist)’, ‘Italian language tips, unspoken gestures, and regional quirks’ and ‘Forks, flutes and philosophy: eating and drinking the Italian way’. The final section ranges across transportation, accommodation, wellness, shopping, museums and safety before arriving at ‘How to be heroically alone without feeling lonely’, devoted to “the psychology of solo travel, and the art of gentle connection”. Finally, ‘The return (because it’s never really over)’ closes the journey with Gerlando’s prediction: “You will come back different. You will come back full. You will plan the next trip before unpacking.”
Venice. Photographer: Lukas Tennie | Unsplash.
Gerlando also brings another perspective to the book: more than 30 years working in the hotel industry, much of it spent observing travellers at close quarters – arriving with plans, asking questions, navigating unfamiliar places and occasionally returning when those plans unravelled. It is an experience that informs his understanding of the particular challenges faced by people travelling alone.
Your book is as much about the experience of travelling alone as it is about Italy. At what point did you realise you were writing about solo travel rather than simply writing another guidebook?
Thirty years behind a hotel desk teaches you to recognise the subtle vulnerability of the solo traveller. I lost count of how many guests would arrive in the morning full of purpose, armed with colour-coded maps, only to drift back into the lobby around three in the afternoon wearing that unmistakable thousand-yard stare. When you travel with a companion, a closed door is just a minor detour you laugh off together. On your own, when the afternoon siesta settles over the town and shuts down every shop, museum and café until four o’clock, there is no buffer. The entire place simply pauses, and having followed every instruction on the page, you are left sitting on a bench with nowhere to turn your attention except inward. That was the turning point for me. I realised a guidebook can direct you to a cathedral, but it leaves you entirely on your own when it comes to navigating your own thoughts during those blank hours.
“… a guidebook can direct you to a cathedral, but it leaves you entirely on your own when it comes to navigating your own thoughts during those blank hours.”
You describe Italy as a country that rewards attention and curiosity. In your own travels, what moment and/or place that you visited best captures that idea?
It happened years ago in Ortigia, the old island quarter of Syracuse. It was 2 o’clock in the afternoon, blistering heat, and the piazza was completely deserted except for a waiter methodically wiping down marble tables and two old men playing cards in the shade of a ficus tree. I sat at a corner table with a cold chinotto, watched the light shift against the limestone, and listened to the low hum of a distant radio. Nothing of historic significance occurred, yet in that half-hour I understood more about the rhythm of Southern Italian life than any gallery tour could offer. Italy doesn’t surrender its best moments to people on a schedule; it hands them over when you stop treating the country like a checklist.
The historical centre of Ortigia, Syracuse, Italy. Photographer: Rudy Balasko | iStock.
Much of the advice in the book encourages readers to slow down, notice more and embrace uncertainty. Has travelling alone in Italy changed the way you travel anywhere else in the world?
It cured me of the delusion that an itinerary is a binding contract. If you travel through Italy long enough, a regional train will be cancelled out of nowhere, or a small museum in Viterbo will be closed because the keeper had an errand to run. Early on, you treat these disruptions as personal insults. Eventually, you realise they are just part of the local weather. Now, whether I am dealing with a bus terminal in Lisbon or a train station in Argentina, I don’t fight the delay. I buy a magazine, find a bench, and let time take care of itself.
In truth, solitude and Italy are merely the lens. Sooner or later, every traveller, no matter their company or destination, confronts that sudden lull when the map runs out and the day loses its structure. Knowing how to inhabit those unplanned moments without panic or resentment isn’t a secret reserved for the independent wanderer – it is simply how one learns to genuinely exist in a place, wherever you happen to be.
Malcesine is a medieval town on the eastern shore of Lake Garda in the Veneto region of Italy. Photographer: Freeartist | iStock.
The practical chapters cover everything from transport and accommodation to safety, etiquette and everyday customs. Which piece of advice do you think first-time solo visitors to Italy are most grateful to discover?
There are so many things I could point to, but one that immediately comes to mind regarding language barriers is a golden rule: do not attempt to speak Spanish to Italians. Yes, they will sort of understand you, but no, they certainly won’t thank you for it. Swapping grazie for gracias usually earns you a tired sigh and a side-eye. Whispering por favor instead of per favore? It’s the linguistic equivalent of showing up to an embassy party wearing the wrong country’s flag. Even worse are the blithe attempts at mucho gusto, hasta luego, or mi casa es tu casa. Italy is not a Spanish-speaking escape room.
If you want to be charming, rely on whatever little Italian you actually know, rather than borrowing linguistic tapas from across the Mediterranean. While Italians adore Spain as a concept, they strictly object to confusing risotto ai frutti di mare with paella, linguistically or spiritually. Above all, resist the urge to blend the two. Hybrids like grazias are an unholy creation, inventing a brand-new type of cringe the world was never ready for. A few honest, clumsy words in Italian will always win you far more respect.
After writing more than 200 pages about travelling alone in Italy, what do you hope readers remember long after they have returned home?
I want them to remember how to sit on a piazza bench without reaching for their smartphone as a defensive shield. We have developed a nervous habit of pulling out a screen the second we are alone in public, just to prove to strangers that we are occupied. If a reader goes home and can comfortably sip a glass of wine or watch a city wake up without hiding behind a device, the book has done its work. Beyond that, I hope they return home with a clearer understanding of two motives I explore throughout the book: the pull toward invisibility and the desire for recognition. Solitary travel is a constant calibration between the two, knowing when to merge into the background of a town and when to step forward to be acknowledged on your own terms.
Throughout the book, I try to provide a framework for these underlying dilemmas, for instance, by posing two fundamental questions every solitary traveller eventually confronts: “Do you want to save time or money?” and “Do you always want to know where you are, or do you want to get lost?”. These are rarely just practical decisions – they dictate the entire spirit of a trip. Choosing to spend time rather than money forces you to trade convenience for slowness, turning ordinary delays into unexpected rewards. Similarly, choosing to get lost strips away the tiresome ambition of efficiency, transforming an aimless wander into real discovery rather than an exercise in navigation.
“… choosing to get lost strips away the tiresome ambition of efficiency, transforming an aimless wander into real discovery rather than an exercise in navigation.”
Your final chapter is called ‘How to be heroically alone without feeling lonely’. Why did you decide to end the book there?
Because self-reliance isn’t a temporary trick you adopt for a two-week holiday; it’s a habit you cultivate. Moving through a foreign country on your own demands a very practical kind of ingenuity. It forces you to solve problems on the fly, invent solutions when things crumble, and above all, refuse to lose heart over a missed connection or a closed door. You learn to handle mishaps through sheer resourcefulness, and to enjoy a place without needing an immediate audience to validate the moment. I ended the book there because travel is merely the testing ground. The real achievement is taking that steady, pragmatic independence back home and applying it to everyday life, everywhere.
You can purchase your copy of Gerlando Fabio Sorrentino’s SOLO: Solo, Not Lonely – The Trusted Companion for the Independent Traveler in Italy here.