It pops up like a well-meaning but easily distracted friend – chirpy, reassuring, and completely missing the point. Yes, it’s meant to comfort and inspire, but for those of us who actually choose to travel solo – which by definition is ‘alone’ – it mostly inspires an eye roll. Because here’s the truth solo travellers know and value: we don’t hit the road to avoid being alone. We hit the road to be alone because solitude is part of the appeal, if not the entire reason for our journey.

Travelling solo is not a problem to fix, it’s an intention, and yet the slogan insists on treating aloneness like a hazard, something that needs cushioning with group dinners, forced camaraderie, and activities designed to ensure you’ll never face the terror of eating a meal by yourself. Marketing departments love it. Real solo travellers? Not so much. We’re not afraid of our own company. Some days it’s the entire point. The freedom to move without compromise, and the joy of decisions made on a whim. The silence that feels like spaciousness, not lack. These are the things that make solo travel feel honest and exclusively ours.

That’s not to say connection isn’t part of the journey. We meet fascinating people on ferries, in cafés, on mountain tracks and in the middle of nowhere at exactly the right moment. We have unexpected conversations, unlikely meals, shared laughter in train corridors and on hostel rooftops. But the difference is this – these interactions are organic, not prescribed. They happen because we’re open to the world, not because a marketing department decided solitude was bad PR, or a tour operator knows perfectly well that it is bad economics.

The irony? When we choose solitude, we often feel less alone. There’s a groundedness that comes from trusting yourself – a sense of being full rather than empty. We’re not lonely, we’re liberated. So when the industry chirps ‘solo but never alone’, does it reveal more about its own discomfort with solitude than ours? Is it trying to soften independence, make it marketable, and reassure travellers who haven’t yet discovered the quiet confidence and precious time for silence and self-reflection that comes with being on your own?

Solo travellers don’t need to be rescued from solitude. We know when we want company and when we don’t. We’re not afraid of the quiet because we thrive in it. Travelling solo is intentional and unapologetic – which may be precisely the reason we’ve chosen it. And being alone when we choose – not when somebody else dictates the terms and conditions of our solitude – is an essential part of our journey.

If you choose to travel solo and your biggest concern is being alone, you might not yet be ready to be a solo traveller. The rest of us aren’t out here clutching our backpacks in fear of our own company. We’re booking flights because time alone is delicious, restorative, necessary … and occasionally, yes, gloriously antisocial.